There's No Freaking Way I'll Be Your Lover! Unless...

Episodes 1-3

I am of two minds about There's No Freaking Way I'll be Your Lover! On the one hand, the show does an excellent job of framing characters that feel trapped and held prisoner by preconceived notions about what it means to have specific relationships with people. Renako grew up ashamed of being an introvert due to her experiences with former friends, and feeling generally dissatisfied with how her life was going. She wants a fresh high school debut, but the show goes into how desperate she is to foster a friendship so much that she has sometimes willingly put herself in compromising positions or willingly been ignorant about the blurred lines between a friendship and romance to maintain one. She has all of these strong notions about what a friendship should be. Her stubbornness and trauma make it hard for her to see anything beyond the friendship angle of potential connection. A lot of the things revolving around Renako are where the show shines the strongest, but the problem is Mai. It is where things get a bit muddled.

Mai has a similar issue, but from the opposite side of the spectrum. This is somebody who is incredibly talented and seemingly beloved by many people, but all of it was surface level. She was never able to form a deep connection with others beyond a friendship because of how other people view her. I see what the show is trying to do in establishing that she was never able to open up to anybody, even her friends, and thus is conflating the connection she has with Renako to be an incredibly strong romantic desire. She is overcome with new emotions that she never even thought were possible at the time, and they are starting to hijack her seemingly perfect persona to the point where she is making some incredibly dangerous decisions. The problem is, I don't think the show does a good enough job of letting me see things from her perspective, at least this early on in the series.

Mai has friends she can connect with, but I never understand why she felt like she couldn't open up or confide in those friends. I also might be alone in this, but you should be able to confide in your friends just as much as you should be able to confide in your romantic partners. The show is trying to highlight that the problem with Mai is that, by not having other people to confide in, she is so overwhelmed with these romantic emotions. If she were able to gradually confide in other people, she would be able to better differentiate the difference between a friend and a lover. It might also make it easier for her to gain a bit of control over herself because right now, she is pushing boundaries in a way that I feel is getting progressively more uncomfortable as the series goes on. I already felt weird by the end of episode two with the bathtub scene, and how Mai randomly decides when she wants to act like a girlfriend, even though it seems to violate the rules of their agreement. But that scene at the end of episode three, where she was trying to push for more physical intimacy despite explicit protest in a house where they were not alone, left a sour taste in my mouth.

I like romances that progressively show the growth between both main characters and how they coincide with romantic developments. Having a show that plays around with the line between a romantic relationship and a genuine platonic friendship is nice, especially when the show has done a solid job of establishing why these two desire one type of relationship over the other. The problem is that the actions of the characters are speaking a lot louder than their words, and put Mai in a position where I feel like she is fighting an uphill battle to get me to like her as a character. Every time she takes a step too far, she apologizes, but never really adjusts her actions accordingly. She is so obsessed with being in this euphorically comfortable place of a romantic relationship that she is not listening or respecting boundaries. She's a funny character, as I like some of the jokes involving her, such as how she is incapable of lying. Still, I don't see why I should root for this character. If anything, I feel like the show should humble her a lot more and lean more into the platonic friendship, especially since that has so far been a stronger emotional and romantic crux.

The show is animated very well, and the voice acting sells a lot of the wavering emotions of its characters. I am curious how the rest of the extended cast will tie into the developing relationship between them. Will getting the other friends involved lead them to think that there is more to friendship, or is it just a means of getting Renako to realize that she only feels comfortable doing romantic things with Mai? I hope the show at least starts with the former before it transitions into the latter because things are messy right now despite being relatively engaging. I hope this mess sorts itself out because I see a lot of potential.

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