Nov 10, 2023
Watching this anime is like eating a bowl of unseasoned oatmeal, except that bowl of oatmeal was made a month ago, frozen, and then reheated shortly before eating. There's really nothing original about the show at all, and none of its elements are executed particularly well or with any elegance.
The show puts a lot of surface level emphasis on the dynamic between the main romantic leads(unpopular nerdy guy vs very popular and extroverted gyaru). This isn't exactly a novel dynamic, in fact it's one of the more common ones for shounen romcom stories, but the emphasis placed on it and the explicit acknowledgement of sexual
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experience added on top could have lead to some interesting explorations of teen relationships, romance, and sex. Could have. I think the first episode does decently enough at handling Runa's(the main girl) warped view of sex and romance, and how that has lead to her reputation as a promiscuous person willing to sleep with anyone. The show clearly presents her views as unhealthy and self destructive ones enforced on her by past partners who convinced her the only way to make them happy was sex. Other people on the internet have approached this show from a frankly misogynistic viewpoint of claiming Runa's sexual proclivity is inherently wrong, but I feel it's important to note that her viewpoint is wrong because she isn't doing it for her own self fulfillment, but because she believes it's what's expected of her by the men she dates. And the show does luckily make that clear. Unfortunately, this is where I stop having anything good to say about the show, because that element only ever comes up again to allow Ryuuto to turn down her offers of sex every so often as if that makes him a Paragon of moral virtue. From episode 2 onward, this anime becomes a distillation of the most bland elements of every shounen romcom from 2010-2015. Every character, every plot beat, all of it is just a series of overdone tropes played entirely by the books. The main character Ryuuto himself is a cardboard cutout of a man whose only discernible personality traits are: 1. Likes watching gaming livestreams 2. Likes cars 3. 'nice guy'. He's the kind of audience insert I thought had been relegated to bottom of the barrel seasonal isekai.
The art and animation are the definition of mid, as well. While there's nothing egregiously bad about either, the stills and characters all just look slightly wonky and the animation feels stuff and unexpressive. The characters facial expressions barely change aside from their mouths being either tilted upwards or downwards, and the occasional but of red on their cheeks. The colours are very nice, but they're kinda wasted on character designs that are sometimes actually difficult to tell apart from one another.
I mentioned at the beginning of this review that this anime is like oatmeal that was frozen for a month, and I'd like to elaborate on that metaphor. Oatmeal, if prepared correctly, can serve as a delicious and fulfilling breakfast you can be satisfied eating. However, his anime lacks any flavour whatsoever but is somehow actively unpleasant to consume because the blandness only highlights the mushy gross texture it got from being frozen for a month. Do not watch this anime.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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