Natsu no Arashi!

Natsu no Arashi!:  A/B+

It gets two ratings, one for each season: Season 1 is an A, Season 2 is a B+.

Natsu no Arashi is a series directed by Akiyuki Shinbo which means I'm already mandated to think it's amazing, but when I first heard the title (which translates to "Summer Storm!") I was unimpressed, and was further unimpressed by the series' concept pitch: Outspoken, nerdy 13-year-old Yasaka Hajime meets a gorgeous 16 year old Arashiyama Sayoko ('Arashi'), who turns out to be a ghost, and falls into very boisterous, childish love with her, after which she begins drawing on his life energy to sustain herself.  The ghost girl has a number of friends from her time alive who died around the same time that she did who gather around the small cafe where Arashi and Hajime work over the summer, as well as several living employees and regular customers who get up to amusing antics.

The series has Shinbo's traditional excellent cinematography and adroit use of angles and visual suggestion, and makes clever references to other anime and overall is a silly light-hearted comedy.

Then Arashi reveals that she can use Hajime to go back in time, and we find out that Arashi died during the bombing of Yokohama in World War 2, as did the other three ghost girls, and much of the first season has a quiet undertone about the difference in attitudes of people of the war era compared to modern times.  Like most Japanese war stories, the war is a very personal experience, and used as a backdrop, it never plays a major part in the plot, but is unmistakable in its flavoring of the story, and for that, I find its use to be both appropriate and fascinating.

The second season loses some of that, and so is simply a delightful slice-of-life comedy with romantic elements, but is still enjoyable and worth your time.