I'm pretty sure I'm extra qualified to review this show because I myself am pretty much just like Miyamura, cringe as that may be.

Horimiya is a cute little romance show, and the first thing that I noticed is that it that starts with the premise that they both know they like each other and are open to seeing how it goes from pretty much the beginning, so it skips the 'notice me senpai' stages you usually see.

I watched it as I'd heard it's 'the mainstream romance anime'. Its genres on this site are 'romance', 'comedy', and 'slice-of-life', and it does a good job at those, but probably the aspect that was most different from what I expected was that there is a lot of drama in this show as well.

There's always talk of 'who likes who, who doesn't like who, who misses who, I wish she was mine', etc, and if you want to see things like 'the female lead's little brother afraid that the male lead will take her away from him', you'll get that, and you'll also get 'how the male lead sweetly comforts him and says they'll both stay his friends'. So I would also put 'drama' as a genre, although it's not the tense kind but the edgy kind.

Hori is a very slight tsundere, who's other personality sides are more revealed later on in her interactions with Miyamura.

Miyamura was an isolated, depressed ("emo") boy who had stopped caring, and then is surprised to find kind people exist, who want to be friends with him.

Together, they are very solid characters and the show goes through their stages of starting to love.

All of the main side characters are given their own plots as well, and often romantic ones. They all have unique motivations and perspectives, especially the females but the males too. There's always some romance-related drama in any given part.

Hori's family, in contrast to her, is pretty boring. The dad has some funny interactions but they're overused to the point of being annoying.

One of the things that the show does best is that it gets right into things: I've stated above that it skips the 'notice me' scenes, but besides that, Miyamura and Hori both make sudden moves on each other, surprising not only them but us as watchers.

The comedy is good. Ironically, the most enjoyable and funniest part of the show was when Miyamura was yelling at and abusing Hori (ok that sounds really bad, but you'll know what I mean if you've seen it). The scenes with Akane Yanagi were also hilarious too. And any scenes where Miyamura was fake-shipped with a male were golden (his reactions were priceless).

Watching Miyamura talk to his past self throughout the show was also a unique, refreshing and relatable take.

And the hair colors are all unique, which was enjoyable.

The kiss episode was

1.) False Advertising / Melodrama

For a show with a couple on the cover and a ship name as the title, the romance doesn't hit very hard: it feels very light and floaty. A good example is the scene where they feel each others' heartbeats, and Hori says his heart is saying "how cold it is", and they hug. But up until then, we hadn't been shown any coldness or darkness besides him not really having friends in the past and being a previous outcast. It would have been much stronger if we had been given a semi-dark backstory, or anything at all beyond 'emo, depressed teen'. Another example is Hori's "why.. why are you never here?" It's not conflict, it was just lack of communication and the natural process of romance. Just wasn't as deep as the show made it out to be.

Ironically (again), one of the most touching scenes in the show is a quick, more casual hug, that the show didn't try to make touching: the part when Miyamura said he accepted Hori's weird side even though it's alot of work. So the show hit sometimes, but not when it tried to.

2.) Some scenes are just.. cringe to watch.

Not many but when it was at those scenes.. the second-hand embarrassment was alot.

And that one's not even near the beginning of the show. 2 bottoms being awkward is not the easiest to watch.

3.) The less relevant male side characters (like half of the males in the show) are not very likeable, jealous twerps (very jealous, could be defined by jealousy).

The art style is pretty normal. The visuals for the Ending and part of the Opening are very unique, but the Opening song itself is pretty good. And the part of the ost that stood out to me is very unique too, almost silly-sounding.

If you're looking for a cute romance / drama, this show is pretty good. I'll rate it a 50/100, and I will check out Piece and the manga now.