Anime ATM 107 Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku

This actually aired back in the day, but I didn't watch it because I was satisfied with the manga. But then I saw a really cute clip on IG of Hirotaka and Narumi and decided to watch it haha. The power of suggestion. After watching it, all I am is more bitter and still single. Oh well. But it definitely made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside while watching it. 

I've definitely seen some really nice Youtube videos reviewing this anime and talking about how it portrays adult life and mature working adult people romance well. I can neither confirm nor deny this claim as I am a 20 year old child that passes as an adult on a good day. But what I can say is that it's not a super showy shoujo sparkles kind of romance. And it's not the kind of romance with lines that would be really cringy if someone were to say it to you in real life but is somehow passable in manga format. You know what I'm talking about. It falls in a happy place that feels realistic and genuine. 

If you've ever wondered what your life might be like as an adult otaku, this show might be a glimpse into the future you's life. The show features different kinds of otaku: games, BL, and shoujo mainly. It focuses on four main coworkers that all secretly happen to be otaku. Well, it's not necessarily secret, just not a well-known fact. There's two main couples, and both are really really cute. The dynamics of Hanako and Kabakura's relationship is kinda like an old married couple in a way, but there's also an interesting gap dynamic going on with Hanako highkey wearing the pants in this relationship and Kabakura the shoujo otaku. While Narumi and Hirotaka kinda felt like the main couple to me, especially with the whole childhood friends thing going on, definitely don't forget about Hanako and Kabakura; they're really sweet. 

It follows their daily lives as office workers during the day and otaku during nights and weekends. But it also shows them doing "normal people" kinds of things. LOL idk how else to say it. I definitely don't mean to box people into certain labels, but there's definitely a variety of dates and hangout activities they do, both otaku and non-otaku-centric. For example, they go to the amusement park on dates, but they also go to the summer Comiket and buy doujins together. That kind of thing. There's definitely lots of fun little side stories and just wholesome get-togethers and hangouts. They live the sort of ideal adult life I think a lot of us wish we will have in the future. Obviously it glamorizes work and adulting and everything like that, but I'm hopeful adult life is actually like that *wheeze*

Overall, it's a really sweet romcom slice of life to enjoy. It gives you something to aspire towards as you become an adult. It also might make you bittter that you don't have this super cute relationship, but hopefully watching this could satisfy that desire for human contact while we continue to shelter in place. It's just really really nice to watch all of these cute and fluffy moments and indulge in this life that's different from your own. Ah, I love escapism. 

Anime ATM 64 Tsure x dure Children

The manga's still going on, but I couldn't help but watch the anime once it was finished for the season. I just feel so completely wholesome and fulfilled after watching it. I know that probably sounds ridiculous, but there's just something so cute about the whole thing.

{There can't be spoilers if everything ends happily ever after with no plot twists and all your ships set sail right?}

Every episode is comprised of smaller episodes that follow the manga's format where every short chapter features one pair and whatever they're getting up to. It's not really organized in any other way besides that. I think that lends itself to being more engaging as you get a taste of the different dynamics between the different couples, but also makes it harder to form connections of fondness for them beyond a shallow level. But of course there's nothing wrong with that. Especially when all the couples are so cute. There's honestly no couple that I dislike. All of them have their problems and they're never portrayed like the perfect couple. They have problems with communication, with pressure about pacing, and overall just the discomfort that comes with having no experience. It's this portrayal of innocence that makes it so cute to watch, just witnessing their first springs and the different ways their romance unfolds. I don't want to get into the specifics of each couple because that completely ruins the point of you watching it since I don't give any explicit spoilers so I just think you should watch it and bathe yourself in the purity that is this show.

I can't say that it was the best quality anime in terms of like art or music budget. There was no ED, and the OP was alright, but this is understandable considering every episode is around 12 minutes anyways. The timing of the episodes is dangerous because it's so easy to just binge it all. Not like I did that...of course not. I'm a respectable, responsible college student. Ahaha okay don't follow my example, but it is an extremely easy watch. I was really in it just for the cute relationships. I had this stupid smile plastered on my face for most of those two or so hours. It was a good use of time I assure you.

Overall I definitely recommend you watch it. There's no stress. It's a happy time. It's so pure and there's so much awkwardness that just makes life seem like it's not that bad and you can keep going with your life. And there's guaranteed to be a character like you in there. It's got some good representation of different people in different types of relationships like the secretly jealous ones, the ones that go through a lot of misunderstands, ones with a bad sense of timing. And it's in perfect sync with how relationships nowadays are especially with smartphones and texting. Ya know, the hip and cool stuff. It's just really really really charming. 

OMG look at his face so pure ugh

asdfghjkl; how could he just not know??

T^T friendship is so close yet so far from what she wanted

How does badger badger mushroom even relate??

 

Why did I relate so much to this sequence?

Relationship goals. TBH if I were to be in a relationship I'd want to have a dynamic like this.

His friend is such a savage, but at the same time the actual best wingman besides Yo-chan

HE'S SO CRINGE WORTHY BUT SO RIDICULOUSLY FUNNY

This is gonna be me I swear

Me @ all my friends

Me when my friends tell me about awk occurrences (especially since we all started college at different places :') ok that actually made me really sad Imma shut up now)

Why are you still here? Go watch it!

Anime Blurb 50 Hiyokoi OVA

So I watched this long, long ago before the war was even conceptualized. I dunno what this means, but it sounds cool right? I had forgotten how blatantly awkward and relatively succinct everything was. Huh...

{Spoilers, but who really cares because you could always watch it in 22 minutes and then come back to read this to relive the kawaii-ness}

So the premise of this story is that there's this really short girl that got hit by a bus (??!) which prevented her from starting school with the others. I really don't understand how you can recover from getting hit by a bus in less that six months but okay??? And since she's really shy it's hard for her to make friends, but since she made friends with the popular kid she made hecka friends in one day. If you didn't get the hint already, this is a highly ideal situation and not likely to happen in real life like ever. And the guy is super tall so if you really like the extreme height difference trope maybe this is something you wanna check out.

Overall this anime OVA is extremely short at less than 23 minutes. There's a manga if you want more of this kind of thing. It's really cute for the doki-dokis. We've got some lil colorful spheres going on floating around and spinning flowers. Really good stuff here. And we've got some nice supportive characters. Honestly if you have 22 minutes then you have no real reason not to watch this OVA. It's short, it's cute, and it's kind of relatable if you're awkward like me. I can't say that you can find the best quality of this, the Youtube video is literally 240 pixels (which is why my screenshots suck, excuse me T^T I have failed), but it's a really good short watch. You don't have to think too much about whether to watch this or not because it just fills you with really fond fuzzies inside.

This is gonna be me my whole first year at college >~< I'm really not looking forward to the social part

This is probably the most iconic scene of Hiyokoi, actually kinda all I remember from watching the first time. The pain! The horror! The trauma!

I can't get over the lil chick on her head. If they sold a barrette of this I'd be down to wear it.

I could've ended it with a picture of Hiyori's blooming love...but I really just enjoy the relatable awkwardness which is her so...ya here you go

Anime Blurb 49 Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou

So I accidentally rewatched this one. The story behind this one is I think I started watching it three years ago, finished it, and watched something with a similar protagonist or something so I completely forgot that I finished it. I ran across a gif set of the series on Tumblr and thought to myself, "Self, did I ever finish that series?" And I thought to myself, "Self, no I don't believe I did." Which led to me fabulously rewatching the series. Amazing memory. In my defense though slice of life anime don't have a clear plot in the traditional sense some of the time. They're meant more for relaxation and different arcs/experiences rather than an action packed series with ups and downs. I couldn't remember the ending is what I'm trying to say.

As far as rewatching it went, it was rather pleasant. I wouldn't say you should watch this in public though. If you value your reputation as a respectable member of society I wouldn't recommend you watch this in places you could be seen. There's a lot of ecchi in here if I'm being honest. At first I thought that it would get better with time...it doesn't. I think it was because I was so innocent the first time I watched this through (thinking about this maybe this was the third-ish time I rewatched. I think the first time I didn't finish it because I forgot about it lol) that I didn't get all of the innuendos. But now watching it I'm just glad no one came into my room at the wrong time because oh my lord this was truly the stereotypical perverted teenage boy anime. I can't elaborate further so I'll just let you imagine the depths to which this anime went.

Besides that though this anime has a lot of entertainment value. Just on the surface the OP and the ED are both very cheerful and the ED is mildly vocaloid esque. I couldn't tell you which song because I never went through the vocaloid phase myself, but it reminded me of some of the songs my friend made me watch while going through said vocaloid stage. And visually it makes me really happy. The art style is so shoujo. We've got all the lens flares, all the rosy tones, and all the shoujo sparkles to make anyone's pastel aesthetic pleased. And their eyes too. It's just a very pretty anime. My friend would go so far as to say it was very kira kira. *sigh* I know, my friends are all lowkey weaboos. But the pastel aesthetic and all the sparkles are really very pretty. Just the last couple seconds of the OP are great in and of themselves. Standalone art pieces.

Beyond the surface of the anime are the interesting inhabitants of the Kawai Complex. We've got a guy that looks super suspicious but is really a huge M (Shiro aka comic relief), a country girl that underwent a complete transformation and now plays with the hearts of any and all males (Sayaka aka comic relief), the owner who facilitates this all and purposefully made the boarding house the zoo it is (Sumiko aka comic relief), a girl who can't get herself a man for long because her tastes are terrible (Mayumi aka comic relief), a girl who likes to be left alone to read (Ritsu aka main love interest), and a guy who wanted to turn over a new leaf in high school but ends up with weirdos all around him again (Usa aka comic relief while being the protagonist). As you can see there's a whole lot of comic relief, mostly because the genre itself calls for it to be. Slice of life is meant for relaxation and when you watch this you can feel very relaxed because nothing really dramatic goes on. All of the characters deal with their individual situations and congregate in the house to hang out. Something that makes it nicer than other slice of life is the varying ages of the inhabitants of the Kawai Complex. You aren't only seeing high school romance. You see the off time of office workers and of people with unconventional jobs and how their lives differ from said high school arcs. This gives some more variety as to the kind of happenings. A lot of scenes are based around the common area where everyone can get together, with the most common location being the dining area. Everyone comes together to eat, celebrate and catch up with one another. It's extra special when one of them gets to eat their favorite food. I read this one section in some packet for AP Lit talking about how eating a meal isn't just eating a meal with other people. It also reveals the dynamic between everyone. And I think in this case that's very true. There's a lot that can be revealed with how the characters interact with one another, like how Shiro interjects himself into conversations, how Sayaka and Mayumi have their cat-and-dog fights and how Ricchan, as everyone close to her refers to her, sits quietly and reads or snickers as an onlooker at everyone else's antics. I think these scenes make the series more quaint and give it warmth it wouldn't otherwise have.

Overall this is a really great anime in terms of visuals, music, mood, and aesthetics as long as you can overlook the ecchi aspect of it. If you can do that get ready to enjoy a beautiful piece that has a variety of arcs and leaves you with a homey, familial feeling.

See what I mean by aesthetic?

This was so funny just because it was so completely and utterly ridiculous. No gust of wind could only knock her book out of her hand of course, but beyond that her whole explanation and her facial expression while she was delivering her lie were priceless.

This wasn't supposed to be a sad scene, but it was definitely for me. Chinatsu became friends with Shiro because he reminded her of her weaknesses and while he was happy that she made up with her friends, he was still sad that he was alone again. Also the Rue Goldberg machine they made together was such a beautiful testament to their friendship.

Suss! I don't know why I found this so funny, but I did so here you go. Super suss!

Knight in shining armor revamped

Episode 8 was my favorite because of happideath and embaricide. It was overall adorable and gave me the doki-dokis.

The facial expressions in this show are priceless. Ah, I dont have pictures of chibi's, but chibi Ricchan's expressions are the best.

I thought it was fitting to end with a picture of the ED because they're all such cute friends.

Anime Blurb 45 Soredemo Sekai wa Utsukushii

*deep breath in* This was a bad decision to watch. There's a reason usually when you've never heard of an anime and it's already been aired and had a decent time to accumulate a reputation as to why you've never watched it before: it's bad. I don't like to be overly critical, but...

{Spoilers probably to save you from watching this}

Okay, so straight off the bat I wouldn't say it's bad. In fact I'd say there are some good parts to it. Like it shows a more gradual development of romantic feelings, I imagine that in the manga it's even more drawn out, and it portrays a different sort of love story. While the whole height difference thing has been covered by Lovely Complex I can't help but appreciate any new take on the romantic dynamic. There's already so many stories about the run of the mill tall, dark, and handsome man and docile, beautiful, pure woman. It's been done countless times. What makes this spin a bit different is the age gap, with Livius being a child and Nike being a teenager. So hats off to you creators who decided to have a new spin on the classic shoujo/fantasy genre. Additionally I really enjoyed the singing. Every time Nike would break out into her rain song I'd sing along ~It's a tender raiiiiiiiin~. Man, Maeda Rena has vocals. Or at least it was a really catchy song. I'd say at least watch the Youtube video of it so you get what I'm talking about. The OP and ED were okay, but the Tender Rain song was the best one.

However, I do have some problems with this. Although it was a more gradual development of feelings than some of the other anime I've watched, logically it doesn't make sense for Livius to just kiss Nike whenever. I get it, it's kind of a territorial thing or whatever, but at the same time he's actually like 10 or something. Most kids do think about war games and such, but I doubt they think at such a romantic level. You could argue otherwise by saying he's been influenced by his womanizing uncle or the three elders with whom he takes council, but I still find it rather disturbing for a child to act in such a way. Also can we just take a moment to analyze his relationship with Sheila? Because at times I got some Oedipus Rex like overly caring motherly love. I suppose if my mom was treated like a trashy concubine I'd also be pretty protective, but sometimes his adoration seemed a little...more than necessary. But then again that's just my own interpretation. And it seems like Nike's song soothed his heart from the pain of losing Sheila. If we're going with the logic that he's more like a child that can be soothed by a child's lullaby then this is a passable explanation. However if we're going deeper as to say that through his revenge he became more like an adult, supported by the fact that everyone around him thinks that he is wise and lacks childish innocence, then it doesn't really make sense for her singing her rain song twice to really give him a full 360 degrees change of heart and forget all about Sheila. Of course this could've also been done to give more emphasis on the changing dynamic between Livius and Nike as they come to actually love each other, Livius because Nike soothed his heart and Nike because...he's a sweet kid? I could see this being more as sibling love until it gets a bit more suggestive in the last episode. (Am I over-analyzing this show that's supposed to be simple? Maybe.)

Speaking of Nike's singing, can we just talk about how her rain song is suppose to be more sacred? It's actually a sacred ritual and she's like "Sorry, I can't use this for parties and whatever" but the second it becomes political she's like "Well, gotta satisfy the hubby." Excuse me? You're an independent woman right up until your husband needs you to do something for him? I don't think so. This logic truly doesn't make sense to me at all. Nike in general infuriates me because at the beginning she seemed like such a free spirit. Both Livius and Kitora said that she was like freedom itself and they were scared she would fly away and never return. So for her to be so independent at the beginning, running off her ship without anyone she knew and without knowing anything about the country she comes off as a bit reckless and happy-go-lucky. And then her character kind of fluctuates. Sure she still fights back but then she's like "Huh, maybe I should help this little boy out." Maybe her motivations and inner thoughts are revealed more in the manga, but the anime by itself was not as comprehensive or in depth about her internal thought process as I would've liked. Am I asking too much for a strong female lead? Maybe. I mean this was produced in 2014. Speaking of the stereotypical female lead, even if you give her some unspeakable power that's just an easy out for making her the most special. It's nothing to really talk about. Especially when you don't elaborate. Again there are probably some holes from the manga, but still. I'd like to watch and understand her power and why exactly she doesn't use it and how if she was this powerful why she wasn't a child prodigy at rain summoning? How does it make sense for the most powerful rain summoner to suddenly get the power to wreck three countries? Magic? A highly convenient and unsatisfying answer.

And I didn't even get into Nike's family. It's a mess. But I guess it was all satisfied in the end by the fact that they did it out of sub-ordinance to the grandmother and out of love for Nike. It was all solved anyways by the fact that the grandmother sent them off with farewell rain. This was also lightweight a side arc just to further the romance.

All in all I'd say that this isn't worth your time watching unless you've already read the manga and just want some colored, motion visuals to go along with the story line and background you already have in your head. If you choose to pick this up otherwise you might find some discrepancies and some dissatisfaction with this anime if you couldn't already tell with my review. Sorry for my angry rant, I tried to cut it short...didn't really work.

The narration voice was strangely soothing.

Shouldn't it be "good of the world"? Because, ya know, he's king of the world. He conquered everything.

Me when someone compliments me

...abuse of power?

Awh...but also, abuse of power?

I don't know what this is but I love it

The best fan service

This was better than the actual romantic stuff

Why is she not dead?? She made it rain at the hurricane level for like an hour

Roast!!!

The side characters are better than the mains tbh

This is pretty cute you gotta admit

Bromance in the air

This just makes me angry. This codependency is so unhealthy.

Lastly, I just wanna say, the side characters are better than the mains.

Anime Rant 41 ReLIFE

I definitely did not binge watch this and neglect to do other work solely because I didn't want my friend to finish it before me...*breaks eye contact*

I basically started this anime looking for some relatable af life advice/guidance for how I should live my life. Please don't judge. I know I shouldn't be basing such serious life decisions on cartoons. I realize how reckless that sounds. But really this anime is great for life advice.

{Spoilers}

So it starts out like a lot of other anime with the getting ready scene, except for this guy, Kaizaki Arata, is a NEET so he's getting dressed like a salary man just so he can go out with his friends to drink. From this first impression of the show you can already see there's some dark themes being eluded towards. But trek on we must, rage rage against the dying of the light (Oh Lord, what is AP Lit doing to me?) After his drinking fest with some random guys he's on his way home...and falls right into a Kyuubei from Madoka Magica sort of deal. You think I'm joking around or something, but I'm not.

Anyways, so after Yoake is introduced in this really shady way you expect things to go downhill from there. And, not gonna lie, they kinda do. But in the process of Kaizaki's terrible assimilation into school life he meets some pretty cool people. And proceeds to do fun things with those people for the rest of the series. The end. Just kidding! 

In the midst of it all there's this underlying tone of mystery as the two employees of the ReLIFE lab are constantly lying to Kaizaki about what's going on, or at least only giving him half truths. This leads to a certain form of trust-distrust dynamic as Kaizaki is essentially going through his school life blind. He came here so he could get a job and get his life back in order, but the means to do that basically have him in the middle of all this high school, typical slice of life drama. I mean seriously. You have everything. You have the childhood friends questionable love triangle,

to clueless teenagers,

and it escalates so fast to guys that can't even wear neckties because of their senpai at work's cause of death. And you think that it can't get any worse and no more angst can be added, but throughout the entire thing there are allusions to an experiment 01 who probably went to the high school, but no one really knows. And it seems like Yoake always has his guard up because of this failed first experiment. 

So I basically went through this whole thing just trying to puzzle through all of their motivations and their separate traumas. Because seriously all of them have problems. Some of them are simple like Oga's lack of love sensibility and Hishiro's inability to make friends and then some are more dramatic like Rena's inferiority complex and Tamarai's social exclusion. 

Throughout the entire thing I got kind of vintage vibes. Like the whole idea of being able to start over your life in order to learn from your mistakes and then change yourself is super original. But I was reminded by other anime while watching this one. Like the ED where it's the main characters just panning across the screen? I dunno, that just gave me those vintage vibes. And in the OP when they disappeared so it was just Arata in line with a bunch of flowers? Anohana much? And when they had the iconic piano scale piece (or it was kind of like a scale at least) it reminded me of Kiznaiver and that crazy music playing whenever the fish things would appear. There were just a lot of little reminders that were probably just coincidental that made me reminisce about all the anime I've watched. Maybe the fact that I've watched so many contributes to the fact that I can find similarities. 

I've gotta give the production props for personalizes each of the ED's in a different way. I'm pretty sure most, if not all, of the ED's had a different piece of music playing. If not then they had a different image placed in there or something along those lines.

compared to

Honestly speaking, the attention to detail and the personalization of everything, like the pills, was a very nice touch. Perhaps it's symbolic, like the episode where the cause of Arata's senpai's death was revealed, the usually white part of the pill was gray. Or how the episode about Yoake's failure with Subject 01 had an orange pill.

But besides the small details and how I focused too much attention on those, I did get some great life advice from this anime. This whole anime is about regret. It's about doubting yourself and losing all self-confidence. It's about gaining and rebuilding all of the confidence that you thought was lost forever. Many of these characters deal with self-doubt and fear of failure/learned helplessness from being trapped in situations that were impossible to change. And so this anime really teaches (I know learning is gross and these 'moral lessons' the way I phrase them probably seem horrifying. I'm sorry, but I don't really know how else to phrase it) you about the value of time, something personally impactful as I'm a second semester senior. These kids are honestly at the same crossroads as I am and so to see someone else struggle in the same position I am is almost comforting. This anime really teaches you the value of taking risks and seeing the blessings that often come disguised. I mean, when Arata left the company he left on his own moral compass, not really caring about any of the repercussions or consequences until afterwards. And while at first that seemed like a bad thing, in the end it turned him into somewhat of a hero.

See? He wouldn't have made such an impact if he hadn't left. Sure, at the time he probably thought it was a terrible decision, but it ultimately ended up being a life-changing experience. I don't think anyone can really say with 100% confidence that they made the right decision. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's not really important that you pick the perfect option, but that you make the most of what your options accumulate up to.

Okay I think I'm done ranting for now because I took wayyyyyyyy too many screenshots. I tried something new by integrating some of the pictures as visual examples (but mostly to break up the amount of screenshots I took). Ahem, now here is everyone's favorite part:

Ah, the beginning of the semester of makeups

Are you getting the Sawako from Kimi ni Todoke vibes? Because I sure did.

This is a beautiful quote. It made me laugh. Truly.

I love Yoake just chilling there, observing his subject like a fond guardian

Some of Arata's faces just kill me

Nobu is seriously the most pure secondary character

Just look at their reactions!!! They're so cute ~ヾ(＾∇＾)

That awkward moment when you act your actual age (゜▽゜;)

Gugure Kokkuri-san eyes?

I love how they're both eavesdropping on this intense conversation

She's so satisfied with herself and it's just so pure 

This whole sequence was gold. "If you got a girlfriend I'd be able to study better" like what kind of logic is this? Illogical logic, but I love it. And omg when Oga is literally a level of purity.

His reaction (*´艸`*)

Sometimes they're so similar it's endearing

He's so bright it's great

But other time's he's just a sad little cinnamon roll that tried his best (honestly parallelism between Arata and Yoake)

When you find your academic equal

Isn't this the prettiest thing you've ever seen? Look at that rainbow!!!

She's so socially awkward and he's honestly not even that weirded out by it

Tamarai is honestly the best wing-woman

And Rena deserves such a great friend because of her undying loyalty

This is every student to every other student after every test

TFW Hishiro still doesn't get social cues. The candid audacity.

Thanks Arata for being the nosy old man you really are. You gave the opportunity for the ship to sail just a bit further.

I just love the fact that he was freaking out about the situation and then later when he puts down the cups they're not even overly filled

This series was saved from being incredibly scarring because of all of the couple scenes

Someone get this girl a cookie. She needs one.

Give her the whole batch of cookies.

Nobu and Inukai hiding behind their bags gives me life. Their similarity is too cute.

AWHHHHHHHHHHHH. When one half of the ships watch their counterparts.

LOL when you want to ask if your friend is stupid or going crazy, but don't know how to phrase it

An is so cute. And Yoake's face says 'I agree'

They literally tag team to roast Arata

Oga level density--let's go

Awh her face <3

Tamarai is the best wing-woman pt.2 + Arata

Their awkwardness is so beautiful

Just appreciate everyone's reactions

And after this beautiful scene is Hishiro's realization that she was Subject 01 in the ReLIFE project...I definitely didn't start tearing up at this point...it's the allergies...

Not. Crying.

.

.

.

Definitely. Not. Crying.

It's been confirmed that I need another season. I need to know if when Hishiro and Arata turn back into adults if they end up together. Like all the other ships are pretty well established. But just this one. This is painful. Because what if they switch back and both forget the other? Or something. ｡ﾟ(ﾟ´Д｀ﾟ)ﾟ｡