It’s not a perfect anime, but I’ll be damned if it’s not a fresh take on a genre that I didn’t know I needed!
Otome [game] stories are by and far a guilty pleasure of mine. I know most of the stories follow a super cut-and-paste kind of plot, characters, and romances–but I cannot help but love them. And that’s okay, there’s no shame in liking what you like. I was expecting much the same from this particular anime, and it both gave exactly that… and then some! I am so incredibly blown away by the concept and the execution! The struggle now though is every otome style anime I watch from here forward is going to have to somehow live up to such an impossible standard, whoops.
On the surface it seems like we’re going to follow the love story of some modern-world high schoolers in Japan who are playing an otome dating game together for the story, while commenting on it. Instead we’re following parallel love stories with an actual underlying plot that doesn’t involve the cute and sweet “heroine” of the game being a total nasty and horrible woman in reality. Not only was it super refreshing to not have the bait-and-switch with the supposed heroine, it was also really refreshing to see the “villain” just be a misunderstood woman who was struggling with her emotions–something I think most of us can relate to, honestly.
I also found it nice that while it wasn’t perverted or overtly sexual, it also didn’t gloss over adult themes. Instead they were placed into the plot very casually–enough to know they were there, but not drawing attention to themselves either. It made the anime feel like it was a bit more realistic in terms of the human experience, which was nice; but also the fact that it didn’t make it either childish or gross was welcome, too. You don’t find that very often with anime, as they all tend to go one extreme or the other, so it’s nice when it finds a happy middle-ground like this.
Characters are all very likeable too, in my opinion. It would have been nice though too, if the anime could have been longer to really expand on more of the characters. We get plenty for the main six characters (Endo and Kobayashi, Sig and Liese, and Fiene and Bal), but I feel like having time to flesh out Fiene’s mother, the professor, and Fabian would have been nice. Even just an extra two or three episodes would have been enough to accomplish it in my opinion, but perhaps it would have been difficult to fit it into the story.
Plot was not exceptionally good, but it was endearing. This is obviously all about romance, and comedy, so I wasn’t expecting a mind-blowing plot; however the fact that the plot wasn’t super predictable was still a nice surprise. We get the love stories, yes, but we also had an underlying plot about the two worlds being connected in the first place–an unexpected bonus. I will say though, I could drive a bus through the plot hole that was Liese’s wavering heart, and the awkward jamming in of Kobayashi’s jealousy wasn’t all that great, either. Regardless though, it’s simple and enjoyable and that’s what matters most.
I mean seriously, I was crying by the end. Happy tears, but crying none-the-less. The characters just sort of grow on you like that, in a mere twelve episodes. So if you enjoy the otome [game] genre, highly recommend. It’s unique and fun.
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