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This Week in Anime - Does Anybody Love ORESUKI?


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Hal14



Joined: 01 Apr 2018
Posts: 651
Location: Heart of africa
PostPosted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 2:05 pm Reply with quote
Hate to be that guy but it should be "led by Joro" not "lead by Joro"
Edit: Ok

Overall a very uneven show. Started well, weak finish. Part of the issue for me was the cast was just too large. Some characters like Joro's mom only getting a single scene. Not sure i'll watch the ova when it comes out.


Last edited by Hal14 on Thu Jan 09, 2020 2:44 pm; edited 1 time in total
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor


Joined: 02 May 2011
Posts: 2930
Location: Email for assistance only
PostPosted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 2:16 pm Reply with quote
Fixed!
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Megiddo



Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Posts: 8360
Location: IL
PostPosted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 2:19 pm Reply with quote
I appreciate the Nozaki-kun reference, and I do want to reiterate that when Joro uses the word 'bitch' he is calling them a slut. This show was actually decent up through the dance arc but the second half of it just blew chunks and demeaned any sort of character growth that had been established prior. Strong beginnings for light novel adaptations that slowly dip further and further into mediocrity/terrible seems to be a recurring thing from the shows I've watched recently.
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JaffaOrange



Joined: 01 Apr 2011
Posts: 250
PostPosted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 3:49 pm Reply with quote
I found it baffling that the show threw out its entire premise - you know, the part that was meant to separate it from those dime-a-dozen harem shows from the early 2000s - by the end of the third episode. And instead of using the opportunity to really critique in character tropes in harem anime/manga, it reverts back to the boilerplate format.

Therefore, to justify the time used watching however much of the show I watched, I choose to interpret it as thus: Joro doesn't even like women. His obsessions with harems is a way to deal with society's expectation of men (toxic masculinity) but achieving one won't make him fulfilled. Why does he want one? Because that's what bland people are meant to have based on manga/anime I guess? Otherwise he might have to contend with realisation that you aren't automatically a Main Character and that a personality might need to be something you have to work to figure out and develop. Maybe who he is (sexually) won't fit into the world view that he wants to retain. After all, the addition of more girls into the harem only seems to make him more uncomfortable. His only solace is his MALE best friend whom he consistently picks over his female acquaintances and will go as far as forgive some really awful things just to keep his friendship. I think we know who the final 'girl' will be.
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Grimvice



Joined: 10 Aug 2017
Posts: 89
PostPosted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 4:19 pm Reply with quote
I get some of the grips about this show, but the attitude of "I want this character to be considered a jerk and have him get what he deserves" is low-key sociopathic.

As far as the characters and their level of development, I think this series is supposed to be looked at as a "comedy of errors" of sorts, being more focused on the characters' actions and what they mean in context of the genre's tropes rather than being fleshed out characters.

Also, the claim that Joro's characterization as a jerk being back-pedaled to a standard nice guy is unfair.

He wanted to have all the benefits of being a harem protagonist, so he played the part. As the series goes on, he unknowingly fulfills the role for real, and becomes more aware of becoming a genuine harem protagonist. But he realizes that it means that there is nothing special or genuinely interesting about himself (in relation to his talented and good-looking best friend), so he does not see Pansy's interest in him as a nice guy to be genuine.
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theilikepie



Joined: 30 Aug 2017
Posts: 60
PostPosted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 4:32 pm Reply with quote
The problem with these shows is that they often fall into the torpes they were trying to subvert/parody and become another generic show of that genre
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Tanteikingdomkey



Joined: 03 Sep 2008
Posts: 2345
PostPosted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 4:32 pm Reply with quote
To be fair I do tell people to just watch the first 4 episodes and just leave it at that.

I do really enjoy the first four episodes of the series but that ends up being a stronger story if you just leave it as those 4 episodes.
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Kami-koto



Joined: 14 Feb 2019
Posts: 66
PostPosted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 5:04 pm Reply with quote
It's a decent show if you quit after the first episodes, indeed.
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Scalfin



Joined: 18 May 2008
Posts: 249
PostPosted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 5:08 pm Reply with quote
Grimvice wrote:
I get some of the grips about this show, but the attitude of "I want this character to be considered a jerk and have him get what he deserves" is low-key sociopathic.

As far as the characters and their level of development, I think this series is supposed to be looked at as a "comedy of errors" of sorts, being more focused on the characters' actions and what they mean in context of the genre's tropes rather than being fleshed out characters.

Also, the claim that Joro's characterization as a jerk being back-pedaled to a standard nice guy is unfair.

He wanted to have all the benefits of being a harem protagonist, so he played the part. As the series goes on, he unknowingly fulfills the role for real, and becomes more aware of becoming a genuine harem protagonist. But he realizes that it means that there is nothing special or genuinely interesting about himself (in relation to his talented and good-looking best friend), so he does not see Pansy's interest in him as a nice guy to be genuine.


Yeah, most of the reaction to him is projection by the reviewers. He decided that the best way to be liked is not have anything unlikable, making him as inoffensive and bland as a harem protagonist, and thought he was some sort of evil genius for having a distinct inner and public face with a large part of the joke being that that's the dominant concept of social behavior in Japan and only really unacceptable for shonen protagonists. The worst he did was be aware of the ways he would benefit from helping everyone around him. By contrast, the two girls he was working with either knowingly or unknowingly manipulated his liking of them to make him go to great effort for their benefit and then turned on him the second he thought about his best friend since childhood. Similarly, that friend decided to ruin the MC's life and reputation because a girl he had a crush on liked the MC, showing an inability to think of anyone else as having their own stories (much like the girls who had a crush on him).

Overall, the main message of the show was that living in a society doesn't mean completely obliterating yourself, and you're more likely to prosper if you are to a distinct taste rather than a blank mask.
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Punch Drunk Marc



Joined: 04 Oct 2013
Posts: 1742
PostPosted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 7:32 pm Reply with quote
I found the show immensely enjoyable despite a few hiccups and had a very interesting commentary on the nature of Harem shows. It was essentially (at least to me) a less involved Oregairu.
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Sisyphusson66



Joined: 04 Dec 2018
Posts: 96
PostPosted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 8:09 pm Reply with quote
Oresuki started off well for me. It appeared to be an intriguing look at the harem genre from the viewpoint of the horny male best friend character that a number in the genre have amongst their characters. The comedy was spot on, and I really enjoyed seeing Joro's attempts to assist Himawari and Cosmos utterly fail due to their own specific brands of ineptitude and follow through. While it did shift from this after a few episodes, there were still some quality scenes, with the dance episode probably being the show at its peak. Honestly, the Oresuki could have ended there, and it would have been fine.

However, it continued, and for me, the only good part of the latter half was the introduction of Tanpopo. They introduced too many characters that seemingly existed just to say something inspiring to Joro. Hose was an interesting idea, but by the end of the final episode, spoiler[it becomes harem vs harem]. Again, could have worked, but it pitches Hose's harem, which is not an example of an harem I can think of, against Joro's, which is representative of most harem anime. Basically, spoiler[it seems that the ending is saying that if you are going to harem, at least be honest about it.]

There were two decisions made that I think were disservices to the characters involved in the second half. First, spoiler[Himawari falling in love with Joro. This shoehorned her into the harem and, for me, made her very uninteresting by the end. If she had been left as just the childhood friend, as with the ending of the dance, her character would have been better off, and much more interesting.] Second, spoiler[the main girls supporting Hose in the end because they love Joro. I get what they were trying to do, but it comes off as incredibly awful when you take into account that they are supporting Hose being with Pansy. They surely have seen the levels of trauma Pansy portrays towards his presence, but decide to ignore it. Yes they are being honest with themselves, but at the expense of their "friend."]
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Cryten



Joined: 19 Jan 2019
Posts: 978
PostPosted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 8:12 pm Reply with quote
While I watched the whole thing I feel that the show undermined its own premise by making Joro treat pansy and the central girls just like the people the show was attempting to lampoon. So unless the point of the show is that Joro is a hypocrit it just becomes a slightly edgy bland harem show.

They never even addressed the question of sun-chans and the girls lingering feeling for each other. Reducing their characters inputs to actually we love how Joro revealed how nasty we where. (Ironically since it was Pansy who did all that not Joro).
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ThrowMeOut



Joined: 10 Oct 2018
Posts: 256
PostPosted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 8:53 pm Reply with quote
Rarely have I seen an anime start so strongly and end so pathetically. The first episode had me in stitches, it's a masterpiece in satirical writing. But with each subsequent episode I felt this growing dread that the first episode was a fluke and I had been duped into watching Yet Another Generic Harem Show. And in the end Oresuki had little of interest to add to the anime conversation.

I wanted Joro to remain an asshole because not-so-nice-people make for great comedy! But nope after the first episode he became the usual wet paste every other harem dude is.
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ThatGuyWhoLikesThings



Joined: 04 Jul 2013
Posts: 1000
PostPosted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 9:13 pm Reply with quote
Joro genuinely cares about his friends and always has, he just also happens to want to see them naked. The female friends at least. Although probably Sun-chan too.

He was never presented as this irredeemable garbage lord like you claim he was, he always had a good heart, you just had to do a lot of digging to get to it. Probably the biggest evidence supporting this is in the opening episodes is when Joro agrees to help Cosmos and Himawari in their romantic endeavors and doesn't actually think of the "catch one of them on the rebound" plan until afterward. Which very strongly implies that he would have helped them even when it brought him no personal benefit.

Putting aside Pansy being turned into the "author's mouthpiece" and how silly that thought is (she has every reason to be critical about Joro being disingenuous about the reason for his supposed altruism, given that we later learn that Hazuki is pretty much the same way), the way I see it is that Joro's primary reason for wanting a harem, aside from being just being horny, is that he suffers from an inferiority complex about being seen as a "background character" (the first episode suggested this, albiet comedically), and is genre-savvy enough know that getting a harem is a one-way ticket to being a "main character". He wants to feel important, like a somebody, and his cackling villain persona is, in part, him compensating for what he feels that he lacks.

I guess I'll be the odd one out and say that Oresuki got even better as it went on, with progressively better writing even if the satirical elements waned a bit (although they're still very definitely present, Hazuki is essentially a Dense Harem MC gone awry). It becoming a harem didn't really hurt the show at all and actually left it more well-equipped to poke fun at these tropes. And it also never stopped being absolutely hilarious, which is basically the only quality that actually matters.

It also has the honor for having possibly the greatest non-ending to an anime I think I've ever seen. Up there with Rokka no Yuusha.


Last edited by ThatGuyWhoLikesThings on Thu Jan 09, 2020 9:23 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Cryten



Joined: 19 Jan 2019
Posts: 978
PostPosted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 9:18 pm Reply with quote
I just want to say that I think its quite okay for people to like the show, I still enjoyed it despite its problems. People get different things out of the same work and its good for it to gel with yourselves. We just have to accept that not everyone will agree with our personal takes on it.

(Also an attempt to avoid entering into the realms of trying to persuade others that their opinion is wrong).
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