I do not write hate reviews.
Heck, I usually barely even mention the bad aspects of the animanga I'm reviewing. That's because I normally talk about series which I think are so great that the strong points heavily overshadow the weak ones. It makes sense: If I write and structure my reviews based on how I feel about the story, then naturally, when its flaws don't impact my overall opinion on the show I won't mention them.
Plus, I firmly believe that many "flaws" people point out actually are what make the story revelant in the first place. By example, many critiscize how The Horizon lacks context or how Cowboy Bebop lacks a defined plotline. However, to me, if it weren't for these "flaws", these stories would be completely different thus their original purposes would vanish. Their unusual setting exactly are what make the story unique. I feel like we critisizce too much works of fiction based on how we personally want them to be rather than what they're trying to be.
I'm not saying we shouldn't talk negatively about works of fiction but I'm explaining why it's, generally speaking, not my thing.
Now where do I want to go with this?
This anime singlehandedly made me rethink the whole paragraphs written above.
It made me seriously ponder about how it may be impossible to see a manga or an anime for what it is but only for what you want it to be. And maybe, that's fine.
Maybe that's as fair as to mindlessly butter up a manga just because you think "it's so deep and you feel it so much".
Maybe hating is the proof of the free will that was given to us.
If it may just be that simply hating on one anime is as valuable as simply loving another... Then it's only rightful for me to deal with this sorry excuse for a romcom without the most superficial semblance of respect.
CRINGE NONSENSICAL FIRST EPISODE
"My Stepmom's Daughter is My Ex". With a title as pathetic as this, surely, you wouldn't expect me to actually act surprised finding out that the content of the anime is as trash as its title. I didn't expect this to be any good but what I really didn't expect was it being that f#cking pretentious despite not providing any decent substance backing it up. I wish you could've saw the faces I made when characters randomly quoted philosophers or unironically used corny metaphors to describe their situations.
It's as if this story was so advanced in its sagaciousness and its depht that it forgot the simple little notions of self awareness and hindsight.
Now, if you got that far into the review, you must be dying to know some context and examples that would illustrate and define what I'm actually complaining about. Well, you shall be served.
My problem starts at about the last sentence. How did the initial premise got bended so bad that it ended up being "a game according to which the first step sibling who feel attraction toward the other loses"? Alright, fair enough. Just because the descritpion is weird doesn't mean the anime sucks. The most important part is the execution. Well, you'll be glad to know the execution was creative enough to surpass the uncomfortability the premise already gave off.
- Plot: Yume (the stepsister) barges into Mizuto's room (the stepbrother) and tell him that they gotta play this insane game where the loser has to call the other "onii-chan". The conditions are simple: act sus toward the other first and you lose! To which Mizuto answers "aight bet." Mizuto then proceeds to seduce his step sister in order to win and manages to do so (yes, it's incoherent). Overwhelmed by this extraordinary twist, Yume is forced to utter the words "oniii chan" to satisfy her ex. Their interaction carries on by Lizuto mocking Yume, making her cry??
She then says: "You never used to be this mean to me back then!!!!". To which he replies "You're right, I'm sorry Onee...Nee san" and pats her? She replies "This is the part of you... I always hated how you flip-flop like that!" (which is somehow a good foreshadowing to their backstory reveal but I have no hope it was done on pupose) and she adds "Stupid Oni-chan!"...
Alright so, nevermind the cringe. How does this first scene completely nullify any pretense of logic and cohesion in the story?
- Firstly, the introduction of "the sister and brother rule" establishes the "humorous" aspect of the anime. You're like: Oh, is it going to be a mind games comedy similarly to Kaguya-Sama? But then Mizuto basically just seduce Yume, disguising it as "normal siblings behaviour" (as someone who has a sister I fail to see the "normal" in "normal siblings behaviour" tho) in order to make Yume react "strangely" which leads to her losing. He litteraly wins by doing something that defy the settings that were just established, and knowing that these were already messy and stupid to begin with, It's literaly adding absurdeness over absurdness making the settings of the anime even more unbelievable to the viewer.
- Secondly, it shows how little thoughts the author gave to his characters' writting and it's even worse if he ACTUALLY did think before coming up with this scene. The moment where Yume says "You never used to be this mean to me back then" is supposed to be the "serious" moment narratively wise. It's the moment where she breaks character and stops this cringy ahh roleplay in order to convey her real feelings. It's the moment when she becomes weak and vulnerable which is in opposite to how she was introduced to viewers since the beginning. It's supposed to give away important informations about her personality and her relationship with Kizuto and it does at first but then SHE HAS TO SAY "BAKA ONIIII CHAN" FOR NO REASON. I need a meeting with the editors of the light novel because the way they let the author simply write what he wants needs to be studied. At the moment where she was litteraly the most vulnerable and honest possible she called her ex onii chan even though they're not related and even though she doesn't consider him as her brother (I think!?). The first time she said oni chan was due to the fact the she had lost but the second time is just nonsensical since she was being honest with her feelings. Why the f#ck does she call him onii chan at that moment? The childish games (I feel wild for calling that a childish game) are supposed to be excuses to cover up the fact that they actually just want to interact with eachother. Their egos and persona don't allow them to be honest so they come up with weird shit like this just to in eachothers precense. And that's right at the precise moment she was supposed to drop the act that she calls her ex boyfriend onii chan. I can't repeat this enough. Abysmal writting.
But hey, gotta give props where it's due.
I have to give credits to the anime for leaving me like this
staring at my screen in complete disbelief of the cringe I witnessed only ten minutes into the first episode. Even my favorites manga didn't surprise me that much right at their opening scenes.
PITIFUL ATTEMPT AT TRYING TO BE PROFOUND
Now we get into the real reason why I hate this anime.
The ninth episode features the mcs' backstory and the reason they broke up. Surprinsgly enough, the flashback actually started out as...It pains me to say it but it started out as pretty decent, somewhat cliché but pretty decent. Yume and Mizuto are both having hard time socializing with their classmates. They are recluse who found comfort in books and that's how they find eachother. They start going out and it goes smoothly until holidays come to an end and back to school arrives. They end up in different classes but they promise to eachother to do the utmost to always meet up whenever possible. There's no problem in their couple until Yume finally manage to make friends. As someone who tried for many years but never succeedeed, she is overjoyed and it captivates all her mind. It captivates her mind so much that she starts going out less and less with Mizuto. Mizuto feels disheartened, he feels like he was used as a stepping stone by Yume to make her feel better until she finds new friends. Even when she is with him, she only ever talk about her friends, making him even more hostile towards them. One day, he lashes out at her and says he doesn't care aboout her friends.
Thinking it back in his room, he feels guilty and regrets what said to Yume so he decides to apologize to her tomorrow. The day after, worried about her boyfriend, Yume goes to the library instead of going out with her friends and she finds him with another girl. She spies them until the random girl leaves and while Cringezuto makes his apologies to Lume, she gets angry and say something along the lines of "so I can't have friends but you can see other girls? Are you cheating on me?" then long story short they break up.
I initially liked where this was going because it was a legitimate conflict. Mizuto felt used and unwanted because Yume spent more time with anyone else but him. She stopped giving him attention which is obviously not okay when you're in a relationship. The interesting part tho was that Yume wasn't completely in the wrong. She never had friends and Mizuto knows how important it is to here. She thought she could have the support of her boyfriend for this matter but he became jealous and annoying. She doesn't feel like she used him as a steppingstone, she just tried having other relationships which shouldn't be a problem even if you're in couple. In simpler terms, her POV is as legit as Mizuto's. Thus I was interested in how it was going to turn out but...Really? "you must be cheating on me I wait you!!!"
The climax of the conflict made absolutely no sense. What I thought was an interesting POV on Yume's part was just completely reduced to "You dare talk to another girl than me in school you fucking cheater???"
Mizuto actually had legitimate reasons to be mad while she litteraly saw him talk to a human being that happened to be a girl and that's her whole reason for being angry. Imagine being in couple and you can't to anyone of the opposite gender because of it. Completely unreasonable and shallow. Even if Mizuto acted on mere petty jealousy, they were actual concrete effects to Yume's actions. They spent less time together. How he acted was really low but it was based on facutal negative events for their relationship. Meanwhile, Yume invented herself a baseless fanfiction because the author didn't why she would be mad (even though there were reasons, such as the ones I mentioned earlier, that were possible). In comparaison to Mizuto, who had actual internal conflict, she got reduced to a girl that simply get mad whenever her boyfriend talks to a girl that isn't her. What could've been an interesting conflict ended up being meaningless. Yume is an horribly written character.
CONCLUSION: ABSOLUTE FAILURE
Alright, so I think I made my points pretty clear. Sh#tty anime that tries to be something it's not. You could say trying to add more depht to your story, even if it fails miserably, is at least better than copy paste the billions of tasteless sol anime that come out every season. Well, no. I'll quote Avatar The Last Airbender in response:
"I'm just saying that, considering his (Zuko) messed-up family, and how he was raised he could've turned out a lot worse"
"You're right, Toph, let's go find him and give him a medal; the "not so much of a jerk as you could've been" award.
Bad trying to be good is still bad all the meanwhile. The secondary characters are as awful as the main ones, nothing surprising. Yume and her friends pass time by fondling each others breasts, classic girl things am I right? And when we discovered that Mizuto was actually having bad grades on purpose so that Yume could be the number one in the class?? Peak fiction. And I just love how Mizuto gets random internal monolgue Light Yagami style, and how the series try to make him look like some sort of intellectual genius. Truly one of the anime of all time, honestly.
I sincerely hope Aniplex brung the creators of this disaster in courts for ever featuring a book of I Want To Eat Your Pancreas in their crappy anime.
Easily one of the worst romance in fiction. The author didn't even manage to give proper reasons they're in love with eachother. I understand Yume is simping over her dream "intelligent" boyfriend but why is Mizuto even into her in the first place? There's no actual scenes justifying why they love each other even though the whole anime revolve around this. I learned absolutely nothing about relationships and I think I'm even dumber than I was before starting the anime. While some romances genuinely made me rethink how I treat people, Mamahaha gave me nothing but embarassing scenes to remember. I guess you could say it made me learn how to love and appreciate anime that are actually well written.