12-Sai. Chicchana mune no tokimeki

At first, I was quite excited about this show; I liked the immediacy, simplicity, and cuteness of it. As time went on, however, it got more and more convoluted. Although some aspects still feel convincing, it did start to feel slightly unnatural at times, where the naivety fades and starts to feel more like silliness. Some of the speeches from the young kids feel more like they are being delivered by an older, more experienced, smooth, and slick person rather than a twelve-year-old boy. There are simply moments when I started to think that, after all, a twelve-year-old girl cannot be as naive as Hanabi is. I felt that real twelve-year-old boys certainly do not act the way Takao and Tsutsumi do in matters of romantic rivalry. In my younger days, it would have ended in a fight. It is all for effect and too incredibly happy-go-lucky. I almost think that if I wanted to write a teen romance series now, as an older person, where the boys were terribly cool and the girls were cute, I would create something very similar. The problem is that I am almost thirty now, so my ideas of love, cool boys, and pretty girls are something completely different from what they were when I was growing up. Although perhaps they are not, what do I know about love, cuteness, and cool stuff? However, so far, I am still quite enjoying this show, even though it seems more like a fairy tale than a look at young people's first loves. 6.5/10. (17.04.2016)