All the gamer cringe aside, I really fuckin' liked this!
It's so refreshing to not have a harem of girls falling for the loner-suddenly-turned-cool kid. Loved that he actually put in effort to become more social, and the things he did were pretty realistic.
Loved that he didn't just make friends and surround himself with girls, it wasn't wish-fulfillment. He made active effort to even make guy friends, which sounds so normal but again is so rare in anime cuz everyone just wants a harem lol. And the guy characters were properly thought out too, and so were the girls; everyone was.
None of the characters were the completely 1D, single-trope deal. The way they talk normally and interact also feels great; dialogue flow, nuance and voice-acting. The psyches of the main duo are also so refreshing, idealist-realist kinda guy and dogmatist pedant kinda girl. It was really cool seeing them work together but also clash.
The absolute best thing was
That was sooo refreshing again! So real and this is just one example. This show just does actual, real human relationships so fuckin' well, man. Of course some can nitpick, it's not "perfectly" realistic, but its still a show, a piece of entertainment after all, so it's gotta be entertaining, and in a world full of harems and whatnot, I can't help but feel an arguably unusual deep appreciation for Tomozaki, where a dude is genuinely just trying to make friends and improve himself. No offense to harem shows, its a perfectly valid form of entertainment, but I'd always chose something like Tomozaki over those.
In the visuals department, I can't say I have any real complaints honestly. The visuals feel nice and pleasant, there's no instances where quality dropped in the visuals; it's all consistent. The art, I really like the art, especially the character designs, man those characters look great! The art is your standard, clean and modern style but still has more detail and nuance that it stands out and can differentiate itself. Again, nothing ground breaking but seriously nothing to complain about, with great character designs. The backdrops also feels like it has a good amount of detail and some backdrops look really good, especially during the important scenes, to really make them shine! Oh and also, damn those mid-roll cards look sooo goood, oof.
Animation is the same too; consistent, good quality and works well with the vibe of the show.
In audio, voice acting is nice and never ruins immersion, which is very important for a show that heavily relies on character interaction and development. As pointed out above, it all feels very natural. Other sound design never ruins immersion and well, "just fits" without getting in the way, which imo is a good thing for such a show. The OP, I like, its fun and catchy and the visuals are great and suit the song. The ED is alright.
Also, I feel this can be really fun to rewatch, though that's subjective I guess.
This is the first time I've written this much on a show. Usually I just write comments under list updates but for Tomozaki I felt compelled to write a full review (my first too! hehe). I just want more people to watch this and its rating rn is alright, I'd want it to be higher tho, maybe thats why.
I get why its "low" tho (tho 71 isn't low by any means, but still), the gamer talk can be kinda cringe, I get it, but there aren't that many anyway and under it all its got some real good and refreshing stuff going.
It's not flawless, its not the second coming of Christ. But it's worth it and I massively enjoyed the show, the characters, their interactions and their development.
Watch it!
Also, Izumi best girl good lawrd. <3
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