Dec 29, 2021
HoriMiya is a rom-com anime whose biggest praise is how it shows teenagers being… well, teenagers. Authentic, complicated, awkward and emotional teenagers. While there are many, many, side characters with their own romantic arcs, the main storyline (and the show’s namesake) involves Hori-san and Miyamura-kun.
Now, disclaimers - there are valid discussions around queerbaiting and biphobia surrounding this show. There are also folks discussing how the show is a rom-com so at the end of the day, the antics of the latter half are just that-- romantic comedy. There are also discussions around Western perspectives drive such critiques. This post isn’t going to address these
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qualms but I do feel that if my main issue with the show was addressed, those aspects would too have space for exploration in the storyline as well! Finally, I haven’t read the webcomic or manga! So this is solely a review of the 13 episode anime.
I think most people who’ve watched the anime would agree the first five episodes are well done. I haven’t watched a lot in this genre so I don’t think I have a working knowledge of the standard tropes. But I can say I really liked how it deviated from my understanding of standard rom-com plot tropes: misunderstandings are never confronted, love triangles ruin friendships and other such conflicts that could easily be solved with communication. No, in HoriMiya, the characters cut through the BS by being direct with each other while remaining complex.
The character I was most invested in was Hori-san because I very rarely see fearful-avoidance (also known as a disorganized attachment) displayed in such an average yet rich light. By average, I mean that something very tragic hasn’t happened to her, she isn’t hiding some shock-valued secret from the world… She's just a well-meaning teenager who had to be too independent too early. Before we get into attachment theory, let me break down Hori-san’s character from the first 5 episodes.
[SPOILERS START]
Hori-san was forced at a young age to be self-sufficient because her mother worked long hours and her dad was out of town for long periods of time due to work. Both parents rely on Hori-san to take care of her little brother, for whom she is a parent figure herself. She rushes after school to pick up her brother, who adores her, and doesn’t hangout with her circle of friends (or anyone really) outside of school.
That said, she is outrageously popular, beloved by women and men alike, and top of her class. She befriends everyone, even if they’re an outcast or socially awkward. She helps her peers with their homework and navigates rejecting a friend pretty tactfully (all things considered for a teenager). Despite being nice to everyone at the school, no one, not even her closest two friends, know about her home life.
But we, the audience, do! And it’s not that hard to put two and two together. Because Hori-san was unable to rely on her parents at a young age she developed a fearful avoidant attachment style. Children who experience terminally ill or overworked, manipulative/abusive, or hot/cold emotional parents are prone to develop this attachment style due to the contrasting and alternative behavior or reliability of the parent. Many psychology articles focus solely on the manipulative/abusive parent who is neglectful and dysfunctional (arguably Hori-san’s dad). There are also parents who aren’t actively harming their child--instead they are either unable to be fully present due to illness/work (Hori-san’s mom).
In either case, fearful avoidant attachment style is as the name suggests. A person with this style will feel conflicting emotions of fearful anxiety and despondent avoidance. A strong desire to have intimate relationships with those around you but a deep fear of being left. This results in them creating tumultuous and unstable relationships (if the fearful avoidant doesn’t do the work to address the root cause of their attachment style and grow into a secure attachment approach). Unchecked, a fearful avoidant partner can display the following:
“As adults, they will simultaneously desire closeness and intimacy and approach potential attachment figures (close friends or romantic partners), but then become extremely uncomfortable when they get too close to those partners and withdraw; hence the message given to others is "come here and go away." - Psychology Today
We see it in how Hori-san maintains surface level friendships but ensures she is well liked. We see it in how stressed out she gets about revealing her feelings to Miyamura-kun while at the same time putting up a front of being ‘cool’ whenever her anxiety settles in. And the most clear cut example is when she’s sick and Miyamura-kun visits her. After giving her a wet rag and some snacks, he explains that he’s going to leave. In response, she calls out ‘where are you going?’ several times, collapsing in her attempt to reach out to him.
Their dialogue is interplayed with a montage of her mother leaving her alone as a child to go to work. As the overlay concludes, both child and teenage Hori-san say in unison that ‘it’s fine’. To which he replies, ‘do you mean to say, ‘don’t leave me?’. She doesn’t acknowledge his rephrasing/reframing, likely in denial of her attachment style, and repeats ‘where are you going.’ Miyamura-kun reassures her that he’s here to stay.
Hori-san is terrified of being abandoned and at the same time, terrified of caring deeply enough to allow to abandon her. In getting to know Miyamura-kun over several months (in a comfortable setting of babysitting her brother) she’s finally let her guard down and let someone in. For seemingly the first time ever. In later episodes she even details the qualities of Miyamura-kun that create that space for her to feel safe and supported in a new way.
Whenever Hori-san gets anxious--losing her fiery and despondent demeanour--Miyamura-kun steps in and pushes back against her spiraling. He cuts right through the mental gymnastics in her head and asks or tells her directly what’s going on. One of the best examples of this is when he asks her directly if she’s avoiding him because she was awake when he told he was in love. No mind games, no misdirect, just flat out stating the obvious question in the room.
The support works both ways (again for the first five episodes), in which Miyamura-kun is empowered to share more of himself and establish real friendships without the fear of them being fake or him being bullied. He too is able to connect with someone on a deep level. His attachment style is completely avoidant and for the first time he’s relying on people in his life for support.
At the end of episode five, I was so excited to see what happened next… we were just introduced to Hori-san’s father and Hori-san and Miyamura-kun are just now admitting their feelings. I was expecting the refreshingness to continue… that we’d get to explore Hori-san’s fearful-avoidance head-on. That she’d be called out--or rather, called in--in a way that allowed us as viewers to reflect on our own attachment styles and listen/learn alongside Hori-san and Miyamura-kun.
She’d develop healthy boundaries with Miyamura-kun, they’d both learn how to communicate their needs and how to listen. And so much more.
But that’s not really what happened. As the show progressed, Miyamura-kun and Hori-san could’ve had an honest conversation about why Miyamura-kun liking guys made her anxious (perhaps it's a fear of not being able to compete with a guy) or why him talking to girls made her anxious or why him being gone for 5 days made her anxious… how those reactions were unfair to Miyamura-kun and something for her to address and unpack. Maybe with him but the onus is on her, not him.
Yet instead, Miyamura-kun bends in Hori-san’s antics and their relationship devolves into codependency: a relationship style in which at least one partner has an over reliance on pleasing the other. This is shown in Hori-san’s kink! Miyamura-kun was clearly uncomfortable and only being a sadistic dom to make her happy… they didn’t talk about what that’d look like in a safe private space where they could explore their sexual desires and where they’d come from. No, Hori-san complains that Miyamura-kun doesn’t love her if he won’t slap her in public and repeatedly ignores his ‘no’.
Heck, the show could’ve taken the route of showing us how these well-meaning teenagers fell into a arguably toxic relationship due to the unaddressed issues explored in the first half. Yet, that’s not what it feels like. It feels like it’s still trying to be a romantic comedy while brushing over the really heavy aspects of Hori-san and Miyamura-kun’s dynamic. I think that’s where the frustration I’ve seen for this show comes from.
[SPOILERS END]
I know they’re in high school but basically, I expected more maturity from their relationship given the months of friendship and trust developed prior to them dating and the tone set by the first five episodes.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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