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REVIEW: There's No Freaking Way I'll Be Your Lover! Unless… ~Next Shine~ Episodes 13-17 Anime Review

Overall, this has been a massive hit in the Yuri genre among everyone that I watch anime with - and given how the quality of titles has fallen off over the last several years/decade (Isekai everywhere!), this completely blindsided me and everyone in my orbit as we all wait for The Guy She Liked to get its time on screen. It has a cozy tone and poignancy to it that I don't think I've seen elements of since Genshiken Nidaime's Hato.

I rant endlessly on this website about how Mushoku Tensei has soooooo much ick factor dripping off of it, centered around how they build up to their main core relationship that's central to the series, and then out of nowhere, Lovers|Unless comes along and shows how you can have the characters be insecure, off-kilter, momentarily-inappropriate, and non-monogamous, and it instantly divorces itself from the creep-factor pitfall Mushoku Tensei lands in.

Why am I dragging another show into this? The quality of other Yuri out there is always subject to weird comedy-ecchi male gaze shite. If Lovers|Unless had come out in the early/mid 2000's, I'd totally have expected some spectrum of "the camera stops on their chests and allows several frames of 'bounce' before continuing the story". Going all the way back to something that was given massive accolades at the time, Kare Kano: His & Her Circumstances had this massively abrupt cutoff ending that pretty much undermined the entire show that came before it.

.....and Lovers|Unless manages to avoid every last one of those problems on the anime spectrum that stand out in my library of memories. The skin showing in various scenes never seemed intentioned as smutty (female gaze-appreciated in fact), if the show never gets more episodes, it finished off on a pretty great note after 17 of them, each arc keeps building and I don't really think they lose the momentum, and in the end, every character feels pretty-fully realised. I don't look back on my time with the show as if the characters are these 1-dimensional one-off jokes. A new layer of complexity always seems to peel off after a 2nd or 3rd viewing of any given episode.

Subtextually as the show went on, it was clear that some range of comphet or general insecurity was keeping Rena from verbalising that she did in fact enjoy her romantic time with Mai. It was easier to verbalise it with Ajisai, but it was definitely present with Mai as well. When you tie in what Mai's feels are behind her smiley facade, it really paints a great main character that has faults for their inappropriate timing/actions, but not in a way that the show seems to be willfully-ignorant to. Again, if they never make another episode, this has probably been the best Yuri series I have ever watched thus far in my lifetime. I absolutely cannot wait to see what The Guy She Liked has in store after this was such a winner for the genre.