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EP. REVIEW: March comes in like a lion

Then you don't understand what the job of an editor is. If a reviewer uses a word to describe an element of a show but doesn't explain why the word was used, that's a problem. If Nick had said the episode was scary and didn't bother to justify what about it was scary, that would be a problem. I pointed this out not because I disagree with an opinion of his - I am genuinely confused over where the opinion is coming from. It's a problem when a reader is lead to suspect that a reviewer doesn't understand what a particular word means.

And writing a sentence like "Me and Zac's job is to check for grammar problems..." is hilarious.

IAs I feared, he really only cares about the darkness and bleakness. I can imagine him fidgeting impatiently during the sunnier moments, knee bouncing up and down impatiently as he fervently prays the depression stuff will come back.

Sorry Nick, but I don't think it stumbled in this episode, and looking at the user rating, it seems I'm not the only one.

I disagree that the comedy is intrusive. Like others said, depression isn't negative thoughts all day everyday, so happier hours or days are not odd or unnatural. I continue to find the "It has two tones therefore it is bad" wrongheaded as I have mentioned elsewhere on the site. We get it Nick, you don't like the comedy. We don't need you to look down on it every week. I'd make a bigger deal on this point, but I have long since tuned out Nick's opinions on comedy because we have different ideas about what is funny a lot of the time, both in the affirmative and the negative senses.

And I disagree that the head tilt doesn't work with Kyoko. To me, in those scenes it conveys how Kyoko is looking down at Rei, making the figurative literal. In that sense, it fits well with her character and with what is happening in the scenes.

So without those "stumbles", it seemed to me one of the series best episodes if not the best, and so far it seems I am not alone.

Jokes where characters are visibly labeled in panel very obviously do not translate to animation - those are cheap gags you can only get away with in manga because of their convenience in that medium, and faithfully adapting them only underlines their initial weakness.

Shaft sure does love their Shaftisms. Sometimes I think they'd do well to keep them on a leash. Especially in this show's case (Nisekoi also says hi). The sunnier moments are purposely meant to contrast with the more somber ones to accurately portray what it's like to live with depression (supposedly, they say). I get that. But unfortunately, like Nick, most of the humor and manners of manga-to-anime adaptation in those scenes clash violently with the established tone (or lack thereof) in a drastic way for me. The humor doesn't do anything for me except make me roll my eyes. I don't think a single joke has gotten even a smirk out of me out of these first five episodes. It's not the fact that it has two emotional tones that I take issue with, it's the fact that I find the one to be executed so banally that it's sometimes painful to watch. So at least for me, I think this supposed theme of "emotional duality" could have been handled much more elegantly. Still though, the down to earth portions are quite masterfully executed, and those alone are enough to make me keep watching.

Nick's points haven't been really that the comedy doesn't fit the headspace, more like it's been adapted really poorly. Which I'll mostly agree it, except I'll also say that the comedy is mostly awful in manga form as well, so there's not much you could do about it except cut it - which would then change the tone quite a bit.