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I want to start this off by saying that I am critical of this series not because I think it's bad, but because I greatly enjoyed it and I care for it as a reader, and thus its shortfalls sting all the more. Through discussing The Fable's strengths and weaknesses I am also essentially discussing the connection between an author's biases and how that sometimes leads to storytelling pitfalls, as well as the problem that arises when you try to reconcile the tension that sets the core of an absurdist story with the need for a smooth, properly tied up conclusion that is in line ... with our own moral understanding of the world.

What the fuck am I talking about? Why am I overanalysing a hitman slice of life action comedy on MAL as if it's an academic essay?
I guess.. because I'm really, really bored. (shoutout to Youko)

Warning There Are Spoilers Ahead

Story
I think what makes The Fable so compelling is the way it blends different genres and by extension subverts them. You have a hitman who alongside his getaway driver needs to lay low for a year in bumfuq nowhere and who suddenly needs to act as un-hitman-ly as possible. Therefore while you get your action scenes (plenty of them, and always precise and captivating at that), what the plot is mostly around is Akira's (the mc's) need/task to experience a "normal" life despite the fact that violence always seems to find him. The snapshots of Akira trying to act "normal" like a pro while others are conspiring to ruin his efforts (usually by chance) is what gives the action series the format of a slice of life, and what also creates the gap between the two genres where comedy happens. To give an example of what I mean, very early on when two men are sent to rough Akira up, he strategically tries to look as pathetic in front of them as possible while always maintaining control of the situation. The gap between how he *thinks* a normal guy should react and what he is *actually* capable of against those two men is what makes the scene hilarious. But I think it would be untrue to say that most people read The Fable mainly for its slice of life aspects. What The Fable's author excels at is setting up an arc and delivering a more-than-satisfying payoff. What moves the plot forward then is the action aspect of the series. That, and its main character's journey.

The MC
Akira is a main character who at first glance embodies a seinen/shounen manga archetype and staple: the Quiet Genius Who Is OP Without Even Trying, yet here he is also a very bland person who is completely naive of the world outside of the one thing he excels at: killing. This type of character gap is found often in comedic characters (think Saiki Ψ) and I'd say here it is used extremely well. Despite the fact that we are constantly told and proven over and over that Akira is a cold blooded killer, as readers we can't help but root for him precisely because of his compelling naivete and his earnestness to understand his newfound circumstances and the people around him, something we slowly understand is not something he was ever able to do up till now. Akira's behavior is completely alien to what we conceptualize should be of an adult's his age, and what's remarkable is that although that's a huge part of the show's comedy, we are never laughing *at* him. If anything, we root for him as he enjoys all the un-hitman-ly things he finds himself doing.

Youko
Let me come out and say I am a Youko stan and this review is partially me seeking justice for her, because oh boy did the author do her dirty. Youko starts out as a sort of sidekick, deuteragonist to Akira, and not only is she compelling with her own quirks, talents and character growth, but she's also just.. fuckin cool. She thinks of herself the more "normal" one of the two, yet she is very much also a weird character who we come to learn is not to be messed with. The running gag with her getting men drunk to see them act pathetic as her kink was one of my absolute favorites. Probably the most well built recurring joke in the whole series. But unfortunately for us Youko is a woman, so despite the author being able to make her a concrete, fun, and well-fleshed out person without falling into stereotypes of female characters in action, her character basically gets butchered as the series gets into its final arc and the result is extremely bizarre.

*Major Spoilers: Katsuhisa's Misogyny Problem* (MY OPINION IDK THE GUY)

I wanna be clear that once again I do not hate this series, if anything I'm a big fan, I own multiple physical copies and everything. Also I am not trying to call out the author or anything, but if we do not discuss these things in earnest then we can't evolve in the stories we tell. This critique is a labour of love AND me screaming into the void about my frustrations about a good series that could have been excellent.

Oof.. So let's talk about Misaki.

Misaki is our resident damsel-in-distress. From the very first time she is introduced, we learn three things about her in this exact order: that she is pretty, that she is hardworking, and that she is kind (translation: she is nice and she is hot). And that's all we will ever know about her. If I had to force myself to find a couple more adjectives to describe her I'd also use 'poor', 'honest', and uh.... she does have *some* backbone, not that it makes much of a difference any of the events that unfold. Now, I know where you think I am going with this, and I know what you are thinking: "Yeah we get it, she's kinda a typical one-dimensional woman and feministblablabla but isn't with that same logic the protagonist also one-dimensional??? Isn't it because the author is keeping his characters simple? What are you whining about?"

However, unlucky person who is for some reason reading this, I am not claiming that my issue is that she's one-dimensional and only gets saved and that that by itself is bad. My problem is, unlike literally anyone else in this show (LITERALLY! EVEN FUCKIN TAKAHASHI) she never evolves into anything else, is extremely flat and boring, and if anything, she kind of regresses into the Woman Literally Everyone Gets Grabby With So We Can Have Our Horny Shots. Like, right before the final arc, there is a scene where Misaki gets groped in the train. SUPPOSEDLY, the point of the scene is to show that she has trouble speaking up and after which she vows to get stronger. FOR SOME REASON, during this scene of s*xual assault, meant to highlight how she wants to grow as a person, we get a closeup panel of a random man rubbing his fingers across her crotch. ??? Why? Well, if we were being honest it's because whoever is in charge of this scene finds the scenario kind'a hot, or thinks that their readers would. Honestly, if there was any other bigger point to this scene, I'd say fuck it, I am not here to kink-shame anyone, I did not sign up for this creepy porno scene out of nowhere in my action slice of life comedy, but people do have train groper fetishes, I'm sure Misaki can take one for the team. But this scene never pans out into anything substantial! The only thing that happens is that when someone tries to grope her again at the end, she fuckin stabs them with some tiny switchblade, cause she's married to an assassin now (more on that later) and I guess... she magically became tough in a weirdly violent way because she sat silently while watching him take out people a couple of times? I'll get to her stabbing the guy instead of calling attention to his schemes or for any sort of help later, when I discuss broadly the series' weird politics.

All the poor woman does is get assaulted and kidnapped! First arc, this dude has her suck on his fingers, and we watch the scene unfold and her being upset over it. Fine. We are reading about a world where people's brains get splattered, I am not gonna clutch my pearls over this. Then, when her big dansel moment of the first arc comes, the AUTHOR (let me remind you here these are all decisions an author and his editors made) has her forced to give f*llatio to a random guy, then has her stripped naked and hanging from the ceiling while this guy attempts to penetrate her, before he decides to have our hero casually walk in and save her in the nick of time before I guess the guy's thing goes up her hooha. Let me give you some breaking news: forced fellatio is r*pe. Like, the hero did not save this woman in time, in any shape or form. He saved her from worse things happening, but he did not help her avoid danger like he set out. Well, in theory of course. In theory, this woman would have been irreversibly, PTSD-level traumatized by this already had it been real life. But thankfully though shaken by the experience, she is fine afterwards, because she is tough, when it's convenient for the plot, and doesn't affect anything that happens TO her.

So our hero stalls, because well, we need to see the titties of a woman screaming, begging and crying. We for some reason need to see her give fellatio at gunpoint. I am not gonna judge what gets the author or the readers off. But let us not pretend that this is happening for any other reason, and I find it a jarring tonal shift to have a slice-of-life comedy that turns into gripping action, suddenly turn into half a thriller half a pinku film. Then, later on in the next arc, we get to watch as multiple men watch her strip naked through spycameras. No worries however, those doing it are the bad guys! The main character never watches any of that stuff, and if anything he allows some of the creeps to keep those spycameras in Misaki (and Youko's rooms) because HE IS WORRIED FOR THEM YOU GUYS! He just also.. doesn't tell the women they are being watched so they can't whine or be upset at him about it. And once again, let us be honest why these scenes of slimy men watching these women strip are there so extensively. Because those writing this manga are into the idea of it. That's it.

And that's all Misaki is. She takes one for the team whenever we need some creep to erotically violently attack a woman, she gets kidnapped a few times, she gets tricked and blackmailed, and at some point while we weren't watching she fell for the protagonist and he.. fell for her too?? Did we miss any poignant scenes the two of them shared? Wait what, they are getting married???

What The Hell Was That Ending

There is this old saying that all comedies end with a marriage. Probably we owe that idea to Shakespeare. Maybe this is what Katsuhisa was attempting in his effort to end this series on a lighthearted, more wholesome tone. Unfortunately for him, this type of story is impossible to wrap up harmoniously for the same reasons why it works so well. The genre-blending is impossible (at least, in his hands) to conclusively reconcile, which is then further impacted by the ugly twist the tonal shifts get, even though they worked so well for the majority of the story. Let me explain:

***MORE MAJOR SPOILERS IN CASE IT WASN'T CLEAR ALREADY***

The Fable as I mentioned before is refreshing because of its blending of genres. Because of that it needs to, tone-wise, walk a thin tightrope, which can be a tricky thing to accomplish. I would argue the weird s*xual violence Misaki stuff is also another failure to accomplish that. To explain what I mean, I do not think it would blow anyone's mind if I told you that an anonymous assassin syndicate that raises assassins by throwing them as kids in the woods, or a scheme where a guy makes rich kids get mentally weak and pathetic and then buries them alive and takes their savings are fiction-scale types of violence that do not exist in real life, at least not in these type of scenarios, and most people certainly do not have any real world experiences that reflect such scenarios. We, the reader, are able to conceptualize that these circumstances of assassins vs assassins and yakuza violence portrayed in this manga might have *some* roots in reality but they are not really tangentially a reflection to how our world works. However, you know what are very real, violent experiences that happen to vast amounts of people? S*xual violence. I can attest that things in this manga that happen to the women in it have either happened to me or to people I know. I'm not talking about getting triggered, as much as this weird dissonance between watching what you think is John Wick or Hit Man and all of a sudden there's a scene from Schindler's List or Irreversible. Waiter! There's some r*pe in my soup! I only ordered the soup!
So, my main issue with these scenes is honestly that I consider them bad writing choices. They are indulgences the creators made because either they get off on the idea or they think the readers would, and decided to go ahead with them at the expense of storytelling and character building. Maybe an interpretation is that they just did not have people like me (women) in mind as their readers, but I feel like that is a reductive take.

Akira's Problem and The Paradox with Protagonists of His Ilk

Which leads to the second problem The Fable has as a result of shoehorning this s*xual violence amidst everything else. How the hell do you have a protagonist be a Good Guy We Root For in a story with so much sexploitation and violence? Well, thankfully we have an age old manga and anime trope of "HYPERS*XUAL STUFF HAPPENS AROUND SEEMINGLY AS*XUAL PROTAGONIST WITH 0 URGES OR LIBIDO". We just have him be a completely as*xual being and be very naive! Similar to what tv tropes would call the Celibate Hero or the Clueless Chick Magnet, Akira is a character in which we perceive no erotic instincts or even violent instincts, despite him being supposedly the best assassin to ever exist. If I could compare him to someone it would be to Anastasia from 50 Shades of Grey. (WAIT BEFORE YOU BRING OUT THE PITCHFORKS LET ME FINISH!). He is the audience surrogate through which we view the world of The Fable. And similarly to Anastasia, who falls in love with Mr Grey (I'm not gonna google his name you'll have to settle for this) and because of that has to PUT UP WITH HIS KINKY SCENARIOS DESPITE WHAT SHE DESIRES, Akira 1) does not want to do *assassin shit* anymore but IS FORCED TO by the circumstances he is thrown in, and 2) does not have ANY horny s*xually violent thoughts whatsoever but these things KEEP HAPPENING to the women around him, similarly establishing in both 50 Shades and in The Fable the loophole of having a main character feel morally pure and therefore you as an audience not feeling guilty for desiring these scenarios to happen, while ALSO having these scenarios happen. CAN'T BE HELPED YOU GUYS HE DID HIS BEST TO SAVE HER, OOPS! /s

Which is why the big issue with The Fable's ending is that although Akira's character arc seemingly comes to a comprehensive wrapup in which, now having lived a normal life and having learned to care for others and appreciate the little moments in life that make us feel human, Akira no longer finds in him the necessary instinct to kill and quits being an assassin, we have now been reading a deeply violent world about men like his mentor who seemingly casually put a bullet between one's eyebrows with no hesitation, who threw a little kid in the woods to survive, and yet who SOMEHOW DESIRES PEACE AND NON-VIOLENCE AND ALLOWS AKIRA TO TRAVEL AROUND THE COUNTRY TAKING VIGILANTE JUSTICE ON OTHERS BUT WITHOUT, LIKE, KILLING THEM ON HIS PAYROLL BECAUSE NOW HE IS A VIGILANTE PHILANTHROPIST OF SORTS. And the whole Syndicate is shutting down, the yakuza are like super cool with this, the trained assassins are all magically excited as shit by tasks like making doodles in photoshop and cleaning toilets, and Misaki stabs a groper silently in the train while waiting for her husbando to come back home who she has only kissed with while he uuh finds.... perverts... all around Japan.. and uh... ??? Idk I guess cuts their dick off in a very pacifist way. Maybe he metaphorically cuts their dick off.

???????????

The Fable was great because it walked that tightrope between gripping, meticulous, violent action and slice-of-life comedy, but unfortunately for it in order for the story to have a smooth "Happy Ending" it needed to pick the latter, and as a result, throw the former parts of it aside. Because a story acknowledging its first nature would have no cheerful ending, how could it? And yet, is this ending cheerful? Did anyone reading this feel happy reading that ending?? I legit need to know, ngl. Also, can we talk about this weird concept of Vigilante Justice thrown in at the end??

Weird Vigilante Justice Fantasies

So. What's up Katsuhisa my man?
There is a weird subsection of people, I have no idea how those people fare in Japan, but they are usually politically conservative, who on one hand will espouse loyalty to the political system and the state, yet will not trust said system and state with seeking justice. You know the type, people who love cops but also don't trust that the police or the justice system will take care of their crime-related problems.

Why does Misaki stab that groper instead of yelling "excuse me, this man is a groper, can someone help me bring him to a police officer?"
Does she think this way is more preventative in him never doing it again to others? Or is this just about defending herself? Does she just not trust that the cops will believe her? I guess we'll never know.

And what the hell is Akira and Youko my idol gonna be doing exactly to violent criminals that according to them the justice system could not, if they do not want to get violent with people? Beat them up so they get scared and uh lecture them? Is Akira the Japanese Boogeyman for crooks now? These are all questions the answers of which would be an ethical mismatch, and honestly I'd read the sequel out of pure curiosity if it wasn't for the fact that I heard it's not nearly as good and I like my blood pressure at its current levels.

Which brings me to another weirdly specific thing that fits really well with this vigilante stuff about this manga's politics: the weird burying loser men scheme conmen. Their strategy was essentially that they go around and push for policy that makes playgrounds and other social spaces for children safer and accident free, which apparently OF COURSE BREEDS WEAK CHILDREN, out of which some have helicopter moms who coddle them, so these kids never get hurt, never feel pressured to be bold, never fail at anything because they don't try anything and eventually 10-15 years down the line they turn into asocial addict losers who no one likes and are wastes of space but who are entitled, and they can easily lure into getting all their money that their rich parents gave them and then because they are messy people and no one likes them they just go missing and no one gives a shit.

Isn't this a tad of a complicated plan for a villain to have? Might I add, a plan that is only vaguely related to the rest of the plot? Doesn't this all feel to anyone like a bit of a soapbox moment? It's not difficult to put two and two together and combine this idea of weak children (read: men) cultivated by over-protective parents (read: mothers) and I guess playgrounds??? that turn into entitled, loser pricks, and put into contrast with someone like Akira who is hardened by the ways of his world (a world of perpetual abuse that left him with the emotional intelligence of a 10 year old - BUT! He's such a strong guy!) who uses those powers to seek justice personally, according to his own will, instead of relying on social structures and systems, and you get a pretty... weird picture. It sounds similar to a rant a caricature of a grandpa would have reading the newspaper about "kids these days being spoiled" and how when HE was a kid his dad beat him with a baseball bat and look how HE turned out! "When did good old-fashioned men go, huh?? When did men stop being MEN and women stopped being WOMEN?"

Which brings me to my biggest issue, one person high on acid who is for some reason still reading:

WHAT DID THEY DO TO MY GIRL YOUKO HUH?????

As mentioned above, Youko is pretty cool. She doesn't start off depicted as particularly strong, but she is someone who can keep up with Akira's strategic thinking and who has her own strengths, such as photographic memory, driving skills, etc. Her contribution to the series in the beginning is mainly in the gags, as support for Akira, and as a semi-coherent voice of reason in the face of the absurd scenarios thrown at them. And she's pretty cool like that! Until, around the middle of the series, during that weird arc about those scam artists who bury loser men and take their money, what has been established as an experienced assassin who even gave Akira some trouble enters their home with a gun and finds Youko, unarmed. The scene is full of tension, as we the readers have understood, through Akira's perspective, that Youko is pretty weak. We forgot however that Akira is a fuckin beast, who sees everyone else as weak. The panels proceed to count down the couple of SECONDS Youko takes to disarm and incapacitate this assassin, who up till then was portrayed as the strongest person amongst their foes. Honestly, that scene was brilliant story telling, not just because this manga is full of precise and really well depicted action scenes, but also because it played with the readers' expectations. Every time we see Akira in full action it is real fun, but there is usually little tension on *whether* he will make it, as usually what we focus on is the *how*. Yet in this case, we are genuinely unsure at the beginning of this fight. Great subversion.

This scene is not only great storytelling however, as it forms a pivotal shift in how Youko gets portrayed. From this point on Youko gets a more active role in the action scenes, decides that she should use her skills as well more proactively, coming into contrast with her previous attitude of getting drunk everyday and complaining about being bored and the author starts to portray her as more similar than different to Akira, adding a further, more comedic subversion to her characterization by making her earlier comments on her being normal in comparison to Akira make her look almost as oblivious as he is to what "normal" people are like. Take for example the scene with them eating grilled fish whole, heads first next to each other. Suddenly, they have real sibling energy. The way Youko's character shift was handled was not only great storytelling but it turned her, for me at least, as the most interesting character in the manga, or at least the one to look forward from. But I think that this change was either not planned in advance, or Katsuhisa and co changed their minds, because what happens to Youko as the final arc kicks into gear is the most baffling shit I have ever witnessed.

Some Exposition:
The final arc really gets going for the protagonist's team when Youko spots a guy on the street, who she recognizes due to her photographic memory as one of the higher ups of their assassin organization. In fact, not only does she recognize him, but seeing him seemingly brings forward a lost piece of her memory from when the organization took her in, which reveals that the organization, and specifically this guy, are who killed her parents, actually. Unlike Akira's complete mystery origins, Youko has throughout this story been getting the Batman treatment, sometimes solemnly remembering her parents and what good people they were to her, and clinging on those memories as a way not only to not let this world she resides completely get to her, but also as memory that prevent her from committing the ultimate act of violence which you apparently can't turn back from: murder. So, out of all of the assassin posse that we encounter in this manga, Youko is the only who has never spilled blood. And here a B-plot falls out of the sky and Youko is Batman now, and she wants to avenge her parents by killing this apparently crazy Big Bad dude. Which as a B-plot actually combines well with the A plot, and brings some interesting tension with Youko's aforementioned status as a fighter who has not killed up till now. Is she going to lose that final innocence?

Well, it turns out us thinking about this B plot doesnt matter, because it painfully fizzles into nothing because uuuh *checks notes* Youko is a woman and Akira needs to take down the big bad because he is the main character. WAIT NO WAIT I AM NOT EXAGGERATING, Youko tries to get revenge, takes the big bad guy by surprise, then proceeds to be treated as small fry and sent back to Akira, after which SHE GETS REPEATEDLY OWNED BY MEN IN... VERY LAME, ANTICLIMACTIC WAYS, and AFTER WHICH SHE IS TOLD, I AM NOT EXAGGERATING: THIS IS A JOB FOR MEN. STAY OUT OF IT. And then Youko goes like: YES INDEED YOU ARE RIGHT LET ME FUCK OFF TO AN IRRELEVANT PLACE TO TAKE CARE OF SOME MINOR C-PLOT EVERYONE FORGOT ABOUT WHILE THE MAIN ACTION HAPPENS ELSEWHERE.

And then the even weirder thing is even Youko looks upset at this??? Like, after she gets beat by these guys by them sneaking up behind her and without basically any actual fight taking place, and she is told off about how she should just give up on her revenge essentially because IT'S BEYOND HER SKILL CALIBER and because she hasnt killed before, she has this grumpy face and just eventually agrees and she just... looks genuinely unhappy about it and she barely ever again expresses her thoughts or desires for the rest of the manga apart from agreeing to being Akira's vigilante driving sidekick at the end, and even then you feel like her energy is more of a "why not, I'm bored". And her big moral conflict about not having killed anyone? Well, it's semi played as a gag when she accidentally inadvertently kills the guy that she and a couple others go find in the middle of nowhere in the aforementioned C plot. Basically what happens to Youko in this series is that she gets an incredibly badass moment that is built upon the readers' assumptions about her being subverted, then the series does its best to beat the badassery of that moment out of her and the readers' perception of her. Sure, she gets more involved in the action, but she also gets captured more, she does not really get to show her skills substantially ever again, and through multiple scenes she just gets told again and again that she cannot be on the caliber of the men in this series, and that she should stop trying to be one. It's basically a lesson beat into her, until in the grand finale she finally agrees.

Who is this humiliation for? Is she being punished for something??? Why does it feel like she is being "taught a lesson" by the men in the story? Why is it that the one woman present in the final standoff scene is Misaki who essentially silently watches Akira save her, while Youko is told that this is a man's job and throws all her character development in the trash and just goes back to who she was in the beginning?

WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY KATSUHISA??? HOW IS IT YOU BUILT A GENUINELY INTERESTING AND FUN FEMALE CHARACTER WHO IS NEITHER A CARDBOARD CUTOUT GIRLBOSS OR BASICALLY A MAN WITH A PAIR OF TITS PINNED ON AND THEN YOU ESSENTIALLY PUNISHED HER DARING TO BE THAT AND ALSO A WOMAN??? I mean, come on, the more I go mad thinking about this story the more it's clear this is all pure misogyny and someone letting their politics do the writing. I've never seen anything weirder in my entire life I stg!


Spoiler Free TL;DR:
this is an 7/10 series it's kinda great art's great action's great comedy's great just like ignore the weird misogyny and delete the final couple chapters from your memory BYE

In such an over-saturated market when it comes to isekai, I was looking forward to this adaptation quite a bit, as the original webtoon manhwa (which, by the way, you can read on Tappytoon for a reasonable price) and the novel is quite a decent shoujo isekai.

While the source material is not perfect by any means, I would consider it to be a standout due to its rapid pacing, fun chemistry between the two romantic leads, the way it's filled with gags from beginning to end, and the fact that, for once, the isekai part of the plot plays an integral role into the story ... and is part of the mystery. It has been getting tiring with the overflow of isekai novels, manga and webtoons lately to see mc's just accept that they entered a novel or a video game world as if that makes total sense and completely ditch their old selves behind casually.

This anime could not be further from what I described. It feels as if the director and staff behind the anime do not understand even to a fundamental level what makes the story of the original novel and webtoon fun.

The biggest detriment to the series is that a lot of the technical execution is bizarre and off-key. For example, there will be a scene where the mc scolds her maid for doing a racism and the background music will have a whimsical comedy-like tone, completely off what is actually happening. Then there will be a scene where the male lead will flirt with the heroine, and the background music will have a mysterious, almost horror-like tone. Does the staff think he's trying to murder her??? Very often the bgm will be so loud that it will be on the same volume as the voice acting, meaning that you have trouble listening to what the characters say. It's like someone is playing music in the room with them loudly on purpose to distract from the scene, like a joke out of a 4th wall breaking gag anime.

The direction and screenplay are another pair of equally guilty culprits. Very often a scene will have a few too many frames that makes it less fluid and more awkward (because of how much they are stretching out the base material), like someone tripping and falling for 6 seconds straight, or entire running gags will have huge chunks cut off from them that made what was funny about them have not enough context to land. For example the whole dragon hunting mini arc was basically ruined by this. This also makes the heroine seem more passive than she was originally written to be, since a lot of her spunky attitude is also removed through those choices, as well as making the male lead very confusing, since once again they either play out his antics when he's messing with the heroine completely straight, or with serial killer music in the background. Who the hell okay-ed this???

I could almost tolerate all this (not really) if at least they kept the mystery undertone going well and just decided to tell a more drama, mystery centered story well, or if the animation was beautiful and at least you had some fun visuals to gawk at. But half the time the mystery mainline story is an afterthought (for example in the webtoon a let's say main villain is already subtly referenced during the kidnapping mini arc, but in the anime that never happens, and holy shit even the characters' basic anatomy or hair looks weirdly out of place half the time. I will not even talk about the horrid choice to make background characters have blacked out faces and made in 3d animation in the same room as the 2d animated main cast.

What gets on my nerves is that this could have been a fun shoujo adaptation after quite a while of getting so much below average crap, and it feels like the people behind this just thought they can make a minimal effort "romance" for girls, where as long as there is technically romance the shoujo demographic will eat it up even if it's trash. Meanwhile they couldn't even pull off the romance properly as the two mcs feel stiff as a board in all their interactions. It's really telling where the anime industry is heading towards when you see how dirty they do any semi decent shoujo titles.

TL;DR: The tone is always awkward by having gags played completely straight, the leads have no chemistry, the pacing is bizarrely off and slow (I am guessing because the original goes fast and they are trying to cover a shorter amount of plot), the animation is quite low budget, the background music used is more often than not off with the tone of the scene and also so loud it's almost at the same volume as the voice acting, and a lot of scenes that made me laugh out loud in the webtoon version here bore me to death. Another shoujo anime letdown in the recent years because the staff don't know how to and/or don't care about doing a good job.

Don't watch this, it will ruin the story for you. Just read the webtoon or the novel.

My favorite quote:
-I wanted you to love me!
-I loved... *extra dramatic pause* your.. body..

I mean. I MEAN. This is it, 10/10, someone deserves an award for this I think I shed a tear.

I won't delve into this much, I'll just say that this brought invisi-d*cks to a whole new level (again, where's the award?) and that you will have a lot of good laughs because of the cringe.

It basically if you think about it gets 3 points from Ishida Akira's, Miki Shinichiro's and Koyasu Takehito's tears. The things seiyuu have to do to get by are heartbreaking and admirable, really. You do get to ... hear Katsura moan (yes, that one) so, there's a plus if you are into that...

Watch it if you are up for a good laugh from unintentional comedy or you are a fujoshi trying to honor the few yaoi adaptations available out there.

You have no idea how long I've been waiting for this. I've been familiar with the source material for more than a couple of years and have read it over and again multiple times. I've even listened to the Drama CD more times than I would probably ever confess to.
I am what you would call "biased af".
So yeah, no effort to be objective here.

Simple story, "a boy meets a boy, they were in the blush of youth", but it is that simplicity that keeps it fresh and sweet without making it too mushy. The movie covers only the first volume of the ... series, but it is enough to appease my fangirl heart.
I don't think I've ever seen a movie before that just has me grinning from side to side for the whole time looking like a psycho.

As an interesting point that can also be a bit of a minus, you can clearly tell this was plot derived from a manga. You have shots that lead you around like panels, jokes that work more on manga since they are kept more brief and a pacing that is at the same time a bit rushed and slowed down. But you can't really blame anyone, that's how manga works, translating Nakamura Asumiko's format is probably pretty tough.

The voice actors are once again doing an outstanding job, it was interesting to hear them do the dialogues in slightly different tones, pacing, implying different emotions (yes I remember what they sounded like for all the dialogues in the Drama CD by heart I'm fujoshi fangirl trash). It felt like they understood maybe their characters more. Kamiya Hiroshi is one of my all time weaknesses in the seiyuu world, he didn't disappoint. I guess it's funny how the Drama CD was made during the time none of the three main voice actors were big and yet now they are considered quite the formidable cast. It makes you realize how long it's been.

All in all this was great for my heart. It makes me want to re-read the series. I probably will. Ok I'll read it now bye