Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove It

Episode 1-2-3

This show really brings new meaning to the words “prove you love me.”

To be honest, Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove It kind of flew under my radar leading up to the start of this season. I knew nothing of it beyond the most basic premise going in.

...Or to put it another way, I was completely unprepared for how much I would enjoy the first three episodes.

The first episode begins by introducing us to the show's basic comedic setup. Yukimura and Himuro are postgraduate researchers at a university. Both are brilliant, hardworking, and utterly obsessed with the science they study. They spend their days together as friendly rivals--verbally sparring with each other and testing the breadth of each other's knowledge.

All that changes on the day that Himuro shares her latest hypothesis: that's she has fallen in love with Yukimura. Neither having been in love before, the pair decide that the only way to be sure of their respective feelings is to scientifically prove whether they are in love with each other or not.

Of course, to any outsider, it's obvious that she is indeed in love with him. But the humor comes from the fact that A) she is so scientifically minded that she trusts the data over her own feelings and B) that the two become so obsessed with the numbers that they jump to wild conclusions and completely ignore little things like human nature.

The second half of the first episode introduces us to Kanade, our straight man character. As a student researcher--and a relatively normal person--she has no problems seeing the pair's true feelings for what they are. Yet, at the same time, she respects the pair and wants to help them work through their feelings on their own terms--even if it means helping with their experiments. This puts her in the unenviable position of being their authority on all things love and a point of comparison to what Himuro is feeling.

Episode two gives us a more fleshed out explanation of the setting by explaining the school and the kind of research Yukimura, Himuro, and Kanade do--namely statistical analysis of anything under the sun. It also introduces us to the fourth main character of the show, fellow grad student Ibarada. As lazy as she is brilliant, she delights in throwing Yukimura and Himuro's love experiments into disarray by questioning their procedures and the shoddy nature of their hastily drawn conclusions--well, when she's not using the research lab for napping or gaming, anyway.

With the majority of the series setup out of the way, the back half of episode two focuses on a specific myth: that food tastes better when “cooked with love.” This not only allows the anime to make cooking-related jokes in addition to the usual science ones but also shows realistically why and how “love” could affect flavor--i.e., by tailoring the flavor to suit your loved one and spending more time on the presentation to make it look more appetizing.

We also learn that even though Yukimura and Himuro are obsessed with their experiments, they aren't blind to the world around them. They do value their interpersonal relationships and care about their fellow lab members (as we see in the episode's heartwarming ending).

The third episode begins by introducing our final main character, Inukai. On the outside, Inukai looks to be a pretty-boy soccer player who enjoys bars and women far more than his time in the lab. Of course, this image is all to hide his insecurities about being a closeted dating sim otaku whose experience in love is limited to his 2D waifu and the body pillow he shares his bed with. However, even this is more experience than Yukimura and Himuro have and so it is treated seriously by the clueless pair--to much comedic effect.

This part of the episode also brings in the idea that money spent and physical proximity are also vital aspects of love--which, while true from a certain point of view, ignores the fact that most of that happens after the two people admit they like each other and start dating, not before. However, this is lost on Himuro who worries either that her love is A) hundreds of times weaker than Inukai's is for his waifu or B) may not even exist at all.

From this doubt, we then learn Himuro's past--why she is the way she is and why she would fall head over heels for a guy like Yukimura--which in turn prompts Kanade to get off the sidelines and take an active role in the third episode's back half.

Kanade suggests that they are dancing around the true issue. If the two want to find out their feelings, then they should do what most people do: go on a date. As is expected by this point, this leads to the question of what a date really is--and each character's example tells volumes about who they are. Then comes the logistics issues of having an efficient date before ending with Yukimura making the date official by directly asking Himuro out.

This scene is actually the cumulation of Yukimura's character arc in the story so far. While Himuro's feelings are known from the start, Yukimura's are not. There's no doubt he is both flattered and baffled by her romantic intentions but as we see, a racing heart can come from nervousness just as easily as from romantic excitement.

However, little by little, his actions have shown that he does care for her. When Himuro is angry that other women can get his heart racing, he shares that he's had no physical female contact in the past--embarrassing himself to calm her down. Then, when she sees that her love looks to be inferior to Ikunkai's, Yukimura desperately looks for a way to discredit Inukai and undermine the argument he made only moments before just to make her feel better. And finally, while he literally ran away from Himuro when he found previous experiments too embarrassing, he publically asks her out on the date--even though their going is a foregone conclusion--just because she's saddened by the fact he hadn't.

Sure, he may not truly love her yet, but he certainly cares for her feelings above his own temporary discomfort. Now all that's left is to wait to see next episode how that evolves once the pair go on their first date.

As a whole, these three episodes work incredibly well together. The setting is laid out succinctly, the characters are introduced one at a time so we never get overwhelmed over several episodes, and the laughs are constant so that we never get bored. Heck, it's even more than a little educational with the recurring science lessons. The whole thing is just so light-hearted and heartwarming that I couldn't stop smiling while watching it--or after it for that matter.

Looking forward, I have only one worry for the series after its strong start: that the premise may get tired before we reach the end of our 12 episode run. However, three episodes in, there is certainly no sign of that yet.

Rating:

The Little Things I Loved:

• Himuro had a PowerPoint presentation prepared explaining the reasons she thought she was in love before even confessing.

• Yukimura has a collated list of every person he's ever had a personal relationship with on hand.

• Everyone involved is embarrassed by the love-love omelet.

• The lampshading that Ibarada, Inukai's childhood best friend, looks suspiciously like his 2D waifu.

• Ibarada's idol is the Beast himself, Daigo Umehara.

• While Himuro legitimately is doing these experiments to find out the truth of her feelings and isn't just tricking a reluctant guy into doing romantic things, once she's in the moment, she finds it hard not to keep it going as long as possible.

• Himuro is totally down with a gender-swapped version of herself getting it on with Yukimura.

• The bear professor literally vomits a sea of knowledge in the opening theme song.

• The definition of dating that they write on the whiteboard is actually pretty solid.

• Pretty much every piece of text that appears on screen or on the whiteboard.

Incidental Morals of the Story:

• Loving a 2D girl is no weirder than loving a celebrity--after all, the chances of ending up with either is statistically zero.

• Your interests and how you present yourself are two different things entirely.

Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove It is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Richard is an anime and video game journalist with over a decade of experience living and working in Japan. For more of his writings, check out his Twitter and blog.