Tonikaku Kawaii is Anime I wanted to enjoy but it fails at execution. It has good bones, the scenes are trying to accomplish all the right things, it's too bad that the show is so worried that the audience won't give it a chance that it feels the need to interject important moments with offbeat comedy.
If you're on the fence, I highly recommend you give the first episode a shot, you'll know if it's for you or not after that. I found it simply unenjoyable and only got through the first 2 episodes.
There are great story elements in Tonikaku Kawaii, I like the
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setup and story elements for the couples first meeting, it shows us that Nasa is starstruck by Tsukasa. What follows is a scene that will show the audience how Tsukasa will fall in love with Nasa as the show had already ruled out a mutual love at first sight scenario. The scene shows that within Nasa there is a burning passion that compels him to do the things he thinks he should, demonstrating to Tsukasa how much he loves her risking death to do so. This also establishes that Nasa is a bit of an airhead. It would have been a truly astonishing thing for the anime to demonstrate Nasa's strengths and weaknesses, as well as show us the moment both main characters fell in love in such a succinct manner. It would have been... if that was all they had accomplished, however, the show takes an unnecessary detour in this scene. The show decided to interrupt the beautiful moment with a poorly executed comedy skit which is supposed to really hammer home how much danger Nasa is getting into by chasing Tsukasa. This routine adds no value, is uneasily, and neither character gains any new information from it despite the show trying to trick you into thinking that's the case.
This is what killed the show for me, it keeps cutting away from the plot to have offbeat comedy, which just isn't funny. Most of the jokes are just trying to point out how outrageous the situation is. Many veins of comedy work by setting up outrageous scenes. stop pointing it out at EVERY juncture, it takes away from the comedy that was developed. If don frequent enough at best it's patting yourself on the back for writing a good joke, and a worst it's being afraid the audience is going to miss the comedy in the situation. Tonikaku Kawaii isn't connected to leave it at that, they insist on playing over the top comedy music to cue you into the fact that it's a joke, the comedy scenes kill all the joy I feel from any of the cute or endearing moments. This show clearly shows me that if you get your comedic elements wrong it robs all the good moments around it of enjoyment.
Nasa is not a likable charter, the show derives its little conflicts off of insecurities and the immaturity of Nasa. Many times we see his mental monolog of something that's bothering him, then when Nasa talks it out with Tsukasa we find out, it wasn't a big deal. This portrayal of marriage bothers me, it shows that Tsukasa is completely committed to the marriage, ride or die. but Nasa is holding back not bring up issues with Tsukasa, and unable to express his emotions. The show tries to leverage this for comedy, but I see it as a train wreck. A romatic comedy should not leverage an unhealthy relationship for comedy. It feels like to enjoy the comedy you have to take Nasa and Tsukasa marriage lightly, which degrades the story. Also, Nasa will not stop going on about how cute Tsukasa is or how nice she smells. Tsukasa has a lot of great personality traits and might be the only likable charter in the show, but the show is very obvious that Nasa is a loser virgin who doesn't know how to interact with girls but is a futon otaku or something, and has this cute, innocent, charming girl just marry him out of the blue. It really feels like it's trying to pander to the Otaku crowd sometimes. It feels like the show is saying don't worry you don't need to have a personality some marriage crazy girl will marry you for no reason at all as long as you know stuff about really obscure topics like futons (anime).
The moon as a symbol is overused, the show really wants the audience to follow along with its metaphors so it really makes this one work overtime. Nasa is an odd name which means universe or something, and also sounds like NASA. Tsukasa is a moon princess. Also the moon like the word for love in Japanese. The show often cuts to the moon, sometimes behind clouds to indicate that their connection is severed, a clearly visible moon indicates the opposite. And in one scene we see the clouds go in front of the moon as a result of Tsukasa leaving the house after marring Nasa, resulting in Nasa being afraid that Tsukasa (his wife) will leave forever if he can't at this moment convince her to stay the night... healthy, defiantly no trust issues to work through there. The show defiantly agrees because what we get next is a cutesy date as they buy a futon. NO PROBLEMS HERE the show says.
As a whole, the show doesn't work for me which is a shame because I feel like with a few tweaks there could be something really great here, but as it stands it's not good.
Nov 20, 2020
Tonikaku Kawaii
(Anime)
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Tonikaku Kawaii is Anime I wanted to enjoy but it fails at execution. It has good bones, the scenes are trying to accomplish all the right things, it's too bad that the show is so worried that the audience won't give it a chance that it feels the need to interject important moments with offbeat comedy.
If you're on the fence, I highly recommend you give the first episode a shot, you'll know if it's for you or not after that. I found it simply unenjoyable and only got through the first 2 episodes. There are great story elements in Tonikaku Kawaii, I like the ... Dec 25, 2019
All You Need Is Kill
(Manga)
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I found this title in a comic shop after watching "Edge of Tomorrow (2014)" and was curious about how similar the plot was. This one is not something everyone will enjoy, the story doesn't make all the promises a Hollywood film does, and won't tie everything off with a bow, but if you're okay with that It's worth the read. While some themes are the same as the movie the execution and writing are different.
The plot will take you through a journey where the main characters will sacrifice everything about their personality is worn away other than their will to live and save their planet, ... |