A story taking place in a high school where five friends hangout inside Yamahoshi Academy Culture Club. Things start to take a turn when all of them begin to exchange bodies temporarily. These events slowly force each of the teens to learn more about each other and themselves, all the while trying to figure out how and why this is happening to them.
Story
At first glace I was a bit sceptical of this because it seemed like a slice of life that would end up being nothing worth while, since that is what most anime in that genre are. However, going further in Koroko Connect presented the center premise being strange phenomena happening to the people in the culture club specifically, first one being the body swapping.
On the first episode we do get introduced to the plot without delay of having some drawn out introduction. It left me with a feeling of anxiousness, trying to assess what was happening since you don't get all the information right away, just enough to keep you interested.
So without giving away any spoiler, Kokoro Connect story is well paced for something with a fairly average number of episode in anime. It also introduces the story element tactically without leaving too many questions unanswered by the end of a resolution.
Art
For an anime with a really great story, the art left much less of an impact for me. It was my initial deterrent from watching this series, but I'm glad I chose to watch regardless. This is a good example of an anime that can be good without a flashy art style to distract the viewer from it's story flaws or any weakness in the anime.
The nice this about it is that the consistent art style does make you focus way more on the story and character more than how pretty it is. Also the manga, all though I haven't read it, you can see the similarities in them, however the female eyes in the manga are far more detailed in the manga in contrast to the anime.
Characters
- Inaba Himeko (voice: Sawashiro Miyuki)
- Kiriyama Yui (voice: Kanemoto Hisako)
- Nagase Iori (voice: Toyosaki Aki)
- Yaegashi Taichi (voice: Mizushima Takahiro)
- Yoshifumi Aoki (voice: Terashima Takuma)
The vice president of the culture club, Inaba Himeko present herself as very independent and leader-like, the "cool-beauty" if you will. She is one of those characters that pretends to not rely on people, but even with this mask of someone stronger than she actually is, Himeko really is scared by many things and wants help from the friends around her.
Throughout the series I would consider Himeko the character that grew the most after all the phenomenons that happened to all five members of the culture club. She was my favorite characters of the bunch and it felt really good to see that kind of progression of the character, but after all of that it felt like she was pushed to the side for the other characters' development. With five other people it is hard to balance their growth, regardless it just felt a bit too immediate.
The more physically fit, former karate club member, Kiriyama Yui is the only female that willingly shows how much weaker she is mentally. She has androphobia, fear of men, which did pose a problem for everyone, since she was hiding it from the males before the phenomenas begin to sprout up.
We don't see Yui grow as much compared to the other two females, but there is some further down in the series. I find it quite ironic that she is the one that she shows the most weakness throughout and she is one of the last to get some kind of resolution. On top of her being the strongest physically, she is sort of opposite of the typical anime girl.
President of the culture club, Nagase Iori is the one that usually cheering up the members of the club. Iori is a playful female that tries to avoid conflict as much as she can. So much so, she actually has a complex where she thinks she can solve all conflict by just being someone that the conflicting people would like or enjoy being around.
That kind of control over people has served he well in the past and present and you could say that is the main reason she is president. Despite her not seeming like a leader she can be on when she needs to be, but there isn't much else to her that stands out.
By far the weakest of all five characters, Yaegashi Taichi is the nice guy of the group. He is considered the selfless guy that wants to get conflicts solved as fast as possible. Taichi is pretty similar to Iori since they both just want people to get along, only Taichi wants the friction to be cleared rather than push to the side to be dealt with later.
The reason I think Taichi was the weakest mainly because there wasn't much else there past him being the "selfless, 'Mr. Nice Guy'" that gets all the females because of his kind personality. It also didn't help that he was the only one that didn't have anything to be dealt with, making him the flat character.
The carefree, up beat male, Yoshifumi Aoki tries to live his life with no regret and its no secret that he has a thing for Yui. Aoki doesn't really seem to have many problems going on for him, but he does get jealous of Taichi at time when Taichi helps out Yui. Despite that Aoki and Taichi are best friend and usually make up with each other quickly even when there is conflict between them.
Aoki wasn't highlighted very much though the series, so there was much personally from him until near the end, but it was resolved fairly quickly, just like his characteristic of no regret.
Overall
This was my favorite anime this year, I would defiantly recommend this to anyone that likes drama, well paced character development, and/or scifi. The only valid complaint I have with this series is that the male characters felt like a second thought compared to the three females overall evolution through the story. Lastly, maybe it was just me, but I had a hard time distinguishing names with face. Maybe it's just the five people to keep track of was over welling or I'm just bad with names.
Also, there are apparently four extra episode exclusive to the Bluray version of Kokoro Connect. I haven't watch them since the Bluray isn't out yet, but I'm guessing they are only OVAs that don't effect the actual story. If they are actual episodes, I might have to rethink my opinion of the series and update the review at a later date.