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Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - The Least Cute Meet-Cute and Other Summer Love Stories
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Dr. Wily
Posts: 865 |
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Seeing Marin's ahegao shirt may have been the hardest I've laughed at an anime in.... well, years might be an overstatement, but definitely the hardest I've laughed in a good long while.
Also it wasn't really on my radar but I think this column might have convinced me to give Bad Girl a shot. |
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Thesarum
 SubscriberPosts: 779 |
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Bad Girl is significantly more horny than I was really expecting, and hilarious with it. I'm not sure I'd describe any of it's characters as "believable", but that's not really what you come to a show like this for. You come for the jokes where Yuu innocently clicks on "Girl x Dog" search results, melts her brain, and then dives back in for a second look. And I know we're not doing sequels, but if we want to talk leads with fantastic chemistry, then Call of The Night is right there too. |
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FishLion
Crazy Fangirl Posts: 861 |
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I've really loved it so far! It is so goofy and madcap but also so earnest about the feelings that it hits a nice sweet spot of always laughing but still caring about the characters. |
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MFrontier
Posts: 20003 |
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I feel like Watari is a type of series where the characters and plot are intentional feel "off." Whether you vibe with Satsuki's aggressiveness is another issue, but I feel like she's basically Suzukiri from Loser Ranger/Ranger Reject in a romcom anime and that works for me.
I assume the romance in Solo Camping improves considering it's a 2-cour anime though who knows. At least they dropped the sexual assault plot point. But I don't think it's trying to be the new Laid Back camp. "I can see some shrew-taming going on here, and I'm not certain how much I like it." - I did wonder between the latest episode with Niko and the ED's if the girls were steered away from anything feminine by their father. Sally Amaki is basically doing a British accent by Japanese standards, so I think that's forgivable. Obviously the age-gap will be a make or break it deal for people but overall I think the show, and Lily and Renji's relationship, is cute. I don't think they've had Lily acting younger than her age at any rate. I think the whole "friends versus dating" thing was intentionally supposed to be wishy-washy. Also: "paid lip-service to the horniness of a character like Mai," - not sure how it's lip-service when the character is so undeniably and demonstrably horny. |
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quoss
Posts: 132 |
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Shining reviews got me to check out See You Tomorrow at the Food Court and I only made it halfway through the first episode. Wada seems terrible... all she talks about is her phone, and Yamamoto's rather basic remarks about intelligent life on other planets was met with a degree of stupefaction and disinterest that, well, really would come from someone who only talks about their phone. She's also judgemental and critical of Yamamoto's propensities, trying to urge her to be more basic, "act like a high schooler," develop brain rot? I see no appeal...
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TokimekiCrisis
Posts: 131 |
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If you're looking for romance specifically I would not recommend Food Court. At least as far as chapter 25 of the manga it's pure platonic friendship with zero yuri or anything of romance insight aside from a few offhanded mentions of boyfriends. Stick with it if you like the two girls friendly interactions but it sounds like you don't. But what qualifies as a romance series seems to be up to interpretation for some people. Does a show actually have to focus on the romance angle of a show to be called a romance if the fans perceive it as such? I remember last year when volumn 3 of The Summer Hikaru Died came out some people accused the mangaka of removing the boys love tag from it from the official website and the mangaka had to step in and say it was never tagged as boys love there and it was always about coming of age and horror first and foremost but BL fans could certainly still watch and enjoy it if they liked the characters. Some people might still call it a BL though even if the mangaka doesn't want it to be labeled as such because they like the character dynamic or ship the two leads. |
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Joe Mello
 Posts: 2560 Location: Online Terminal |
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Since what they're describing is a pretty typical teenager experience, I can't imagine their opinion is going to improve. It happens. It seems to me that the premise of Food Court would make for an excellent theatrical play. |
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InfiniteNothingness
 Posts: 371 |
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Hit the nail on the head for me as to why I dropped Solo Camping after like a volume. Belligerent and even antagonistic dynamics can make for entertaining foundations (I actually love them), slow developments even between two loners can be plenty fun just on their own, and one of the romantic leads being something of an ass can still be engaging so long as the back-and-forth ultimately isn't too grating; "unfortunately" Shizuku is all annoying and cute while Gen is ambiently unpleasant and charmless, the pivot getting them taped to one another left me sour, and altogether I felt more like I was just watching two unpleasant people barely tolerate one another as the plot inches inertly forward. Nothing for me to like whatsoever, and the anime looked pretty not-great to boot. Like, it's obviously not trying to be some cozy fare, and I would suppose try and feel more "adult" in how they are clearly imperfect adults, but this is one of those works focusing on adults that felt as immature as countless derided romcoms starring high schoolers just with a different coat of paint. Heck, I dropped and disliked I Got Married to the Girl I Hate Most in Class from a while back, and in retrospect still feel I was a bit overly harsh with that. Pretty familiarly pulling from works of yesteryear where they ultimately have an interest in one another but are both immature twerps, just the execution that left me cold. I could get it, though. And while not a romcom, this season's titular Mogura is a surprisingly lovable heel, helped as much by how willing the show is to take shots at his ingratiating neediness as it is to underscore the necessity by virtue of circumstances... and him just kind of being selfishly kind. Although, the remark about not much of value being lost honestly left a sour taste in my mouth, and personally doesn't even make up a millimeter of a silver lining. It's just always deeply unfortunate to see this sort of collapse, and the only difference I feel when it happens to something I like... is it happening to something I like.
Watari-kun will be fun to read when I get the chance, even if I dropped it two episodes in for being not interestingly messy enough. If the production faltered more it would have been one thing, and the show feels intentional enough in its framing and characterization that I also would have been plenty happy to see it be much better on the eyes — of course there is something to be said about the execution of it all, yet I find that kind of a separate discussion from the things it is awkwardly trying to say. It reads like a warped romcom with multiple genre standbys played straight, in the interest of looking at broader histories between its central characters, yet the exact ways it falters in its directing and art direction landed it in this unexpected uncanny valley of anime romcom for me. Although, I hated Tamayo. Satsuki is (seemingly, by design) unpleasant and grossly forces herself upon the MC, which I can work with to see if it goes anywhere; Tamayo is just obnoxious and one-note and mean even at times I would have thought a normal person like her would, yannow, see the clearly distressed young boy in front of her? Just a pain to watch whenever she was present. I don't expect to ever watch Cultural Exchange With a Game Centre Girl, which leaves me happy and sad at its expressiveness... I've been enjoying whatever I see and it's my flavor of cartooniness, alongside seemingly being setup to thrive. A big part of me does wish it was something different from what it clearly is given all of that. Oh well. Deeply deepy hate how REMOW is allowing WataNare's episodes to only exist for a week. At least I came prepared for some manner of bullshit, because it came from freaking REMOW. At least it looks wonderful and I'm eagerly looking forward to more of the girls; manga and what I've read of the LN, have charmed me. Bad Girl is stupid, horny, hornily stupid and I've been laughing easily at every episode. They're such a gaggle of goobers and even if it's more com than rom, I'm still happy adorable failgirl goody girl Yuu is allowed to hyperventilate on the screen. Although, I can't really agree with it being any more "earnest" than Mai, a girl who doesn't know the idea of not getting what she wants and wildly throwing herself at the person she fell for because she also doesn't know the concept of an "off switch," so much as a different flavor of (ironically) ignorant lesbian. I'd sooner describe it as putting more of its cards on the table... helped, accelerated, and necessitated by it being a simpler work with more modest aims (I say that with love, I've been thriving just knowing more and more wlw works are getting televised even if they don't always look great, and that's not even touching the queer works that aren't wlw!) |
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numberuno
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Gen does not want to be pleasant or charming to Shizuku when his being so to women like her in the past have resulted in his being taken advantage of. If he acts charming and pleasant, Shizuku will stick around and seek more opportunities to take advantage of him. Gen wants to get Shizuku to leave before she has the chance to . But Gen does not want to resort to threats or violence in order to get her to do so. The reason is that while Gen knows he has character flaws, he does not want to work to change his character flaws just to get along better with people who will mistreat him. But while he is content with his "benign" flaws, he does not want to be a bad person who hurts people the way that others have hurt him. The twist: Shizuku is only superficially like the women who hurt Gen. Instead she is more like Gen himself. She is aware of her flaws and is uninterested in fixing them. But she also does not want to hurt others. The romance will build on Gen seeing how similar he is to Shizuku and deciding to make the effort to become a better person as a result, leading Shizuku to reciprocate. Very good rom-com premise. The question is the execution. Of course, if you are going to simply write off any rom-com due to taking offense at a male lead who refuses to be an absolute gentleman who exists to endure the female character's flaws - hilarious that the people who feel this way are quick to denounce the "boring self insert anime romcom male main characters with no personality" - then you are going to find nits to pick. Somewhat more justifiable are people who criticize Shizuku for intruding on Gen's desire to be alone, but even then only to a point. Note how Gen's "I want to be alone" act was destroyed by mere beer chicken. Note: military types and actual outdoorsmen can easily go a day or two without food and aren't particularly picky about whatever they come across. This guy had been "by himself" for mere hours - the campsite manager had very recently left - and he is undone at the mere sight and smell of beer chicken prepared by a total stranger who raided his campsite to make it. Also his claim "beer chicken is too much to manage by a solo camper" was utterly false: the live action version (which airs on Viki) even hilariously lampoons it by pointing out that it is very achievable with advance planning and action: https://www.viki.com/tv/40932c-solo-camping-for-two So Gen's "I am happy seeking enlightenment through solo camping" was always a fraud, a defense mechanism. While the defense mechanism was the result of legitimate negative emotions arising from bad things that others had done to him, the defense mechanism itself was illegitimate and needed to be broken. This is a consistent theme with rom-com and other relationship anime and manga and is based on Buddhist ideas that are foundational to the Japanese worldview. The source material was a rather significant hit (for a seinen romcom about two adults camping anyway) and the live action adaptation did well also. So maybe it is something that just doesn't translate as well to western audiences due to worldview differences that permits more nuance than the modern western "all guys who act like jerks towards any women for any reason are motivated by toxic masculine misogyny" and "all requests to be left alone are self-evidently legitimate and should be unconditionally respected." |
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InfiniteNothingness
Posts: 371 |
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Oh, thanks for quoting that specific part of my trying to describe why I didn't enjoy any part of what I read. Lets me clarify the only relevant paragraph of this response to my feelings, as specifically "Shizuku is all annoying and no cute, while Gen is ambiently unpleasant and charmless." Also, because apparently it needed to be made clear: Charmless to follow as a character, that is. |
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NeverConvex
 Posts: 2690 |
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Man, I was a little blown away when they dropped that the male lead is supposed to be in university. Motivated me to go on a little wikipedia hunt trying to verify that Japanese middle school deals with ages in fact as young as I'd assumed, and there wasn't something I was missing in translation. (EDIT: looking at the wikipedia, I suppose they've gone with close to the minimal age difference possible given "university student" and "middle school student"---18 vs 13---but, ehhh...) It really shouldn't surprise me anymore, but it seems like a weird shame; the show's really cute otherwise, and it just seems unnecessary. The character models in-universe make it clear what's-his-face is older, but I didn't think he'd be that much older; they totally could have sold me on the difference being just a few years. And the premise doesn't seem to depend at all on the age difference, so it's just kind of unpleasantly sitting in the back of my brain each time I decide whether to continue with the show. 
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