My Little Monster - A Crazy Review

My Thoughts on the Show Overall (Light Spoilers):
I knew next to nothing heading into this show except for one scene I saw on YouTube and it looked incredibly interesting. I remember watching this for the first 5 episodes and thinking "Wow, this is fantastic! That confession and dilemma is what's gonna move this relationship forward! Shizuka is going to chill a bit and Haru will happily accommodate Shizuku! What's gonna happen next!" This sparked my excitement so I watched the rest of it in one go. And what great writing and strong conflict turned into a repeating cycle of saying the same shit over and over again without really changing for the better. I remember in episode 11 when they're outside for Christmas or whatever and they have a heart to heart I thought "After multiple tries Shizuku and Haru are gonna be better..." only for Shizuka to go to this school with Yamaken (blonde dude) and haru act like a spoiled brat again!!! What the hell was all that for? Just to say fuck you and do a damn thing about it?? This happened basically from episode 6 to the ending. Yes, exactly nothing changed and everyone is still the same asshole/shy person before the show began.

Overview of the plot (no spoilers).
Basically, this is a 'Shoujou' anime that is a lot more upfront and vibrant than usual Shoujou anime with the daily lives of High Schoolers aspect. For example, the Main boy Haru, a punk who doesn't go to school, meets Shizuku, a quiet girl whose ONLY personality is studying (after episode 5). These two meet because of circumstances and Haru immediately falls for her... These two get into a whole bunch of High School shenanigans and have confessions about what each others want in their life. There are others whom they befriend along the way like Sasahara, a boy who is on the baseball team, and Natsume, a girl who is dumb, but loves online forums. And lastly a sort of 'anti-hero' Yamaguchi who is a rival to Haru and has feelings for Shizuku.

Problems Needed addressing:

Plot: First of all, everything you watch and understand about everyone in the first 5 episodes, goes away and is almost as if nothing had ever happened in the first place. Shizuku defends Haru from his 'friends' taking advantage of him and they leave him alone. Yeah, now they're a part of the friend group as if no exchange ever happened. Natsume being berated (literally sexual harassment at this point) by the guys in the group, literally only feeling safe beside Haru because she feels no love from him, is just terrible writing. The whole point of her character arc was to speak up and go against that noise, but it all just doesn't happen. It's such shitty writing I can't believe it. I feel so agonizingly bad for Natsume the entire time of this show because of just how terrible the writing is. I can go on and on with the shitty writing. I'll do one more to prove a point:
Basically, at the end of episode 10, or around there, Haru and Shizuku confess for a third or fourth time (in 10 episodes at that point!!!) about what each other wants in their relationship. All Haru wants of Shizuku is to not go to that study session during winter (with Yamaken, the love rival!!!) and be with him during Christmas break. Not only does she go to it, she starts walking with him too!!! And understandably Haru gets confrontational about it because wtf, you said you love me not even 2 days ago!!! And when Haru got confrontational, Shizuku pipes in and says "stays 2 meters away from me." Umm, excuse me?? What the fuck do you mean?? This is another example of just how bad the writing is after episode 5. I seriously don't understand, were the writers just given each a part of the episode and just loosely correlate the two, or what the fuck.

Animation:
This is a slight nitpick, but the animation quality for a 2012 anime is incredibly lacking. Granted, it could be an artistic choice, and if that's the case I will happily amend this section, but in no way shape, or form, should an anime released in 2012 have animation quality compared to that of anime released in 2006. I mean, 2008 saw Soul Eater release, and that anime is leagues better in terms of animation.

Ending to the show (OBV spoilers ahead, skip to the Good in the Bad section) :

I had to rewrite this section because I forgot how bad this ending was. I will go in a list with least offensive to most offensive. The least offensive is Sasahara, who is just there, he doesn't do much except try and get Natsume to show her true feelings towards a certain someone (will discuss later). Yamaken's band of Hooligans. Nothing noteworthy except the casual asking out of Natsume and subsequent rejection, along with bickering over the sunrise of a building vs horizon is the first sunrise of the year (dumb shit again). Now this is the first problem, Natsume and Misawa, he is like twice her age, and the show pushes for them to be together so hard, it's scary. Not only that because she sort of weirdly, but not quite confesses her feelings, SHE JUST LEAVES. DIDN'T SEE A SUNSET, NO HAPPY ENDING, WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT. By far and away the most egregious, if not for;
Haru, Shizuku, and Yamaken, who all are just at this point in such a locked love triangle, it's just cringe to watch. I started rooting for Yamaken (unironically) because of how just unlikeable Shizuku and Haru are towards each other, it's to the point where I actually compared them to a toxic couple who one-up each other by doing shittier things. I mean, this is something you can't even make up for how bad it is. This ending made me so mad I actually posted on r/anime about this ending and just how fucking shit this was.

The Good in the Bad:

I will give credit where it's due, and I know that I've been bashing this anime for the past 30 minutes at this point in this review, and that is the fact that the first 5 episodes were genuinely great Romance/Shoujou. I found myself loving this anime at first and watched this whole show in one day how much I loved the first 5 episodes. Why do I love it so much? Because it's the first time seeing characters for who they REALLY are, Shizuku is so much more innocent then, Haru is a lot more physical (in a sort of good/bad way) and Natsume keeps her place in society and there were fights and entertaining conflict. I found myself liking it more than Horimiya and Dangers in My Heart! This is actually the reason why I didn't rate this anime in the 50's, was because of just how well it sets up these characters and the possible wholesomeness and character-changing moments we see in Horimiya and Dangers in my Heart.

Ratings

Plot and Development 5/25

Reasons specified above

Animation and Sound 11/ 25

Reasons specified above

Entertainment value 20/25

I rated it this high because of how different Haru is as the main boy, I found myself only being intrigued by the crazy shit Haru would do next, so its entertainment value is pretty high. Motherfucker would just do the randomest shit and I'm all for it.

Characters 20/25

I liked them as characters, it's just Plot and Development where it sucks the soul out of me.

My personal rating is a 64, but for my Professional Rating given by breakdowns above I'd give it ac

56 / 100