It's the year 2013, started watching anime almost a year ago and I wanted to start reading manga.I go to a TOTALLY LEGAL manga page and search the trending ones. There, I find one with an easy name (It didn't have more than 3 words in its name) and a kinda catchy cover. I start reading and fall in love with the characters. Miyamura the lonely boy who has suffered bullying, Hori the nice girl whose social life outside school has been cut off due to her doing the chores in her house. Fate makes them meet eachother and a great love story begins.

This review is about the anime, but I felt that I had to give context in what Horimiya means to me. It mas my first manga and what made me get into this.

STORY

Now, starting with the story, even with the kinda rushed feeling that gives every relationship, it's still pretty good if we concentrate only in MIyamyra and Hori. Some relationships never end up closing chapter or they are just giver one episode to develop. So, if we concentrate in the main characters relationship, we see them grow their bond, we see realistic affection and care. It's not too harsh to say that you may only watch Horimiya to see them grow together.
Later, with the other characters, some relationships go nowhere, making me think why did we see that and not some other development on the main characters.
But after all, I had a good time watching it, and it was thanks to the animation

ANIMATION

The animation is gorgeous. The way that it uses colour to represent feelings, the way the screen goes dark when Miyamura thinks about his past, the way it uses it's silent moments, letting the situation speak and not the characters. It's all lovely and it makes you feel like you are watching an animation made with passion and love.

SOUND

I don't know anything about music, but I love the way it uses the silence. When something deep happens, the scene is muted and the animation begins to speak, and I loved when that happened.
Also, great OP. Loved when it changed from V1 to V2.

CHARACTERS

HORI KYOUKO

I loved Hori. I loved her in 2013 and I loved her even more now. Her chemistry with Miyamura is perfect. You can feel the care and love they give eachother and when they are sad, yo can sympathize with them.
Nevertheless, some of her plot lines never end. It's like they didn't have time to make her grow that much and by the end, we don't get to know what happened to her problems.

MIYAMURA IZUMI

Loved Miyamura. We can see how he develops. In fact, he is the only developing character in the anime. Kinda good for him, buy bad for the rest of the characters. His transition from being scared of rejection and of being judged, changed radically with him meeting Hori. I enjoyed every second he was in the screen.

SECONDARY CHARACTERS

There are a ton of characters in Horimiya. All I'm going to say that some of them are pretty underdeveloped, and others only appear in two episodes to then never appear again. I understand, it only has 13 episodes, but if you have time to put one or two characters that don't make Hori and Miyamura develop, you can use this episodes to make then actually develop.

FINAL WORDS

It's my first time writing a review and it has been a while since I wrote so much in english. I'm only going to say in this final words that I loved Horimiya. It threw be back to my adolescense and made me remember what kind of love I aspire to feel. To be honest, we can all aspire to feel the kind of love that Hori and Miyamura feel for eachother. Thats why, even with it's flaws, I give it a 85/100.
If you want the FULL Horimiya experience, read the manga. I assure you will love it.