Nagatoro is a show that I began to watch based on the recommendation of a friend. Even before watching my first episode, I had a general idea of what to expect going in; Senpai, a character that is portrayed as your typical shy geek with no social skills or confidence, is bulled by the loud and energetic Nagatoro, who is not to subtly implied to have feelings for him. Throughout all 12 episodes, the general thing that happens is Nagatoro shows up, bullies senpai in various ways which usually end up with him being embarrassed, and then her as well through either an accident or him saying something before thing about it.

As far as complexity goes, the show doesn't go much further beyond that. While I will admit that there are many wholesome moments that occur, either as a result of Senpai growing a backbone or, again, him saying something without thinking about it, none of these felt like any truly solid points of growth for him as a character. When I compare what he's like to the start and the end, I would be lying if I said that his relationship with Nagatoro didn't progress at all, and that he didn't gain a bit more confidence. The problem, however, is that I do not think it was particularly noticable growth.

What I mean by that is that, if you were to show someone a scene from early Nagatoro compared to near the end of the first season, I think most people would say that they're pretty much the exact same characters, and that their dynamic hasn't changed one bit. Perhaps this might not be entirely fair, as this is not something that occurs in other series. The difference, however, is Nagatoro shafts nearly its entire cast in favor for nearly all of the development to be given to Senpai and Nagatoro.

Gamo and Yoshi are two of the main side characters, with Sakura starting to appear more often near the end of the show. The issue with this is that not only do they get essentially no character development, but they also all have a near identical dynamic with Senpai as as the one he shares with Nagatoro, romance aside. Gamo, Yoshi, and Sakura can very easily be interchangeable with "Bully #1, Bully #2, and Bully #3". With the insignificant lack between Senpai and Nagatoro, this makes the issues of the side cast all the more glaring.

Gamo is the most developed of the side characters, and serves as a bit of a rival to Nagatoro. Frequently, she tends to confront Senpai is not with Nagatoro, largely in an effort in an attempt to bully him in ways that go "too far" for Nagatoro's standards, such as attempting to shave his head. She, however, doesn't really get more complex than a bustier version of Nagatoro that bullies Senpai even more and never gets embarrassed. Yoshi and Sakura essentially have no personalities to speak of, as Yoshi is much like a parrot in which she merely repeats what another character has said, with an example of this being below (This is not a direct quote).

Nagatoro: "Geez, Senpai, you really are gross!"

Yoshi: "So gross!"

Sakura is even harder to talk about, as she doesn't appear for most of the first half of the series. The unfortunate thing with this as there was a chance to give not only her character progression, but also Senpai as well.

I had high hopes that this was going to result in not only us learning more about Sakura herself, but also Senpai growing braver and more confident as a result of this experience. This even could have been a chance for Sakura to give some insight to Senpai on why Nagatoro is the way she is...but, alas, the "threat" goes away just as soon as it shows up, so no character development for anyone.

The last "side character" is Sana Sunomiya, who is the:

While one would think that she would appear more because of this, but they do give a fairly valid reason on why she hasn't, so I'm willing to mostly let it slide...the biggest problem with her, though, is that she's the first character with an actual different dynamic with Senpai! The first character that isn't just a bully takes until episode 11 to appear, and even in those last two episodes, she doesn't exactly show up all that much. I think the worst crime, though, is that we barely actually get to know what their relationship is. We know that Senpai respects her as an artist, and believes her to be much more skilled than him. We know that she in turn thinks that, as far as his last art pieces went, were filled with passion. We don't really get any insight on the sort of relationship they had in the past though, which I think is ultimately a huge shame, made even worse by the fact that:

I don't think my thoughts were as organized as I would like, but I think I conveyed them well enough in order to get my feelings across. In order to summarize everything, I think that while it is a bit charming and may possibly get better in the second season, I have large concerns as the anime has adapted 46 chapters, nearly half of the manga, and very little progress between Senpai and Nagatoro has been made. The side cast is, while entertaining, devoid of any growth at all, and they all have the same dynamic with Senpai as Nagatoro does, sans the hinted romantic element. It's an above-average romantic comedy with potential enough that I want to see the second season, however, I think this is a show that you can more or less tell if you'll like it or not based on the first episode, as all of the following episodes are more or less the same thing.