Feb 4, 2025
The first episode of this anime presents us with the main character Sakuta meeting this seemingly invisible girl who walks around the school dressed in a bunny outfit. This girl, Mai, is also older than Sakuta. Now, this is the ultimate incel fantasy, so I didn't really expect this to be particularly good. I was wrong, this was pretty good, however, maybe just not for everyone, hence me selecting "mixed feelings".
This contains a few arcs, each of them holding some sort of meaning within the teenage experience. The first one is Sakuta living out a full-blown romance with Mai, which makes sense considering how the
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show began. He also helps her with her trauma. Next, we see a bunch of arcs where Sakuta helps a bunch of other people through their trauma as well, the final arc being him working through his own.
My problem with this is that Mai, the female lead, barely even shows up and I would definetly give this a higher score if she did (I know this is just season 1 and there's a whole trilogy of movies and, as of me writing this, an upcoming season 2, but the first season of anything must be a perfect entry into whatever it is starting).
Nonetheless, there are two very strong points with this show, those being, in my interpretation, the fact that Mai always being away is a perfect representation of relationships of that kind, almost as if she doesn't exist and is purely a dream. Everytime she is on screen, she is perfect and does everything right and then goes away for another week to record whatever. So perfect that she almost doesn't feel real, and Sakuta barely being with her certainly puts enphasis on that. This connects to the "incel fantasy" I mentioned at the beggining. This isn't, by any means, a commom interpretation of the show, but that's how I see it (and by the way, I'm not saying Sakuta is actually an incel or anything, he just works as a tool to present this dreamy vision of women that Gen Z young men seem to have more and more, due to so many issues coming from out society. Also, I'm using the term "incel" as in not interacting with many women, rather than as in hating women).
The other positive point on this show is, of course, the way it portrays the issues that teenagers struggle with everyday, the last arc being the deepest one that transmits a message of accepting the negative things and moving on to a better life, as seen when Sakuta accepts, at the end of the last episode, that his little sister lost her new memories.
Finally, I must explain how I think that it's a bad thing that Mai shows up so little, but then compliment the fact that her barely showing up presents a problem to this season: there should simply be a balance. Even just one more episode focusing on her would be enough to explore her character and her relationship with Sakuta, while still not being enough to ruin the whole dreamy aspect. So, it's in little details like these that the anime loses some points (another small issue would be how the visuals and the soundtrack sometimes set am overly depressing tone, even if the scene isn't particularly a sad one).
Overall, it was a good show, but as I said, I don't think that it is for everyone. In conclusion, though: it has a great message that was portrayed fairly well and for that reason I'm looking forward to the sequels.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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