Farewell, My Dear Cramer

OneFaintingRobin★ 6

A frustrating show in a lot of ways, "Farewell, My Dear Cramer" should have a lot of potential, with a lot going in its favour. The show adapts the manga by Naoshi Arakawa, author of "Your Lie in April", a beautiful, emotionally-resonant story. And, to be fair, this source material, in its story and characterisation, is where this show does shine. Watching the characters come together as a real team over the course of the season is really satisfying, and even if things don't always go fantastically for them, you can see how they make clear progress as the series goes on. It's these characters,this story, that did keep me onboard with this show, and will likely make sure I come back for a second season, should that come in the future. Unfortunately, the production often lets this source material down. I've enjoyed an awful lot of Liden Films works; from absurd comedies like "Sekkou Boys" to the slightly more intense "Hanebado" (ironically, a show which suffers from the opposite issue, exceptional production values with a story that slips up a lot at the end, despite some interesting ideas), I had a great time with "Otherside Picnic", and I even got some enjoyment out of "Love and Lies" and "Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka", even if the latter is still trashy as all hell and the former frustrated me just as much as it entertained me. I like this company's works more often than I don't. And I did like this too, for the most part. But the animation is pretty sloppy at times, especially in the character animation. During more important football matches, it definitely improves a bit, you can tell that's where the budget went, but it comes at the expense of fairly stiff, dull-looking character animation, which is a real shame given the unique character designs they're working with. And, more crucially for me, the pacing is all pretty all over the place; the first half of the season speeds past, with surprisingly little time spent on the sport itself, only for the latter third to almost entirely show one single match (albeit with plenty of flashbacks and context trickled throughout). I've said this with a few shows before, but I think this would really have benefitted from a longer season, to give the plot space to spread out. It's a shame that these details bring the show down, because I think with a bit more money and effort, there's no reason this show couldn't have been excellent. Again, this is the studio that made "Hanebado", and that looks phenomenal, especially during its matches. There is a fun story in here, and I did have a good time more often than I didn't. But I can't pretend that the production doesn't let the source material down.

theneilesh★ 9

Looking at the reviews on here I feel serve this anime a real injustice. Your Lie in April fans are expecting it to be Your Lie in April v2 and getting disappointed because its based around a Soccer and not Drama are unfairly reviewing Sayonara Watashi no Cramer. For what it is and it main portrayal, it has done a very good job. It tackles real life issue in Soccer. It translates how soccer players are and react to situations very nicely. This is one of the better Soccer anime I have watched because it real and captures everything around soccer perfectly. So if you like YourLie in April and don't understand anything about soccer you will be left disappointed. However if you are a Soccer fan you will enjoy this anime a lot and will love all the name drops too