| Things I liked: 
 - the opening song
 - most of the images in the opening, a couple of which were actually quite artistic
 - some of the lines were good
 - the romance wasn't terribly overdone
 - the fact that I didn't have to force myself through it (not that I know why, but I wanted to watch it for some reason)
 - there was only one unnecessary character that crowded up the stage
 - it didn't drag on for too long.
 
 Things I didn't like:
 
 - the porno collection, and how Rika got so mad at him for such a terrible reason, not even listening to him. I might mind less if it wasn't in every anime ever.
 - the zebra theme, as well as that character. There's no way in hell I can take it seriously, especially right before the climax of the series.
 - Yuuichi was frustratingly like other typical main characters.
 - it wasn't very believable. I've been through a very similar situation, and I've seen how people behave, and it's nothing like this. It's not hard to imagine, either; everyone's seen drama and despair in their life, so there's no good reason why writers can't at least somewhat imagine what it's like, thus avoiding garbage like Akiko's friend trying to have sex with Yuuichi.
 - On that note, who the hell is she? Why do we care about her? Why was she laughing and crying at the same time? Why does it matter? Are we supposed to care? I didn't; I was like "k wtf", and I made a silly face. What an awful blunder.
 - I found the characters shallow. I understand that it's anime, and characters have to be bastardized in order to survive on TV (eg. Valkyria Chronicles, or any manga adaptation that you were frustrated about), but come on. A lot of animes manage much better characters than this.
 - Natsume's character development was saved until after he was established as a drunken jerk. Way to go, writers.
 - They completely abandoned the fact that the surgery was "like a surgeon's nightmare", which they ended the episode on before. I guess they changed their minds, or did I miss something?
 - Dialogue overall was pretty bad up until the last episode or so.
 - Voice acting failed often enough, especially with Natsume.
 
 Overall:
 
 left me with a resounding "ehhh", and I couldn't bring myself to feel much by the end. Kind of good in places, but it was dragged down by the lack of character development, bad directing, awkward decisions in writing, unrealistic script*, and lack of any real originality or depth (think really deep; things that touch you emotionally on a deep, personal level, not just things that make you cry).
 
 *yes, that part at least needs to be realistic within the boundaries defined by the anime. In this case, it set a rather serious tone, so cartoony things like zebra man were terribly out of place. Since it set a serious tone, and didn't entirely deliver it, not only are we left with aforementioned awkwardness, but with badly conceived scenes like the rooftop fight (which would never happen), and Natsume yelling in anguish seemingly because he was drunk, forgot that his cigarettes aren't actually chocolate, and chewed on one, releasing seas of chemicals into his angsty, 20-years delayed brain.
 
 It had some good moments, but I can't really say I liked it very much. The opening was pretty good, though. I think, honestly, it had a good concept, but was fundamentally limited: dying girl, random guy who devoted himself to her in spite of death and the angst flowing out the ears of his doctors. It's quite beautiful, that way (leaving out the exploding ears, I mean), but there were so many issues with the execution that it failed to come across as well as it should have.
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