ANO HANA SPOILERS. DON’T READ UNLESS…well, you know.
Addendum: ++ part added.
[spoiler]
So here we are, folks. One last warning that by reading this you are landing on spoilers all over the place and that they will come suddenly. Though the post itself is more about little interesting tidbits rather than large plot summaries.
Well, I watched 11 out of 11 of the episodes (I only went through CCs and audio + static images when I TL’d one but watched it later) so I’ll consider myself to know the plot. I’m not here to make a summary or review and I’m definitely not going to spend the next four hours screen-capping to explain myself, so beware that this may very well turn into a wall of text. I’m just here to point out a few things that I noticed which people who really like those “little things that aren’t important but add more connection to the various parts of the work as a whole” would enjoy. Mainly because I am one of those people.
For starters, some things you may have already noticed:
- The empty glass milk bottle containing some flowers that you see at several points in the show is Poppo’s makeshift grave for Menma. He leaves it at the top of the hill, presumably where Menma slid into the river, and can be seen changing the flowers in it. (Ep5)
- “The name of the flower (we/they) saw that day is”: after the show ends in the final episode, the image showing Menma has those words as the caption. Obviously it’s the flipped over version of “We Still Don’t Know the Name of the Flower we saw That Day.”, minus the answer. As you may have guessed from the episode 11 post pic, title of this post, and a certain prediction that was floating around sometime near the airing of episode 3, the flower is indeed a Forget-me-not. Though Menma’s wish as pertaining to the plot was not literally to “forget me not”, it can be inferred that she indeed wishes to stay in the hearts of the Super Peace Busters.
- The flowers which fly everywhere in the ED and the flower acting as a placeholder for Menma in the OP are both modeled after forget-me-nots.
- Menma’s death is inferred to be a fast slide into the river, followed by drowning either due to injuries upon impact with the water or rocks, inability to stay afloat in the fast current, or both along with any other things that may have happened. Coincidentally (or is it?) a legend pertaining to the forget-me-not is something similar, with a knight drowning because he fell into a river while picking some flowers on the bank for his lady. As he throws one of the flowers onto the bank he shouts “Vergiss mein nicht”, which becomes the name of the flower.
- The opening song for this show is called ?????, which translates to The Blue Bookmark. One line mentions a ???????, which is a pressed flower bookmark. Assuming these two are the same bookmark, it can be inferred that indeed the singer is in possession of a bookmark containing a pressed forget-me-not.
- This show is based in Chichibu, a large city in Saitama (the prefecture directly north of Tokyo). You can tell from ????, its name, which appears in various places.
- The high-level school Yukiatsu and Tsuruko are attending appears to be in Hannou, as can be seen from the signs in the train station they’re in (????????(Ep5). The Seibu Chichibu Line runs through this station, so if you’d like to take a visit you know what to ride 😀
- There is only one episode in which the entire ending sequence runs (Ep9)(the music begins with the ED animation instead of music first then ED animation), whereas the OP animation either runs in its entirety or not at all, excluding the finale.
Expanding a bit from there…
To wrap things up, some trivia:
Well, that’s it for now. A great show overall I must say. Beautiful artwork, developed plot, vibrant characters… what more is there to ask? If you have any other cool stories pertaining to this show that I didn’t mention, go ahead and comment it. I might add it into the list up here 😀 or I might just be lazy and tell you guys to read the comments ._. But anyway if you have any questions regarding the plot (I’m quite sure it’s easier to understand than meduka meguca) go ahead and comment as well.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be picking flowers at my nearby neighborhood riverbank.
++: Some clarification on the epilogue. Everything indeed works out for the crew after Menma goes away. Anaru and Jin-tan are in a very friendly, if not outright intimate relationship (a pink handkerchief with wabbits all over it? MANLY.). Tsuruko rises back to her godly position as “alternative” for Yukiatsu (though really, I’m pretty sure he’s happy about it too). Poppo’s trying to get back into the education system so he doesn’t ruin the rest of his life, and they all seem to be a little more easygoing around each other following their internal development. And of course, the Super Peace Busters will always be friends.
Just a little explanation in case Jin-tan’s “explanation” was too metaphorical and/or vague. Yes Anaru fans, that means she at least partially, at most completely had her wish granted. Being one myself I must say it made the ending all the more touching for me.
Again, that’s all for now. Bye-bye!
[/spoiler]
Wow, I really didn’t notice the 1st and second point of yours.
That was really helpful AND when i go to Japan in summer 2012 I now know exactly where to go visit.
Nice story, beautiful and polished artwork and animation and a beautiful ending…
But i must say i still wonder if Anaru will be with Jin-tan
excellent additional tidbits from an excellent show!
thank you for all the work you do and the .AVI formats my little pocket laptop can handle.
I really loved this show from the 1st episode till the very end.. kinda sad it ended 🙁
anyway thousand thanks guys for your hardwork each week.. you’re the best
Beautiful Anime! I was quite shocked how often I could cry because of a fictional story 😀
Also, thanks a lot for pointing out those pretty cool details!
thank you for the clarity.
I really won’t forget this show. 9/10
I crieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed
thank guys for your hard work! really! love the show! 10/10
[spoiler]
joke. just testing :))
GRRRR UTW If only you released this early I could have cried more.
Anyways great job working on this project, I have really waited for your release even it takes centuries, I will only watch UTW’s AnoHana.
This was really nice of you to make, and really nice to read, thanks a lot.
I didn’t notice the first point. I guess I’ll have to rewatch at least episode 5 ^^
The thing with the legend behind forget-me-not seems that it might have been intentional.
Yeah, Chichibu is quite close to Tokyo, unlike the location of Hanasaku Iroha which I’d like to visit, so I might go on a pilgrimage to Chichibu this August 😀
can’t thank you enough for all your hard work, amazing job btw.
Fffuuu, cried practically start to finish.
Thank you.
Noticed most of these facts, except for the actual “flower”, it’s name and significance.
The AV for “Aoi Shiori” happens on this town you mentioned, the very same town depicted in this anime. You should look for it on Youtube.
And he was never heard from again…
One thing that has been eating me, and the guys at A-1 Pictures did it intentionally i think, is, just how much did Poppo see? Did he see her drown and didn’t do anything? The formulation “seeing her passing away” doesn’t tell much imho. Even though I understand he was a kid at that time, I can’t help but think that if he did shout for help or tried to pull her out then maybe she wouldn’t have died.
They also don’t really tell what happened to her… sure, she drowned, but why?
I’m waiting for the batch of Ano Hana
10/10
This was indeed one of the best anime of the season. This season actually brought a bunch of great shows. Ano Hana however was simply number 1. Thanks for sharing these tidbits as they were very interesting to read. Thanks UTW.
cried and didn’t know it til it was pointed out. well played .
Best show this season, 10/10 for me.
Great show, plus great work from you guys!
It’s a shame it had to end…
I’m glad none of those unlogical anime fans are crying “WE WON SEASON 2”, Like what happened to few other tied up animes.
thanks sensei!
this is one of the best animes this past season. i loved this anime so much and was looking forward to its release every week. i also cried at the ending. only other anime i cried from was clannad and clannad after story. ano hana goes up there wit clannad as th best animes ever
Don’t pick the flowers. It’s a trap.
I could be wrong, but I believe this is the first time we see actually grown Tsuruko without her glasses. Which would be all symbolic and whatnot of her finally coming out and revealing what happened that day.
But yeah, best show for this season, IMO. 10/10
I’m honestly surprised by how much of the symbolism you also managed to catch, the story of the knight I knew had to do with a flower but it wasn’t until the last episode that I had managed to piece together which flower it was. That little snippet of the blue flower in the last episode pretty much made it all click together.[spoiler]All the pieces of chaos have been gathered =D[/spoiler]
Very interesting read.
Now, need Gosick. Is that forthcoming or what?
Ooh, I am impressed! Honestly, I didn’t really get the forget-me-not thing until your post. Thanks for doing this amazing show, I hope you’ll do the BDs!
I have to agree with INvShika, I hope you guys can fit the BDs into your schedule, deserves the BD treatment.
I’m a 19 year old male, I played hockey most of my life, I’m 6’3 180 in great shape, I’m a true-blooded american mutt, I’m a sucks-to-be-you-work-harder capitalist, and over all I’m not very emotional… but I just watched the finale and cried like a baby from near start to end and I’m not afraid to admit it. This is most certainly one of the greatest shows ever conceived. Many thanks to you UTW staff, and many thanks to the creators and producers. What a wonderful, however sad, ending.
One of the Best anime’s I have seen in a While. Thanks you UTW! btw I almost cried 😛
definitely an anime I won’t hesitate to call the best ever and recommend
I didn’t really noticed the things you posted…but then I don’t really know what a Forget-Me-Not looks like
Forgive for the double post but…seeing all these comments about guys crying
I also cried as I watched this and very few things can get me emotional nowadays.
If I had tears to cry, I would be weeping right now! (I’m not insensitive–I am just oddly incapable of [physically] crying, for some reason.) ;.;
This is one of the most emotional animes I have seen, right up there with Clannad and After Story! It’s one of the very few that I can say deserves to be on my favorites list.
Sometimes you don’t even need to look at spoilers to get them >_< Yay for being German and having that flower in my garden~ At least it used to be there like 10 years ago not sure anymore.
Anyways great show I really enjoyed it.
“now i know the name of the flower i saw in this anime.”
anyways, amazing show. Gotta admit though, i shed a tear once or twice in the last episode. it just killed me
‘Vergiss mein nicht’ translates to: ‘Forget mine not’. It should be ‘Vergiss mir nicht’. Anyway, great job on doing this show guys. It’s always a good way to close of a busy workweek and start with the weekend 🙂
Where’s Gosick? You guys normally have it done by now.
@ TheAmassama in this case “mein” is more like an old German version of “mich” and not “mein” reffering to “my property” etc.
@ Phantasm I see, I was just remembering what I learned in high school. Guess my 5 on the final exam was justified xD
My pick for best anime this season. ???????
I don’t think I’ve cried this hard because of any anime before.
Thanks for the explanations!! Understanding an anime makes the anime better and meaningful!Also,thanks for subbing it!
Btw it could be added that in ep5 Anaru tells YukiAtsu that Yadomi “looks a little like Hey!Say!JUMP’s Yama-chan if he fixes his hair”(both the band and the the mentioned Yama-chan-Yamada Ryousuke- are real life)
Personal note: probably she meant the gender otherwise they don’t have other common features
@ TheAmassama not sure what was on your finals but language like this is something out of Goethes times. So except for classic German literature you wouldn’t use it anymore soo no biggie if you don’t know it was used like this ^_^
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Thank you guys for releasing this show.
I cried so hard I had a handful of snot.
That was pretty interesting. Must i say…~~~~
i think you read too much into the handkerchief in the epilogue. that was the one anaru put on jin-tan’s forehead after he fell off the ladder in ep8. it was still on the table later in the episode when anaru didn’t show up for work, then jin-tan tried to return it to her at the end of the episode, but that other stuff came up before he got the chance. the epilogue wound up being the first opportunity he had after everything settled down to give it back to her. still romantic connotations there considering how awkward jin-tan looked and how much anaru was blushing, but not quite the same as if he’d gone out and bought her a cutesy pink handkerchief.
also, in the epilogue, you see tsuruko is now wearing the NEW flower hairclip yukiatsu had been keeping in his desk drawer , not the old beaten up one she’d found after yukiatsu had thrown it away and was keeping her her desk drawer. i don’t think she’s the ‘alternative’ anymore; i think she’d soundly passed both anaru AND menma by that point.
oh, and thanks for this – it was good. i waited until all the episodes were released before watching, and i was only going to watch 3 or 4 episodes last night, but wound up watching all of them.
But the real question is, will Menma actually be reborn and be reunited with her friends?
That is after all, the main reason why she wanted to go to Heaven…
The epilogue clarification has made me feel clueless – what was Anaru’s wish again?
I suppose I could watch it again, but I don’t quite feel like riding that emotional roller coaster again so soon.
her… what?
oh right. for jinta to not be a clueless douche.
This is all well and good, but where the hell is Gosick 23?
thanks for subbing this series! definitely top 5 in my list
Ah, this is a very nice wrap up for the anime, nyan! I really enjoyed this series, nyan~!
[spoiler]Wonderful series. Thanks so much for all your hard work UTW, sending all the good vibes I have.
Watching the series, I knew with time to spare that it couldn’t end any other way. But I wanted it to so bad, even though it would have been stupid and cheesy if Menma had somehow come back to life. Not that I disliked Anaru or anything; they did such an amazing job of making all the characters loveable (even giant douchebag Yukiatsu toward the end). I just pretty much lost it when Menma asked Jin if he thought they would have married each other if she hadn’t died. IT MADE ME SO SAD. And then she disappeared. Which I knew was coming AND IT STILL MADE ME SO SAD. It wasn’t as bad as Saber (which ruined me for weeks/months/my whole life), but it hit me like a punch in the chest. Why must the adorable die young?[/spoiler]
Are you planning on relesing alst two episodes of gosick together? ;_;
I’m still patiently waiting.
Releasing the last**
I think I should go to sleep now.
If you guys aren’t doing Gosick you should say so, because I’m still waiting for it.
Going sick waiting for Gosick. idunno.
Hopefully it’s not so sad. The last episode, then Ano Hana amongst other things..mah eyesss.
Good god some of you people are impatient. I’ve mentioned this before but, I’ll mention it once more for keepsake. Raze (who edits/tlc’s gosick) got himself a full-time job, and if for any reason we can’t get Gosick out on the weekend or any other show at that, they’ll be released whenever they are ready to release. People have lives outside of fansubbing, tis the truth.
Anyway Gosick 23 will be released today or tomorrow, depending when Raze has the time after work to finish it.
@Jake
Why would we not be doing Gosick? Just because it’s a day or 2 late? That’s quite a silly assumption you know. If we haven’t announced that it’s dropped, then we are still doing it end of story. An unfortunate fact of having a job is that it conflicts with fansubbing outside of the weekend. Things get done slowly during the week, it’s the sad truth.
@ar
Sorry, I know you guys have lives and I appreciate what you do, it’s just that when something is going to be late you usually post about it. So I was worried that perhaps you weren’t doing it this week.
ANOHANA FRIGGIN ROCKS!!!!!! I CRIED LIKE (T_T)
ahh, im glad. the ending is like i imaginated it would be, with menma shown to everyone at end.
Those explanations really helped understand a lot of things that I missed.
BTW: When you finish Gosick, please consider going back to the “10.5” episode and at least issue a subbing script. It doesn’t have to be timed.
Also wondering if anyone is considering Ikoku Meiro. This is about the only one I have as “must see” for the upcoming weeks.
I gotta say that I’m a Menma?Jin-tan fan all the way, so I was happy she got to tell him she loved him, the marrying kind ?. Anyways this anime was definitely good and fun to watch. I’m happy their all moving on with their lives.
someone was wondering what actually happened to Menma on that day.
putting all the hints together, Menma probably tumbled down the mountainside and fell in the river, nearby the secret base, most likely on the way back from chasing Jin-tan on that fateful day.
exactly what happened is hinted at, here and there:
in the episode where Menma and Jin-tan first meet Tsuruko and Yukiatsu walking by the train tracks, Menma is skipping along on top of a railing (in fact, Menma does this throughout the series, it’s almost like her trademark: walking a line while arms out to the side for balance). when it looks like Menma would slip/fall off, Jin-tan has a flashback of that moment he hears the news of her death, panics, and dives to catch her.
Menma slipped and fell to her death close enough to the secret base, that Poppo either witnessed the moment it happened, or later saw her after she fell/drowned. you see him leaving flowers for her in the milk bottle memorial he made for her. Also, Jin-tan chastises Anaru for not being careful where she steps as they are chasing “Menma” around the mountain for Menma Search Party, and he says, “Don’t you know what happened here?” or something to that effect (meaning, this is where that accident happened to Menma)
going back to Jin-tan’s flashback — Jin-tan was at home alone when his father came and told him the news, so most likely Menma NEVER caught up to him. also, we saw Menma running hard after Jin-tan (after rejecting Yukiatsu’s confession & forget-me-not hairclip) — would she walk/balance on a ledge absent-mindedly while chasing after Jin-tan? not likely. then, it follows that she was probably doing that balancing walk while slowly making her way back to the secret base, when she suddenly slipped and tumbled down the mountainside.
forgot to say, watched all the episodes by UTW, thanks for your releases (better than others’). had me bawling at different episodes, but this last one the most. =)
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I could tell it was meant to be set in Saitama right from episode one where he was eating a Gari-Gari-kun.
Sooo, to make Jin-tans mothers wish come true and make Jin-tan cry more, Menma jumps off a bridge and kills her self? That’s the general plot right?
@kkachi
why would menma head back to the secret base without catching jin-tan? she knew where he lived so she would have caught up to him eventually.
it’s more likely that the path went too close to the ledge, and that a piece gave out under her as she was running after jin-tan resulting in her falling.
i just marathoned this and oh boy, did i shed bitch tears…
thanks alot for subbing this great show
@me:
but your conjecture doesn’t explain Jin-tan’s flashback, panic, and his dive to catch her when he thinks she’s slipping off the railing. (that’s way back in ep1 btw)
i’m supposing that some time had passed between Menma leaving the secret base and when she fell. if it happened on her way out, and close to the secret base, why didn’t Yukiatsu see her? or the other two girls? or the whole group of them, as they were leaving? The fact that Poppo was alone in witnessing it probably means some time had passed since Menma had left to chase Jin-tan, which is why i conjecture that she was on her way back, not on her way out. and Poppo must have actually seen her balancing/walking on a ledge and slipping… if it weren’t for his eyewitness, how would others have known later that that’s how she died? how would Jin-tan / his dad have known?(the flashback, the panic, the dive, as she slips from the railing)
further proof that Menma never caught up to Jin-tan? i think Jin-tan himself says that the last thing he ever said to her was that she was ugly (back in the secret base, before he ran off). sure, she knew where he lived, but maybe he had run off to the hospital to see his mom? or gone to a playground to mope by himself? no one knows, but the end result is that Menma never caught up to him.
So… What is Menma’s real wish?
@Jin-Tan I don’t think it was even about a wish in the end, it was just Menma’s promise with Jinta’s mom that she would make Jinta cry (Ep 11, 11:11). I guess for the sake of being consistent with words, you could say her wish was to fulfill her promise *shrug*.
@Hartyz Uhhh not exaaactly.. Ep 11, (12:01), Menma promises that she’ll make Jinta cry, no matter what. The (situational) irony being that she doesn’t make him cry in a happy way (AS SHE INTENDED – Ep 11, 12:34 “Menma wasn’t thinking of bullying you until you cried or anything”; so she wanted to find a “happier” way to make him cry). Ep 11, 12:50 “… it didn’t work out” as Menma had planned.
Also for my own little tidbit (sorry for the 2nd post): there’s one part during the series where the teacher is giving a lecture and he says something among the lines of “Intelligence isn’t measured by how well you do in school…” etc. (I can’t find the exact ep and time though, sorry). This connects to Jinta in general, who Yukiatsu even admits (Ep 5, 17:20) was smart back when they were kids, when they didn’t care about academic achievement/competition between schools. Also, Ep 7 12:45, Jinta figures out Anaru’s “trick” a few minutes after getting started (she took a month), and is overall liked by his employers. Therefore, despite skipping out of school and being placed in the “reject” school, he’s still a smart guy, just not “book” smart…
tl;dr Jinta is smart.
@kkachi
if your friend slipped and was falling off a fence, wouldn’t you try to catch them if you could? the flashback was an effect of the similarity to the circumstances under which she died, not the cause of him trying to catch her. and the panic is again, an effect, not the cause of the other two things.
also, poppo having seen menma die is irrelevant (to this anyway), since he didn’t admit having witnessed it to anyone until the last episode. if the ledge had given away underneath her (even a very small section of it), and she’d fallen down to the river, it would have been very obvious what had happened. at worst, it wouldn’t have been hard to piece together – no witnesses required.
next yukiatsu was in tears, so i don’t think it would be a stretch for him to have run right by where menma fell without even noticing. that is, IF he followed her and didn’t just run off in some random direction. i doubt he was even looking where he was going when he started running.
also, i never said that menma caught up to jin-tan; i said she would have eventually. the point i meant to make is that based on her character, she wouldn’t have headed back to the secret base until she’d caught up to him. since she never did catch jin-tan, that would mean she fell while chasing him.
and of course, there’s also the possibility that menma might have thought she saw jin-tan down by the river, tried to get a better look, got too close to the edge and fell.
it was left very open as to exactly what happened, and we could probably each come up with half a dozen different possibilities. however, i maintain that it would be contrary to menma’s character for her to have been headed back to the secret base without having caught jin-tan first.
Well – IMO this was the best show this season
Why? It really did get the feelings there
Mainly the feeling of emotions running amok considering the situations they were in.
Although Menma’s actual presence in the show is of course impossible, most of the rest of the story was going through a series of scenarios that were believable and well portrayed … … and often oh so sad
Yes Menma’s wish was to grant Jinta’s mother’s wish – which made it all the more emotional in the end
As for Secret Base (10 years after) – the music is really amazing how it matches the story and brings out the feelings in the show
(the full version 5min 52s is just as good)
Funny about that – it wasn’t until Ep 5 that I even noticed the previews coz I used to just listen to it so enamoured that I missed the previews
The history of the forget-me-not is great – thanks for pointing that out
It really clearly is the source of the basic idea for the story
Thank you very much for an explanation. Never supposed, now know where to go if in need for excursion! Ha-ha. I wonder if that place was damaged by the earthquake…
About the song, it was originally released on 2001.
Thank you ever so much for subbing this AND releasing avis of it, to boot. I also thought it was the best series this season – of the ones I watched in any case ^^.
Isn’t the handkerchief Jin-tan hands Anaru the one she put on his fore-head after he fainted in the video game store?
Also, right there with Angel Beats! for aww moments. Thank you UTW.
Thanks UTW for providing a great translation for this amazing series. It was really something amazing. I cried, and I don’t cry often.
If anyone’s interested, I did a brief reflection blog after having watched it. Dunno if this is spam, if it is you can feel free to delete 😛
http://kakeracomplex.wordpress.com/2011/07/04/thankyouanohana/
Thanks again UTW.
I Just finished watching from episode 2 to 11, it’s realy touching, and make me cry in some scenes.
But, I’am Linux user, watching episode 11, when they read letter from Menma. i cannot read letter to Anaru, Poppo and Yukiatsu, because substitle readable, it’s pile up.
I try pause it and zoom it, still not readable.
Here the screenshot link http://s52.photobucket.com/albums/g30/tux_2006/Ano%20Hi%20Mita%20Hana%20no%20Namae/
i’am using Mplayer modification from libass to add ASS support and Ordered Chapter Support, with Multithreading support.
thank you for translating Ano Hana. you did a great job. words can’t express the feeling after watching the anime. it was the best anime of the decade or at least the best of the year. what will we do without you. we are very gratefully for your work, THANK YOU!!!
i don’t know if this is already available here but it wouldn’t hurt to ask, can you guys also release the soundtrack (complete OP and ED songs) of Ano Hana? or give us the link?
the anime is to nice to be forgotten. i wish to remember it from time to time.
Thank you UTW, because we do know the name of the flower we saw that day, lol! This is the first series that I didn’t torrent at all. and i’m glad that i was shown this site, can’t imagine a more enjoyable experience, and I appreciate all your hard work, if in the future i have the ability to be helpful to you guys, i’ll do my best! I think the only animes that had me this emotionally riled up was Eureka 7 (if you’ve seen it, u know y) and full metal alchemist (mainly the two punches to the face they give you with tucker and hughes at the begining… never did get over those two…… especially hughes T.T)
Great ending for an outstanding anime. Thanks guys for all of your hard work! I just wish you could work on more projects. 😀
Thanks again. I have no idea as to what it takes to encode these episodes, but I truly enjoy watching your subs. Having said that, I cannot contribute technically to your projects, but I can financially. If that helps you to continue producing quality then it’s the least I can do.
Once again, outstanding work UTW team!
Ok, enough sucking up. Need to find that donate area and back up my words. 😀
Just noticed you don’t have a donation button. Well, if I can help out please let me know.
Your beautiful flowers than others.
5ever waiting for BDs
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