Hello,
I got a rather annoying cold today, but let's go ahead with another review of a recent original romance anime series (one of the best of its genre in my honest opinion) named True Tears that aired in the winter season of the 2008 (January-March).
Let's start with a synopsis :
Shinichiro is a student living in what would be a dream come true for most high school boys, but for him is mostly a frustration. A well liked girl in school named Hiromi has lived in his house for a year along with his family. Her father was a close friend of the family, and when he died they immediately took her in. She is popular and well liked, always smiles, is talented in sports- but Shinichiro knows there must be tears inside her. Having an artistic tendency, he makes watercolours of her and thinks about wishing to ease her tears. Yet he cannot bring up the nerve to talk to her even in his own home. She, too, is quiet and withdrawn in their house, quite unlike at school. Shinichiro is also distracted by teasing from his friend Nobuse for watching Hiromi from afar, a curse of bad luck from a strange girl named Noe, and being forced to perform Muhiga dancing. By helping Noe he hopes to ease his own problems, yet he seems to have difficulty helping himself.
Yeah, this is a rather generic romance story, but the real strong point to the series is the fact that there is no magical power, strange supernatural stuff or unbelievable situation at work here...
This is just a story of a couple of teenagers and of her love experience, and to be honest it's quite refreshing to see it especially as this is a rather scarce theme in the anime world filled with big and complex romance stories with rather unnatural situations that makes you wonder if that can really happen to a normal guy.
The story is pretty slow in its execution, but is capable of giving you a continue cliff-hanger due to a perfect usage of the next episode preview corner.
I literally loved watching the comments of the people on various blogs regarding the previews trying to speculate about what would happen only to fail miserably when watching a rather normal episode the next week.
The main characters are five (three girls and two boys) and all of them are quite well defined emotion and personality and the situation interwine itself in a rather natural way.
I loved the Noe Isurugi backstory with her inability to cry that finally healed at the end of the series.
My favourite character is by far the strong willed and capable Hiromi Yuasa, her personality is quite grown up and give a sense of security that it's difficult to get with the class anime heroines.
Even if her yukata look wasn't that good due to high usage of make up. She's infinitely cuter when she is in normal clothes.
The visual quality is fantastic, I loved both the design of the characters and the background where the story is mostly fleshed out.
The animation is also quite consistent and I've not noticed any major problem with it apart from the fact that watching Hiromi blush will likely make you faint for some hours. 
The sound quality is also top notch, even if the Seiyuu were not the most famous out there. I loved both the Kaori Nazuka's role as Hiromi Yuasa and Yuka Iguchi's role as Aiko Andou!
The opening song was a marvelous work by "eufonious" named "reflectia" that I still hear quite often. (Give a think to buy the album, it's really a masterpiece)
Concluding this may well be defined one of the best romance series of the last years, it's suggested to anyone as it doesn't have massive quantity of fanservice or drama and maintain a level of normality and calm pace that is easy to relate with your life.
See you soon,
feal87
P.S. Don't even think about touching my Hiromi!!! 