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Overall: 6.5, rounded up to 7.

It's hard to rate an anime when there's very little basis for comparison (the genre being extremely limited) but I’ll do my best. Love Stage is, while definitely a cut above the majority of the genre, still not what I’d consider a remarkable anime. The characters are one-dimensional, their motives are dubious at best, and they show little to no growth throughout, all of which is a typical and recurring issue in yaoi/shounen-ai series.

I think the most disappointing aspect of the series is that it had a lot of potential – potential which was never realized because of ... the obvious effort put into it to keep it from being ‘serious.’ In the process, important themes were left unexplored, critical issues were hand-waved, and overall, it just left the impression that the creator…didn’t really care. Not about the characters, or the plot, or about making the story believable. And it wasn’t.

If you’re wondering why I gave the series an overall rating of ‘6.5/7’ when I’ve done nothing but criticize it so far, it’s because I went in with very low expectations, as I tend to do when it comes to this genre. I didn’t take it seriously, didn’t anticipate character depth or development, and didn’t hold high expectations of gaining anything from it (i.e., a moral, sense of awe, etc) aside from amusement.

Love Stage did have its pros: the art was decent (I do adore Zaou Taishi’s style, but you can tell they were on a budget with this one), the audio was clear, the voice-overs were very fitting, and the subs were sharp. There was nothing special about the opening/ending music, including the video(s), but it wasn’t terrible. Typical J-pop songs, though certainly less catchy than others.

The romance was…cute, if you disregard the attempt at sexual assault between the main characters at the beginning (which, at least, the author did attempt to address and treat with due seriousness, though she didn’t really succeed, and I believe that stems from different cultural attitudes towards rape more than anything). The attempted assault towards the end of the series was also tasteless, but unfortunately it’s common in shounen-ai/yaoi as a plot device.

TL;DR – Overall, it was a decent anime, for its genre, and I’d recommend it anyone who 1) is in the mood for a cheesy BL-romcom with little in the way of substance, 2) doesn’t have assault-related triggers, 3) loves gay stererotypes (i.e., seme/uke), romance cliches, and/or crossdressing, and 4) likes watching cute boys kissing other cute boys.