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Mar 24, 2025
A silly premise that struggles to hold up the show, but despite that there are some very real and enjoyable moments that made up for a lot of the parts that took a bit of work to get through.
Most characters are pretty one dimensional but occasionally come out with something that sounds more human than a lot of characters in anime.
The main couple's relationship was the least interesting part of the show for me, romantic and character development was slow and interactions were repetitive.
It was the characters I enjoyed a lot more. Despite most being familiar tropes, many were developed just enough in
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the right way to feel more well rounded and having good and bad qualities that stood out to me. At some points someone would say something that made it almost feel like the characters were actors breaking character and talking as normal people.
Example, the 2 main guy characters aside from the Main guy are classic shouty simp tropes that fawn over the Main girl and leer at girls. But in one of the first few episodes they point something out the Main guy that almost felt like a 4th wall breaking comment on the dynamic the show is based on.
Asahi (Main girl's rival) was great. She felt like a regular person had wandered into an anime and was forced to go along with tropes and wacky situations just to get the guy she liked. Her friend was good too, classic supportive friend character but with a bit of an underlying edge.
Main guy was dull, no thoughts. Despite being a major peg the show's dynamic is hanging on, the whole monk think is not developed or explained at all. He only mentions it to 2 side characters that don't matter, and we as the audience have no information. Will this whole love story end with him saying 'Oh, I'm gonna be a monk so despite everything I actually can't have a girlfriend/be in love, sorry.' It literally could for all we know.
Main girl was more interesting, despite not being a character I rooted for in any way.
If a young person has been defined by one aspect of themselves, whether that be looks, intelligence, a specific skill, it to no surprise becomes a big part of their identity. Enter someone in their life that breaks that constant and no doubt it would make an impact larger than a more rounded person would understand. I think a lot of anime looks at that idea.
That thought enabled me to give Main girl a lot of slack on her frustrating behavior. A person in that situation probably could be hyper-aware of image but have little to no experience on other parts of life. It might take them a frustratingly long time to come to terms with something, or develop negative traits that make the character'a thoughts kind of unpleasant to listen to.
Every time it got to the point where I was thinking 'Man I kind of hate this character, I don't want her to win, she sucks as a person', a human moment would break through that would make me go 'OK, she's really annoying but I don't know if I hate her, I don't know if it's completely her fault that she's like this'.
So overall the show had some slow, repetitive, frustrating and icky elements and moments, balanced out with some interesting, reflective, enjoyable and real ones. For me personally, it all ended up balancing out at a 7/10. I'd say give it a try.
Oh, and Asahi best girl
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Oct 28, 2024
This does so much so well I'd love to rate it even higher, but yet again a good anime has been let down by a uncomfortable horniness.
The progression of the story and word building is great, new elements are introduced and then left to breathe without explaining them by the end of that episode, or incorporating them in the next. This means the direction of things isn't so obvious as other shows, and you get to think about elements to yourself as the show progresses, wondering if they'll be the answer to later problems.
Instead of giving the protagonist a sensei to explain how everything
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works, or easy one episode arcs that fully flesh an idea out, you are just as unsure about the rules, characters and motivations as the protagonist. The line between 'good' and 'evil' characters/entities in the story is left uncomfortably blurred which I personally really enjoyed.
The show added more layers to the things the protagonist sees as the season went on, and in a satisfying way. It's not like shows which take an episode to fully introduce a new type of monster or element to the world, but slowly adding to our (and the protagonist's) understanding of what she sees, that builds nuance and gets you asking questions about why things are the way they are.
Some of the animation was pretty standard, but some was really detailed in a way that grabbed the eye, not just more active scenes but even some basic elements in fairly static scenes.
And now the main issue with the show needs to be addressed, and that's the weird horniness that felt out of place, and didn't add anything to the show at all. I can deal with big anime tiddies in a show, after watching enough anime we all become a bit desensitised to them. Some of the shots in this show however were just uncomfortable and gratuitous, even if the characters were adults and not high schoolers.
Mercifully this tapers off significantly after the first couple of episodes, quickly enough that midway through the season I had mostly forgotten them thanks to being pulled in by how the world was being developed. However the fact it was so present in the first couple of episodes is unfortunate as I think it will put some people off.
A really good show done well, benefitting from setting up a world that leaves both watcher and protagonist with limited information that leaves both feeling unsure of how things work or how they will go, which lends itself well to the genre.
Personally I'd love to rate it even higher, however thanks to the first couple of episodes I just can't do it. Despite this, I'd recommend pushing through the first couple of episodes and watching the whole season.
8/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Oct 27, 2024
A workplace romance with little new to offer despite the premise.
Good to see an adult cast romance, however the characters act pretty much like high schoolers. We learn very little about any characters despite some very pointed expositionary dialogue at times, which is even remarked on in the show.
Yokai elements aren't over explained, but are also a bit too undefined and repetitive, making them just seem like a gimmick.
The secondary characters provide much needed balance to the icy main pair, but are pretty trope-y with basic personalities.
Romantic progression isn't too rushed, but is also a bit too slow that borders on boring.
A rough
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final episode in multiple ways, the final scene itself seems to emphasise how little has progressed since episode 1.
There's a weird eye fidgeting animation throughout the show that became distracting almost right away.
Despite the premise and world building, a bog standard romance with little progression, shallow characters and relying on the most trope-y of tropes of the genre.
5/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jul 22, 2024
I didn't really like this anime. I found myself wondering what points this show was trying to make, and any that did come to mind I found myself not agreeing with.
I don't agree with the idea that overwhelming one sided affection can or should change someone's gender preferences, or the idea that overwhelming one sided affection can or should make someone love you who doesn't, regardless of gender.
The show didn't seem to provide the love interest with any qualities deserving of the MC's love, aside from a sad backstory and the MC's fragile mental state before her reincarnation.
Nor did it provide much tension or challenges
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at all, since the MC knows everything from her deep knowledge of the game and powerful magic, and no character was given anything more than trope personalities, with the main pair getting just slightly deeper trope personalities.
It begins to look at topics like classism and discrimination only to drop them with the characters not really seeming to learn anything from events or change, while also throwing in a bit of incest that seemed to further muddle what the point of it all was.
I found myself enjoying some of the character interactions but kind of hating the characters and resenting the fact that they clearly were aware of the unpleasant things eachother believed or did, (even explicitly calling it out) only for those things to vanish almost instantly from their consciousnesses because love. Why even have the characters say it then?
All in all, I suppose if you can turn your brain off as much as possible you could enjoy the show. However there are shows that have a much better grasp on what they're trying to say, while also including better and more developed love stories than this one.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Oct 2, 2021
Good, if a little disappointing.
As a big fan of the first season, I was excited to see where things went. The first season provided a solid base of well defined characters, relationships and world.
This season just seemed to have less heart, and the story beats felt like they had a lot less context from the overall story. Backstory was brought up and explained without much contextual reason to what was happening in the episode and the story at large, major character revelations were just casually dropped into conversation and the relationships seemed to be a bit all over the place.
Firstly, the introduction of Ilulu.
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It was a great introduction to a new character and I was interested to see how she would fit into the show, but she didnt really get developed much and within a couple of episodes had been largely forgotten, which made it hard to care about her character. I think this gives weight to the opinion she was brought in to provide yet another source of big bazonga scenes and jokes, whereas if she had been developed and included a bit more it wouldnt have felt like that so much.
Kobayashi drops a complete and personal story and reason as to a lot of her personality, relationship with Tohru and her maid obsession with not enough context to justify a story beat that integral, and then the story moves on without giving time for it to settle or be developed properly.
Elma is a bit all over the place for most of the season, it felt like she started to lose quite a bit of the character the first season spent developing to just become a source of jokes and screaming.
Speaking of which, the animation style went through some changes. The whole vibe is faster, faster cuts, bigger effects, more shouting and a lot less chilled SoL than the first season. Nothing is necessarily wrong with that, but it was a noticable change from the vibe of the first season which was for me one of the big draws of it.
Dialogue took a bit of a hit in my eyes, a lot more was said not shown, which is another thing I liked about the first season. The first season had less dialogue, and more scenes of the characters being which you could draw more of your own conclusions from, rather than characters explaining in full what they are thinking, either to eachother in often stilted dialogue, or in some cases straight to the viewer in internal monologues.
Speaking of drawing our own conclusions, in the episode where Ilulu messes with Kobayashi, her surprise at her attraction to Tohru kind of made me sad. It felt that the implication was that Kobayashi had never felt like that for Tohru, which for me felt like it retroactively altered feelings in important season one scenes. I will also second the opinion in other reviews that the concept of being changed in that way would suddenly make you act like that is a weird one.
Episode 10 felt most like the first season, some nice addition to the world building, a little bit of action then balanced with some time spent with Kanna and Kobayashi just being.
There were good scenes, I laughed at some jokes, some of the character development worked well. I thought the Elma and Tohru backstory was well done, but their relationship bouncing all over the place outside of that set of flashbacks kind of detracted from them for me.
I'm a really big fan of the first season, and was really looking forward to this one. However I felt a lot of what drew me to the first season; the atmosphere, character development, relationships and pace arent quite there for most of this season and I felt a little empty after finishing it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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