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This is one of those anime of which I will have much to say, so, buckle in, I guess.

This anime is both a spiritual sibling to "Bocchi the Rock", and yet it couldn't be more different. "Bocchi" is kind of a gag anime that happens to have a story - which is, I guess, somewhat understandable considering its origination as a 4-koma manga. "Girls Band Cry" is an original anime, and doesn't have any of that baggage coming from source material, so it is free to be what it is. I loved Bocchi and I considered her story to be inspiring and ... at times emotional, but other than being about the formation of a girl rock band, it has very little in common beyond the atmosphere, which both seem to share to some degree. Maybe that just has something to do with rock being a bit grungy, by nature.

And what it is, is a story about coming of age, about self-actualization, about finding comfort in the most unlikely of friends as five girls who are very much unlike each other form a band and try to make it to the top.

While there are some very funny moments in this anime, this is not a comedy. This is a drama. There is a lot of emotion, a lot of crying, a lot of confrontation (the number of times they have a loud confrontation smack in the middle of a public place is somewhat beyond belief). But at the end of the day, there is no character that escapes the "coming of age" that this anime, at its core, is about.

And the characters... wow, the characters. They come alive. It's almost like they're real people, that's how well written they are. Nina is an annoying "Morality monster" with a strong sense of justice that has gotten her in a whole heap of trouble, Momoka is a guitarist who left her previous band just as they were on the cusp of going pro, Subaru is a high school drummer who Nina didn't get along with at first, Ruba and Tomo are friends who have their own story.. So much care is taken with the characters that they just come alive, and it's amazing. I have never seen a character with Ruba's name, by the way. And as they bumble through forming a band, you start to think they're real, and that's what makes this an amazing anime, and worthy of a high rating.

There is some controversy about the animation, and I think it's warranted, because they used 3D animation all the way through, which is pretty unique. And they did it well. My complaints about the animation have nothing at all to do with the fact, itself, that it's 3D, my complaints have to do with the fact that they did *exactly* what almost every other 3D animated show/movie does - and that's using overexaggerated movements. If you've ever seen a Disney/Pixar movie, you'll know what I'm talking about. Sometimes their movements are fluid and natural, and those are impressive. Other times they're pretty much hamming for the "camera", and that is so amazingly annoying I can't even describe it. They *almost* had it. *Almost* had a beautiful anime with animation that would have been almost impossible for any other 2D studio to match, and they blew it. That's so disappointing.

The music is really good, the OP is unironically good, and that's not the most common of things. It has some really weird rhythms that work really well. All the insert songs are pretty good, and I'd say that they took a lot of care to get that right. Though the instrument animation isn't really all that great, especially the keyboard animation. I know that's difficult, but they took so much care with everything else, that's just a mite bit annoying too.

In summary, it's a high quality anime with well written characters, great animation, and great music, that somehow manages to just fall short on the animation, and given how much care they obviously put into it, that's a disappointing and borderline unforgivable self-own.

Recommend from me, strong recommend, actually, but don't be surprised if it doesn't really blow your socks off.

Some of the lower-end reviews of this anime make me wonder if they even watched it, I'll be honest. I don't understand how someone could watch this anime and not think it's amazing.

Now, let me say up front; If you just think of this as an "idol anime", those concerns would be valid, and it'd even be deserving of the low scores. The animation is mid, the music is mid, the characters can be a little formulaic, choppy CGI... nothing about this stands out, if it's an idol anime.

The problem is, it isn't. It's only superficially an idol anime. ... This is an anime about regrets.

Nanase Mana is an idol skyrocketing to the top, and just when she is about to perform in the final concert cementing her reputation as the top idol, her life is cut short by an auto accident. She's left behind by her manager, and a younger sister, other idols she left behind, and in this story, she is always there, lurking in the background, either by reputation, memory, or, well... more directly.

It starts out as an idol anime, with a group of characters coming together to form an idol group, and then two. Two characters stand out, her younger sister, and another character named Sakura, who has an interesting relationship with Nanase in her own right. But as the story progresses, we begin to understand the regrets that those who she left behind have, and also the regrets that Nanase had herself. And as the idol groups rocket to the top, they also have to address these regrets, and find a way to move forward without the almost suffocating influence of Nanase's memory. Every character who knew Nanase is trying to come to terms with her legacy, what she meant to them, and how she dominated the idol world while she was alive, and most of the story is the story of how all these characters come to terms with and eventually move past her loss and legacy.

There are several different story threads, and throughout the anime, they slowly weave together, until at the very end, in a flash, you understand that the story isn't what you thought it was, and neither was Nanase. And that storytelling is what makes this an amazing anime.

If you lack the ability to see subtext or the emotional intelligence to see what this anime *really* is, then you'll just see a mid idol anime, and frankly a somewhat cheesy one to boot, and it's probably not going to be for you. But if you like emotional stories about loss, regrets, redemption, and learning how to find your own voice, then you'll absolutely love this anime. Like I did.

Don't judge this book by its cover. Shiny idol kirakira and mid technical values are hiding (and maybe pretty well, admittedly) an amazing and meaningful story that just might make you cry at the end.

Recommend from me. Maybe I could have rated it lower, but the story was so meaningful it just blew all the rest of its (admittedly obvious) flaws out of the water, so 10 from me.

I'm honestly a little mystified as to why this has a rating as low as it does.

There is a clue to why I feel this way in the name: "another layer". This is a layered anime. If you look at it from a surface perspective, you might not like this anime very much. And from a surface perspective, there's not much to like. There's quite a bit of nostalgia - most of which is done rather hamhandedly (though even at my age I didn't know about the PC-98, seems interesting to look into). It could also be seen as ... a love letter to bishoujo. It kind of is, but if we were to leave it at that level, it wouldn't be much to speak of either. On those levels, the story is a bit trite and shallow, the FMC is rather annoying, and the MMC is quite one-dimensional (see what I did there?)

But there's so much more to it - if you look for it. I doubt everyone has.

This story is actually a rather odd coincidence in my life, because it directly (and flagrantly) addressed a question that I've been mulling over in my head for a little while: what role does imagination have in creation? I won't go too deep into that because I'll bore the pantsu off you, and it gets absurdly theological, but it's a fascinating question, I think. All of the other things - bishoujo, nostalgia, time-travel, are all subjugated to this question. What makes us human? What is imagination? What is that intangible thing that makes the difference between a stupid garden variety game (or, by extension, anime) and one that is popular/amazing/whatever? And the way it handles that question is amazing, and frankly, rather unique.

So for that reason, I would have rated this anime a ten. I wanted to rate this anime a ten. I almost did rate this anime a ten. But there were a few flaws, and I couldn't do that in good conscience.

As some reviews have said, the FMC was rather insufferable. She was supposed to be voice acted as a super high energy, young-ish character who, well... it's her world and everyone else lives in it. But what they ended up making the character was a shrill, overly hyper, loudmouthed character that was difficult to warm to. Yes, she was a good character, and the VA was *capable* of toning it down when necessary, so at the end, that was clearly a directorial decision, and an awful one. They could have lowered the pitch a bit, made the voice a little less harsh and grating, and not only would nothing have been lost, but it would have been even better.

The second major flaw, to me, has to do with the last three episodes. I'll try not to spoil. But this reminded me very much of Back to the Future 2, when Marty came back to 1985 or whenever after changing the timeline in 1955, and ended up in a dystopian society. The thing is, it was *needlessly* dystopian. It's 2023, not 2050, and the technology would not have been *that* drastically altered by a game company having a successful game. The corporate environment might, but the technology was significantly more "advanced" than it was in the original timeline. It just made no sense other than to enhance the sense of dystopianness. Plus, when that story arc "resolved", it, well, kinda didn't. Did the villain get his just desserts? We assume so. But of course it doesn't matter, because, well... it just doesn't matter. You'll see.

But the thing is, it wasn't entirely dystopian. Yes, there were dystopian elements, and *clearly* so, but I found it fascinating how the redevelopment and "improvement" of Akihabara was portrayed as, by definition, dystopian. I guess I can see that to a degree, it would certainly have been dystopian in the FMC's perspective (they addressed the "coming home to a place you don't know" emotions very well), but still, I got the distinct feeling that it was *such* a love letter to Akihabara that it couldn't have been any other way. I guess that goes back to the "love letter to gaming" layer, because Akihabara is the mecca, but... still. It was a hamhanded message.

Also, there were some plot points around the time travel that were, well... insufficiently addressed, to put it lightly. I can't really say everything about what I mean because it would be a spoiler, but let's say there were some situations and characters throughout the anime that were, well... inscrutable, and clearly deliberately so. That's fine right up until the inscrutability becomes indistinguishable from a "deus ex machina" and, well, that line was crossed. Would have been nice to have a few things explained a little better, rather than just have some rather odd and poorly explained people hopping in to save the day for no apparent reason.

All that said, the flaws were enough to take it from a 10 to a 9, but that's still high praise. It's one of those anime that makes you think, and one that after the anime is over, that you just kind of sit there and have to process it for a little bit. I had that same experience with some of the greats, like "Akebi's Sailor Uniform". If you can look past the shallow surface layers to the message beneath, you might find something meaty to chew on, and given the ascendency of anime about as shallow as most of the bishoujo games this anime was, on the surface, a love letter to, that's a rare thing indeed. Recommend from me.

I have much to say about this anime. As I usually don't bury the lede, my conclusion is that it is an utterly unique anime with many good things to say for it, but a few things that prevent it from being a truly great anime.

Let's start with this: this is a very unique genre, one I haven't seen before. While it could easily be mistaken at first glance for any of isekai, fantasy, gaming, or any such genre, it isn't. It is a straight up story of medieval warfare and politics, played for comedy. There is no OP isekai'd ... character, there are no other races, there are no quests, there is no magic (with one rather ambiguous exception, see below). This is a straight up story of a prince who reluctantly takes the throne from his ailing father, wants to simply pump up the kingdom in order to sell it, retire and have a cushy life, and that's it. Problem is that he turns out to be extraordinarily competent and keeps winning.

Kind of like a medieval "the producers", without ending up in jail at the end.

There is violence in this anime. It's not overdone and is sometimes played for laughs. While there is a small amount of nudity, this isn't an ecchi anime either. It's a straight up comedy warfare anime, and that's it. That's all you get. Nothing more. No romance, no ecchi, very little fanservice, just comedy warfare.

The only magic in this anime that I could see is what appears to be telepathy that sometimes occurs between the characters, but it's never clear if it's actually telepathy or just the characters knowing each other so well that it appears to be, and it's never explained.

This is an anime that does what it needs to well. There's nothing particularly wrong with this anime. The story is well done, the music is well done, the animation is fine, I watched it to the end and even found the ending pretty satisfying, all told. The humor was somewhat understated but got the job done, it was all fine. So why didn't I rate it higher?

Okay, for that, now we need to get into the flaws.

The biggest flaw in this story was that it was hard to follow. As with many stories (not just anime) that have political intrigue, there are many different layers to the motivations and actions of the characters, and these don't always translate well into story. At times it was difficult to follow what was going on, particularly at the end where several different kingdoms and kings were forming, and breaking, alliances at the drop of a hat. I followed it mostly, but it was still difficult. They obviously made an *effort* (with explanatory animations and rather transparent exposition), but still didn't get it quite right. It was kind of like a medieval "Oregairu" with less romance.

I guess that's actually somewhat realistic, but it adversely affected the story.

Also, the MC (the prince) had it *too* good. There was no challenge he wasn't up to, and he was particularly politically effective, to the point where it actually became a bit ridiculous. Maybe this was important to the comedy, but it was always absolutely clear he would either somehow talk his way out of a situation or come to the rescue in some way. I don't really mind that all that much, but it did somewhat affect the tension that good storytelling requires.

My final conclusion: Not being isekai, fantasy, etc., but set in a medieval world, this does not fall victim to any of the tropes that such genres fall into, but somehow manages to dig its own traps and then jumps in. But if you're tired of generic isekai, etc., this might be a refreshing change. Know what you're getting into, but a recommend from me.

I have lots to say about this anime. Most of it good. A little of it not.

At its core, this is a cooking anime for woodworking and crafting. You know those cooking anime like "Sweetness and Lightning" where they try to give you recipes and tips on how to make good food, and then add in a story as an afterthought? This is a bit like that, except the story isn't an afterthought. The tools and work clearly have an important role, but unlike most cooking anime, you don't really feel like there's an overwhelming agenda. Mix in a ... little "Hands off my Eizouken" and a dash of CGDCT and slice of life, and that's this anime.

There were a few things that made this story unique - or very nearly so.

Unique Thing #1: This was a kind of quasi CGDCT anime, but the girls were drawn realistically for their age - you know, with stick legs, A cups (or even less), that kind of thing. There was zero ecchi and the fanservice, while not zero, was kept to a minimum. This is unfortunately unique for a CGDCT anime. They also didn't manage to go off the rails in the other direction, like "Hands off my Eizouken", where the characters were drawn deliberately ugly and unappealing. This anime struck the perfect balance, and this was a very refreshing change.

Semi-Unique Thing #2: Like "Hands off my Eizouken", this story is set in the future. It's not clear exactly when in the future, could be ten years, could be fifty, but I like the fact that even though it's clearly set in the future, it's still a recognizable world. While there are things like drones, self-driving buses, AI personal assistants, etc., those are just additions to the world, not wholesale replacements for familiar things. That was very well done.

Unique Thing #3: Yes, it's a cooking show for woodworking and crafting, and I can't think of a single other. That's pretty cool.

Unique Thing #4: An intelligent pet pig named "meat" who is petrified of the family eating pork. That is utterly unique.

Toss in some decent but not groundbreaking animation, decent but not great sound, and a rather satisfying story, and this anime is one I'd recommend to anyone (but you should know what you're getting into).

Speaking of knowing what you're getting into, there are a few negatives.

The biggest negative is focused around the voice acting. Some of the characters have voices with an annoying timbre. Because very few voices actually do that naturally, I think this was a deliberate choice, and it was somewhat disconcerting. Also, there is a character that is supposed to be a native English speaker. She is, well, not. Very clearly not. In fact, the accent of the English teacher who is *not* a native speaker is better than the native speaker. They wrote her fairly well in that she doesn't speak perfect Japanese, but that just makes her atrocious accent all that much less believable. This is one of the characters who also has a really awful timbre to her voice. As with most English speaking characters, the accent would probably be perfectly passable to a Japanese speaker. But it's about fifty percent there. No English speaker will ever think that this character is native.

Also, while they did do a fairly good job of closing off the big storylines, there are a few mysteries that are left unsolved. Perhaps it's because there's room for a season 2 (I don't know if there's enough source material, but they didn't completely end the story). Perhaps the case could be made that not every mystery needs to be solved. Still, some things i was left to wonder about, and they seemed so trivial that why not?

Alright, I guess I could say more, but these are the important points. If you're looking for a unique, fairly wholesome anime that tells a story, doesn't get too bogged down in the details, and has interesting tips on DIY, then this might be for you. If you want an ecchi anime with cute girls going bouncy bouncy, you probably should pass. None of these girls bouncy bouncy. At ALL. Which fits very well with most Japanese girls of that age, so, well... if you want wish fulfillment, go elsewhere, I guess. And if you want good voice acting, well... you'll get that about halfway.

Recommended from me.

I watched both series of this, and my final opinion is, if it wasn't funny, it'd be trash.

This is a harem isekai, nothing more. The title leads one to believe that the smartphone is an important part of the plot. It's really not. It provided absolutely nothing at all that couldn't have been provided by other magic mechanisms - and in fact, this proved to be the case quite conclusively when it came to the phrase units (and to avoid spoilers, I won't explain what those are, except to say that their control mechanisms were indistinguishable from modern computer interfaces.) So ... the smartphone was nothing but a draw. We can safely just write that out of the equation, because it didn't matter.

Okay, so take that out of the equation, and you have a bog-standard ecchi/harem/comedy anime.

Let's examine all three of those elements in turn, because they are the only elements that really matter to my rating.

Ecchi/fanservice: I'm predisposed to not like ecchi as a genre. However, as you'll see in some of my other reviews, I'm also willing to give it a pass if it is important to the plot (see "Wake up Girls"). Here, it doesn't. You could remove *all* of the ecchi elements and take absolutely nothing away from the story. So I am forced to assume that all these elements are there for straight fanservice. This, for me, is a mark against this anime. Ecchi is a cheap way of getting people to watch your stuff. And I can say that even after having written some stuff with ecchi elements - it's cheap and does nothing for the story. But if you like bouncy-bouncy, conveniently placed steam (which to their credit they did lampshade), and semi-nudity, well, then you might like this. To some degree. See next.

Harem: Harem can work if it's done well. When you have well written female characters, an honest exploration of the difficulties that such an arrangement can bring, and a well written male character, it can actually be interesting. We don't have any of these three elements here. All of the female characters just basically take one look at the MC, fall head over heels, and are fine with sharing. This is about as unrealistic as you can get. The thing is, there wasn't even one character who *wasn't* okay with sharing, and, well, that's just not realistic. Even if their culture is fine with polygyny, human nature tends not to be - it requires significant effort to overcome that. That simply did not happen here. The MC was your typical spineless protagonist who overreacts to everything, the FMCs were your typical tsundere/whatever FMCs, and, well... it just ended up being nothing but a vehicle for ecchi. So, no.

Now, parenthetically, I must address the one thing that I could see people (particularly the uninformed and predisposed to be offended X tourist mob) getting upset about: some of the harem characters are young. One of them is *really* young, like, preteen young. I actually didn't mind this. Not because I'm okay with that (see my review of "wakaten", which was unequivocally trash), but because nothing actually happened. In medieval times (which these anime usually kind of mirror for whatever reason), this was normal, and not only did MC not take advantage of this, he had no *desire* to take advantage of it (in fact, one character did. He was dealt with). He wanted to wait for him, and them, to grow up some. It was pretty wholesome, considering, and if that's something that might bother you, well, it still might, because let's face it, anyone can be offended by anything, but it's about as gently treated as the topic can be. There are plenty of reasons not to like this anime, but IMO, this isn't one.

And I just used the word "parenthetically" unironically. Sigh.

Now, comedy: this saved this anime from being trash.

This anime was one of this isekai parodies that almost always try to be a parody and end up, well, mostly not. But this one was self-aware. It was not really going for being taken seriously, and there were some moments where the fourth wall was broken (not always blatantly, sometimes obliquely). There were quite a few instances where I actually laughed.

The comedy wasn't great - it was predictable, and somewhat formulaic. But it did save the anime from being trash. It didn't make it *great*, but I did watch both series, and I rated both a 7. That was *purely* because of the comedy. Everything else was pretty much bog-standard, useless, isekai semi-parody.

A few other notes: There is violence in this anime, as with most isekai, but it's not overdone, like most isekai, and it's not really a main driver of this anime. The MC isn't running around killing everything with lots of blood spatter. It's mostly incidental to the real plots, which pretty much involve the formation of the harem. The anime and sound are meh, which again, is not unexpected for an isekai of this genre. Nothing awful, nothing great, just bog standard. Nothing ever popped out at me as awful, but there were no "that was great" moments either. So, technically, it's about what you'd expect from an isekai anime, so that didn't really affect my rating at all one way or other.

If you want something to watch that'll give you a laugh and occasional glimpses of female floppy parts (along with some rather perverted FMC/FSCs, mostly the ones on Babylon) you might like this anime. If you want something to take seriously (which, to be fair, pretty much applies to every single isekai, and that even includes the highly rated ones), just skip it. It's nothing to write home about.

I think this anime was rated a bit low, tbh. But not so much so that I don't get why.

Mixed feelings from me, because you may or may not like it. Personally, it was a good waste of time, which is all most anime really is anyway. A way to avoid having to clean the kitchen and work on projects. And for that, this one performed admirably.

This anime is a rather odd combination of really good and, well, not very good. I'm actually really conflicted about how I feel about it, because the good is really good, and the bad is pretty bad.

I think the best summary I have of this anime is it's basically "Don't toy with me miss Nagatoro" if the main characters were actually likable.

Okay, let me start out with the good. First, this anime is unique. It's as if someone took a look at all of the anime like "Nagatoro" where the girl is a tease, the main character is a spineless wimp, and ... their romance is inexplicable, and then just turned that entirely on its head. The FMC is a shy, easily embarrassed girl who uses her formidable acting skills to hide how she really feels. The MMC is a cocky guy who teases the girl just as much as he has over the top reactions. This leads to a rather unique character interaction profile where the two MCs tease each other, make each other laugh, and basically just have fun getting to know each other.

I wish this wasn't so rare, but it really is.

In certain places important to the story, they also took great care with the animation, and it's stunning.

Also, without spoiling, the ending was actually satisfying, ending in a way I have yet to see any other rom-com end, and so much the sadder. There's no holding out for a second season here, it's all wrapped up. And that's really good.

And no fanservice or ecchi.

Also, the little sister is very cute.

Okay... now the bad.

Essentially, this anime got boring. After a while I was kind of figuratively looking at my watch wondering when it was going to wind down. After episode six, it was about ninety percent making each other giggle, and the other ten percent giggling about making each other giggle. This was something I liked, except they overdid it. So the parts that were refreshing also got a little tiring. It picked up again around episode 11 or 12, but the time between then just wasn't interesting. Maybe there's a reason the way they did this is unique.

Also, the animation was very scattershot. As I mentioned, sometimes they really took care with it. Others, it was lazy, and it became clear that they were just repeating a few frames over and over again. I guess budget constraints are a real thing.

Also, while the dynamics were not as over-exaggerated as in many rom-coms (girl says something flirty, guy goes "WOOOOOAAAAHHHHHHH" and steam comes out of his ears), there was quite a bit of that. While it wasn't as bad as many anime, and uniquely, both characters did that as well, it got really annoying really fast.

So, I could have rated it a 5 or a 9. I split the difference.

If you're looking or a unique rom-com that plays with and only marginally successfully subverts the typical anime rom-com tropes, you'll like this. If you want a sweet story with a satisfying conclusion, you'll like this. If you want a plot that actually moves forward at a consistent pace, or realistic character interactions that don't consist of over the top reactions to even the slightest flirty comment... probably not for you. I'm giving this "mixed feelings" because for all of its potential of being a decent subversion of the typical annoying rom-com tropes, it came this close but didn't quite pull it off.

So if I had to give a one sentence description to this anime, I think I could do one better and use only two words: "disappointingly mid".

I had somewhat high hopes for this anime. It had a really interesting hook - a FMC who said her true feelings in a language that the MMC didn't understand (as far as she knows) but actually he does. What will he do?

That hook turned out to be useless. It was exactly as stated. She said her true feelings in Russian, he understood, he mugged for the "camera", and, well... that didn't lead ... to anything at all except for maybe giving him a clue how she really feels.

All throughout the anime, I was waiting: "when will we see her learn that he understood her all this time? How will she react?" Yeah, ummm... about that. Let's put it this way: If that was the hook that made you want to watch, I'd hold out for season 2.

Other than that, it was mid. Little sister was, well, siscon fanservice fodder. At one point, she was even so brazen with the fanservice that she broke the fourth wall. As with many anime of this genre, there was a tone shift a little more toward the dramatic, and it became more about school student council politics than romance.

It really was very little of what was advertised on the cover.

Quality was fine, I guess. Quite a bit of fanservice and slightly ecchi, of course. Animation decent, VA decent, ED and OP unremarkable but not awful. Nothing about this anime was awful. Just... nothing was great, either.

I just spent a lot of time fleshing out the two words I used to describe this anime at the beginning, and they're still the best two words. "disappointingly mid". If you like a bog-standard rom-com with mid characters, mid animation, mid story, mid plot, mid fanservice, mid everything, well, you'll like this too. As one of the flagships of a disappointingly mid summer 2024 season, I guess you get what you get.

I don't usually like isekai. Generally I only watch it if it promises something not bog-standard, or if it interests me, or if it promises its heart to me, or if it's really cute...

This isekai was more to my liking then most, which is to say, not very, but still. I watched it through.

The "hook" to this isekai is that the MC finds a couple of children, and takes them in as his own, and makes his way through the isekai world as a father or older brother or something.

It was mostly a useless hook, except they did one thing really well, and ... it was enough to impress me. They made the children actual children.

I remember another anime, and I've watched so many I've forgotten which one, where there's a little girl about six years old found under similar circumstances, and she's, well, a little adult. She's bussing tables at the bar, being all cute, and everyone falls in love with her. These children aren't like that. They're children. They're not quite as mercurial, noisy, and messy as real children are, but they process things much like real children would. They ape what they adults do without really understanding why they do it, they pounce on things with little thought and single-mindedly, they hide behind the MCs legs when they're scared... they're five year old children.

That's really refreshing.

It's not done perfectly. As I said, they're not as fussy, irritable, and mercurial as children can be, but they got it half right, and considering how most isekais treat children, well, I'll take it.

Other than that, it's a bog standard isekai with an OP MC, and, well... that did get kinda boring.

Guess it's okay. You might like it if you like isekais. At least they tried to be unique.

This anime might be the standout for the summer 2024 season. Of course, given that its competition is the militant absurdity of "nokotan", the mid rom-com "Alya", the incomprehensible ode to stupidity "vtuber legend", that is a really low bar. This anime shone mostly because its competition sucked so hard.

Anyway, I actually really liked this anime.

This anime is about two teenagers, a boy and a girl, both who have been damaged by life and find trusting very difficult, who end up living in the same house because their parents married. In the beginning, they accept their situation, but really don't want ... a whole lot to do with each other, and they agree to just get along but nothing more.

As the anime progresses, however, they begin to grow closer, and start trusting each other.

As with most romances (or quasi-romances) of this genre, though, the result isn't really the point, it's the journey. There are no (or very few) comedic misunderstandings, no domestic violence played for laughs, very little fanservice, nothing like that. Just two people who are bumbling through life just like all of us, and somehow learn to find comfort in each other as kindred souls. It's a sensitively treated story where they are no bad or good guys, just humans, and people learning how to trust.

A very sweet story. The only real criticism I have is that the story is a bit unfinished, but I think they were leaving it open for a second season, so I'll take it.

Recommend from me. And given the relative paucity of good anime in this season, that's a breath of fresh air.