Lovely★Complex

Love is unusual for Risa Koizumi and Atsushi Ootani, who are both striving to find their ideal partner in high school—172 cm tall Koizumi is much taller than the average girl, and Ootani is much shorter than the average guy at 156 cm. To add to their plights, their crushes fall in love with each other, leaving Koizumi and Ootani comically flustered and heartbroken. To make matters worse, they're even labeled as a comedy duo by their homeroom teacher due to their personalities and the stark difference in their heights, and their classmates even think of their arguments as sketches.

Lovely★Complex follows Koizumi and Ootani as they encourage each other in finding love and become close friends. Apart from their ridiculous antics, they soon find out an unexpected similarity in their music and fashion tastes. Maybe they possess a chemistry yet unknown, but could love ever bloom between the mismatched pair?

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Koizumi, Risa Main

Okamura, Akemi Japanese

Ootani, Atsushi Main

Nagata, Akira Japanese

Ishihara, Nobuko Supporting

Higashi, Saori Japanese

Kotobuki, Seiko Supporting

Takimoto, Fujiko Japanese

Kohori, Kazuki Supporting

Shimowada, Hiroki Japanese

Nakao, Heikichi Supporting

Tokuyama, Yasuhiko Japanese

Umibouzu Supporting

Smokey, Tetsuni Japanese

Kuniumi, Maitake Supporting

Suwabe, Junichi Japanese

Fukagawa, Haruka Supporting

Onosaka, Masaya Japanese

Tanaka, Chiharu Supporting

Kojima, Kazuko Japanese

Seki, Hiromi Producer

Abe, Junko Producer

Uda, Kounosuke Director, Episode Director

Fukutomi, Hiroshi Episode Director

Reviews

Aug 31, 2007

lowell

Recommended

I really, really, really loved LoveCom.

It was cute, insightful, hilarious and endearing. It was my most anticipated episode every week. I always wanted more. I want more now even though I know it's over!

The story is about the tallest girl and the shortest boy in class and their search for love in high school. It turns out they're both kooky, funny and energetic. They're also perfect for each other... too bad they don't see that. The story isn't complicated or new, but it was told so well that it crawled into right into that soft spot in my heart.

The ... romance is built slowly over time and by the end, you're head over heels for them because the creators did such a great job of laying down the foundation and actually showing you how their feelings grow over time. It's not like a lot of shows where all of a sudden in a haze of fuzzy lighting and rose petals, love magically sprouts out of nowhere. Instead, you see a friendship begin, a moment happens, interest blossoms, awareness grows... the whole nine yards. You really get to know Koizumi and Otani over the course of the show and I was rooting like crazy for them.

The characters are so over the top and out of control that it's hard not to laugh. They exaggerate, make ridiculous faces and they over-react to everything. It's really kind of hammy, but that's part of the fun. And it's refreshing to see a female lead who isn't some stereotype of a dominatrix-in-training or a weak, helpless nitwit. She seems like a real human being with strong points and weak points. She isn't afraid to get ugly and imperfect sometimes and I think it's really great that they made her (and, really, him too) full of all these flaws and not-so-attractive traits... and yet so completely charming and loveable. It makes them really... human. I would say that if you like the relationship (without the music and with a lot more actual focus on romance) of Nodame and Chiaki from Nodame Cantabile, you might like this too because there's a similarity in the way that the relationships go both ways and the strength that each of them brings to the relationship.

The art is great too. First of all, they took the time and effort to change the characters appearances day to day and give them all a sense of their own style, which I really appreciate. It's just really thorough and well-executed. I completely agree with YoshikoHatake, there is something about the style that brings Bokura Ga Ita to mind, even though the tone of the story is completely different (BGI felt a lot more serious and the colors and style reflect that somewhat, I think). Music-wise, it's also nice. I don't normally notice the openings and endings that much (I've always hated credits), but LoveCom's are really good in a perky, energetic kind of way, which suits the show perfectly, and I find myself singing along w/ the karaoke. ;)

Enjoy! =)

P.S. I really haven't seen very many romances that do this good of a job at being funny and sweet and tender and honest. If you have, I'd love suggestions!

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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May 19, 2015

TokyoSanchez

Mixed Feelings

Can't wait for the hate for this one.

At the start of watching Lovely Complex, I was certain that I was going to love this show, being a fan of shoujo romance. I can't say that I dislike it, but rather I was heavily dissapointed by it.

Throughout the first half, I really enjoyed what it brought to the table. The start was a little rough, but it was a nice twist to an unoriginal genre (I say this way too much with romance anime, but so be it). Otani and Risa are a pairing that are so much fun to watch. The back and forth ... between them was well handled early on. Not only that, but it did extremely well with the themes of unrequited love and beauty is only skin deep.

The thing is, as the anime trotted along, I realized that this was the ONLY thing it did. It kept beating the theme of unrequited love so much that it lost a lot of it's impact. There wasn't a lot of anything else that the characters talked about other than Otani and Risa's relationship until the very end of the series. The saying goes that variety is the spice of life, and the lack of this in Lovely Complex grated on my patience.

This also bears a problem when talking about side characters. The four best friends of Otani and Risa (aside from Nobu who I will get to in a minute) have barely anything to them. They are left sidelined till the last couple episodes, just so the anime could say that they developed them. Hell, the one defining character trait of Chiharu established in episode one, which was she feared men, was not brought back up until episode the second to last episode.

Nobu is the only other character besides the main leads that gets much screen-time at all. All her character is is her yelling at either Otani or Risa to either do something about their relationship, or yelling at them because they did something wrong. I didn't dislike her character, but I just felt I should mention how one note she felt for the majority of the series.

As for the rest of the side characters, most of them are just plot devices to cause tension between Otani and Risa.

Otani and Risa themselves, while frustrating at times, were the best part of the series. Risa is a girl who tries very hard to achieve her goals. Even though she cries a lot, which did get annoying sometimes, it was hard not to get behind her whenever she fails or succeeds. I also liked how Otani dealt with the whole unrequited love thing. I won't spoil it, but he handled it in a way that was frustrating but very believable, which I appreciated a great deal. They aren't the best couple I've seen, as they suffered a lot from the lack of buildup of their relationship due to the stretched out nature of the middle section of the show, but they were an extremely fun couple, for the most part.

The art and animation was not fantastic. While I liked the colour palette they used, and the character designs were well done, and my god the facial expressions were amazing, but it still felt a little flat to me. The animation was stiff as well.

The soundtrack was extremely memorable. Normally romance soundtracks don't have much of an impact on me, but there were a few songs in this one that were fantastically put together. Some stand outs would be World's End, Risa, DUNK SHOOT, Deep Past, and Theme of LoveCom. Complex is also noteworthy, but only because the first 18 seconds are more or less a complete copy of the chorus of The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby". Seriously, go listen to them both.

The voice acting is also memorable in how everyone has a kansai dialect. The voices of Risa and Otani are very good as far as I'm concerned. There were technically some bad voice actors here and there, Chiharu and Suzuki for example, but there voices were so different that I loved their voices regardless.

Lovely Complex is a show that seems to focus on very specific things, which ended up hurting many other aspects of the show that could of been interesting. And while yes, these things that were so heavily focused on were well done, I was spoon fed so much of the same thing that it left me grasping for something else. It doesn't help when all your characters talk about is Otani and Risa's love life, and basically nothing else until the very end of the series, and that the drama felt very forced, especially towards the end. That being said, the end did leave off on strong note, with everything wrapping up very nicely, even if the drama was forced. Overall, Lovely Complex was a fun show to watch, with some great cutesy moments and comedy moments, but it isn't a show I would highly recommend. Of course, I think I'm in the minority here, so if you watch it and end up loving it, more power to you.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Apr 17, 2010

360ken

Not Recommended

I really have a lot of bad things to say about this show but I'll warn you if it gets too spoiler-laden. Here starts the review.

STORY- 2 (Dreadful)
Lovely Complex is about two high school kids, Risa and Otani. They are a comedy duo because whever they're together they fight, argue, make fun of each other, and cause a scene, which makes bystanders laugh. Risa is taller than most guys and that's a problem for her because she's desperately searching for a boyfriend. Otani is sort of a dumb jock/trouble maker. He's shorter than almost all the girls and he's also self-conscious about it. ... So two people with height complexes.
Well the first 5 or so episodes of this are just filler-type comedy episodes which is pretty nice. Then Risa starts to like Otani for who knows what reason. He picks on her, argues with her, but the creators expect us to believe they're a match made in heaven because they both like this one rap group, Umibouzu.
For the next handful of episodes Risa tries to confess her love to Otani but Otani is just SO DENSE he thinks it's a joke when she confesses to him. This is where the show takes a nose-dive in quality. Lovely Complex starts going in circles. Something along the lines of this: Risa confesses, Otani rejects her, Risa cries, Risa beats him up. Risa stops crying and says she gives up on Otani, but then Otani does something Risa finds sweet, so Risa cries, and beats him up. She says she's going to keep loving Otani. Does it sound stupid? Yes it does! It's very long-winded, it goes in circles, Risa must've cried 30 times in this show. The show also shifts from comedy to drama around this point. You may or may not like this, depending on your preference, but you sure as hell don't want to see Risa cry again. Episodes 1-5 were okay, but around episode 6 it was a steady decline to the awful, unbearable, disgusting episodes 8-12. The show became a chore to watch because everytime I finished an episode I was so frustrated, and multiple times I logged into MAL and almost clicked "Dropped". I couldn't bring myself to do it. I would have rather never laid eyes on Lovely Complex then drop it at 12 episodes. I will explain why later in this review.
Episodes 13 on were watchable to my relief. Not as good as the first five but no where near as awful as 8-12. There is still the cycle of crying, beatings, motivations and what not, but their romance progresses slightly and new characters are added to the mix (which I will talk about later). I'm not going to dwell on the story any longer since I will spoil it for you.
So you may be asking, looks like you hated the plot...why not give it a 1? 1 is what Lovely Complex would be if it weren't for some great moments later in the series that just made me go "Awwwwwwwwww :3". They weren't anything worthy of bringing my score up past 5 but they were cute sweet shojo moments, and I was happy Lovely Complex included them. But the story is still a horribly low 2, and that's fair. The last episode, though I won't spoil it for you, is horribly contrived and way too unrealistic and convenient for the main characters.
All in all, Lovely Complex's story is a frustrating, long-winded, tedious, and boring one with not enough good humour for a romantic comedy. All of it is slapstick which isn't even funny. Risa kicks Otani probably as much as she cries her eyes out. It's a crappy story.

CHARACTER- 1 (Pathetic!)
Characters are unlikable and underdeveloped. The main characters...okay let's discuss them. Risa, awful as stated before. No redeeming qualities, just an all around annoying person. Otani, he's probably the best in the whole show, and that's actually sad. He's underdeveloped, stereotypical and dense. Side characters...well the main one here in Nobu-chan who is Risa's best friend and side kick. She's alright, nothing really irked me about her. She had no personality, she just loved her boyfriend and provided motivation and chances for Risa to meet alone with Otani. She wasn't awful but nothing was good about her. I'm not even going to talk about her boyfriend he's so underdeveloped and useless to the story.
Also on the topic of side characters, Chiharu was friends with Risa in the beginning but never mentioned past the first episode. She's just a shy girl.
The biggest problem, bigger than the character's being flat, is that they weren't put to good use. These names may mean nothing to people who haven't seen the show, but to those of you who have, Maity-sensei, Haruka, that blonde transvestite, Mimi, the red and black haired kid, and Otani's ex-girlfriend recieved no character developement and were brought into the series only to be forgotten. Ok, Mimi, red head kid, and Otani's ex weren't that important to the story, but all the other side characters were! Haruka most particularly, had brought a bunch of drama in the series and created tension between Risa and Otani in the beginning, only to be forgotten and useless to the plot, and never developed. He could've had a story arc about him but the creators didn't choose to go that route which was dissapointing. In the end, no side characters got any actual closure.
Character in this show is pathetic, Risa is the worst mainly because she cries too much.

Sound- 5 (Meh.)
The "sad moment" music just made the scenes too melodramatic. The "happy, funny moment" music did it's job and fit in well with the scenes. The "good moment" music (ie, when something romantic happens between Risa and Otani) is probably the best. It makes the seens just that much sweeter and it puts a smile on my face. The OPs and EDs were forgettable and just not special. That's all I reall have to say.

Art- 8 (Nothing to complain about here)
The art I actually quite liked. The character designs were nice, the colour palette was bright and colourful, sometimes Risa's fish-face bothered me but overall I liked the art in Lovely Complex. It was nice to look at, I would probably call it unique but from what pictures I've seen from Kimi ni Todoke and Bokura ga Ita, the art is all the same. But still, it's good.

Enjoyment- 2
Had some sweet moments but in the end this frustrating tedious mess of a romantic "comedy" made me want to bang my head against the wall and had little to no redeeming values. A MAJOR dissapointment.

Overall- 3
Lovely Complex was a terrible, horrible, nauseating show that I wouldn't recommend to anyone. Unless you have a strong fetish for slapstick humour, you won't be able to sit through half of this.

(Jokes)

But seriously, it's a bad show.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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