Settings

Hiroyuki and Akari, childhood friends, and Masashi and Shiho, make a group of 'best friends' during their second high-school year. As the year passes, they find new friends, and eventually deepen their relation and friendship/love perspective. This is a daily-life romance to the root.

Pacing

To heart is a light romantic comedy on the best "Make-You-Feel-Good" (MFG) style, clearly aimed for those hoping for a calm and yet warming experience with believable and pleasant atmosphere. The pacing is quite low which fits perfectly the style and allows the viewer to reflect about the character relationships and their subtleness, as most part of the development is realistic and gentle as in real live: smiles, gestures and small actions will show most of how the characters feel. Some reading between the lines is also required to fully appreciate their personalies.

However, a warning: probably only fans of really subtle romances will like this series, as for all other people this is just repetitive and slow paced plot-less nonsense. For those who have someone they love and care, however, this might make you remember the small things earlier in your relationship; everything needed to make you feel good. Most of the development is there only for those looking to read between the lines, and if you are not ready for it, you will miss most of the 'action' and cast the title aside as plain boring.

Aside from focusing on the MFG genre, To Heart also gets an inter-personal romance/friendship relationship, and the bounds that keep friends together. Even on suffering we see beauty.

Conclusion

An excellent title for its targeted audience - all those who look for the small clues and subtle signs of love in gestures - not words. Very few episodes are actually important, making this title pretty episodic, but yet, all episodes have a meaning, because they all are small parts of a big whole that make this unique title.

You will find reviews labeling this as a 'slow paced' and 'boring' title from people who just can't get it. Note the higher "critic" rating comparing to the "popular" rate: older or more experienced people in anime know what to look for here.

To heart is among the best romantic MFG titles, especially for not getting into explicit actions nor going too far on the relationships. The relationships here are mature, without the usual childish 'jealousy' attacks from other titles, and some reactions find reasoning only in the deep psique of the characters (or, as mentioned, between the lines).