Natsuyuki Rendezvous - A paragon of how to completely destroy your own story. As I write this, I'm still in total disgusted awe of just how badly the writers could defile their own series like this. The series built up tons of promise in the first five episodes, even with the unexplained supernatural element of the manager's ex-husband still lingering around in ghost form because she begged him not to leave her.

Had the series been about the ex-husband helping his widow's latest love interest (the only one who could see him) swoon her so she could happily move on with her life, this could've been a fantastic, heart wrenching tale. Instead, we don't get that. Instead, the writers opted to try and write a story of contradiction and failed miserably at it.

Shimao Atsushi - We have the worst character who pretty much decimated the series on his own. Despite telling his wife to move on following his tragic death, he does the exact opposite and does his level best to come between Rokka and Hazuki. The writers even nonsensically gave him the power to levitate things and shake the surroundings when Hazuki and his ex-wife were about to get touchy-feely, a very jarring moment indeed. Any sympathy you might've built up for him is utterly thrown away when Hazuki lends him his body for the rest of the series. Shimao proceeds to drastically alter his image, cutting his hair, smashes his contract lenses and getting him glasses just so he would look dorky. All these actions made him utterly reprehensible and irredeemable. Sadly, over half the series was spent on the body swap shenanigans. Shimao even robbed Hazuki of his first-time love experience with Rokka, pretending to be him and sleeping with her. Ugh. He was a truly despicable character.

Hazuki Ryousuke - He wasn't nearly as bad as Shimao, although the writers had the disturbing habit of making him completely awkward, bizarrely forcing him to stick his foot in his mouth just to prolong the inevitable completion of his and Rokka's relationship. Like in one episode, he somehow got the bright idea to proclaim out loud that he was going to make Rokka forget about her "pathetic husband" when he was about to take her, laughably forgetting the woman's literally right below him. Ugh. Such blatant plot-induced-stupidity. Sure, the spirit floated above her, but as previously established, he wasn't tangible. Hazuki could've just moved through his head and kissed her anyway. That episode aired before the writers randomly gave Shimao one-time powers of levitation and tremors.
Heck, the only reason he even ended up renting out his body to ghost boy was because again he stuck his foot in his mouth and asked her to sleep with him after ruining his chance the first time. What a buffoon. He knew she was struggling to get over her husband, but he somehow thinks requesting sex when they only had one date was the sensible thing to suggest. He gets so depressed when she rejected him that he downed his sorrows with booze, stumbles back to the flower shop, falls down and drowsily mumbles his consent of letting Shimao possess his body. He spends the rest of the series trapped inside some book Shimao wrote until he gets out and overhears Shimao's and Rokka's last conversation.

Such a frustrating character.

Shimao Rokka - The best of the sorry bunch, but that isn't saying much. I can sympathise with her struggle of moving on, though I do believe it fairly unbelievable that Shimao was her first love considering how pretty she is. Rushing into marriage doesn't sit right with me either. They both knew his time was drawing to a close. What's the point tying the knot when one of them was going to be made a widow? While I do understand they loved each other, they didn't need to exchange vows just to cement that. Marriage should not be a quick thing you do just to check off the list of things you want to do before you die. It's a symbol of commitment you only walked into once you know you're going to spend decades with the love of your life, until one of you depart from the world. Even then, the one left behind shouldn't bemoan the time loss, but instead cherish what they had before moving on, especially when they're as young as Rokka. It was frustrating to see Rokka still clinging to the memories of her deceased husband, to say the least. Even when her and Hazuki declare their love in the final episode and end up together, she still refused to throw away Shimao's belongings.

How creepy is that? Keeping your deceased spouse's stuff having married your new one by the way?

(She also took WAYYYY too long to figure out Shimao was inside Hazuki's body. It should've been completely obvious from just how out of character he was acting. He even called her "Rokka-chan", too, and not manager, upon possessing Hazuki's body, but for some reason it takes the dumb woman five to six episodes more until she realized the person inside Hazuki's body wasn't actually him. infuriating)

Characters - 0/10
Score - 3/10
Animation - 4/10
Artstyle - 3/10

Overall score - 0/10