Somewhat to my surprise One Week Friends (Isshuukan Friends) (Crunchyroll) turned out to be my favorite anime of the season. As you may recall from my “early impressions” post, I started out with pretty low expectations.

I still wouldn’t call this a great classic. It’s too small a story. But small stories are something that anime sometimes tells very well.

The creators of this series are not trying to awe us with razzle-dazzle. They just tell a simple story about ordinary people, and tell it very well indeed. The result is sentimental without being maudlin and heartwarming without being cloying. It’s full of nice subtle touches.

I originally thought that Kaori’s recurrent amnesia was absurdly unrealistic but I’ve changed my mind. The story gives us plenty of reasons to suspect that she is suffering from what used to be called “hysterical” amnesia. (“Hysteria” used to be common back in the days when Sigmund Freud was practicing. Today it is much rarer.)

Basically, Kaori’s problem is not that she has lost the ability to form or recover memories. The problem is that she suffers from a compulsion not to remember. That doesn’t mean that she is faking. It’s not under her conscious control and from her viewpoint it is pretty much the same as having brain damage that wipes out the memories.

That still seems improbable, in the sense that it is not something that commonly happens to 21st century people in America or Japan, but it doesn’t seem impossible.

Anyway, if low-key romance appeals to you at all, this one is worth checking out.