▶ Video #####(What an entrance to an anime! A very cinematic setup to the theme of the show, wasting no time selling us on how good the presentation is.)

Romance anime are a dime a dozen these days, just like isekai, and many ideas have been used before, leaving little room for something to break the mold. So, count me surprised when I laid my eyes on Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines!, where it took your common romance tropes and used them tastefully to craft an interesting take on the romance genre, which could be the next romance classic, especially if the anime adaptation continues.

We’ve seen too many times, where the bland male protagonist, whether quiet, shy, or simply a loser, ends up having the most well-known girl in school falling head over heels for him for whatever reason. Here, the male protagonist, Kazuhiko Nukumizu, is by all accounts, also “bland”, introverted, and relegated to a background mob character role. The difference lies in the first moments, where he witnesses one of his female classmates being rejected, and sees her hilarious coping mechanisms afterwards.

▶ Video #####(At this moment, I already knew that we were probably in for a treat, and that the anime staff were really passionate about their craft, given the highly detailed audiovisual work already.)

However, that enough might not seem too convincing, because even something like that could be a precursor to the female classmate to fall for the male protagonist, but that is not the case, as each of these possible “romantic” moments are handled tastefully to give us a laugh, to the point where later on in the anime, you can even see the punchline coming.

The real theme of the story though, is not simply about a conventional romance, but it is initially about an observer’s view of romance trainwrecks in his school, with each heroine losing their battle with love. Through these experiences, we can see the theme of interpersonal communication in play, or lack thereof in some cases, which led to failures in the romantic escapades of the observer’s female classmates. In witnessing all these trainwrecks unfold, he in turn, also interacts with his classmates, who are all part of the Literature Club, and applies what he has learned through watching the rejections of his female classmates, and is able to not only make meaningful friendships, but also to mediate the various disputes or disagreements between others.

The thing I enjoyed the most about this anime was that it felt like high school all over again for me. As I have grown up a little from those school days, it was easy to laugh at the romance failures, and laugh at the stupidity of some of the characters, but as they say, teenagers are young and dumb, and that’s okay, we have all been there. The anime deals with interpersonal communication very well, because that is probably the most important thing that students have to learn, how to deal with other people. In romance, that is also likely the most important factor to a relationship. If one likes another, they have to tell them before it is too late. If one is rejected, how do they interact with the person that they got rejected by, and moreover, how do they interact with the person they lost to? When we got answers to these questions, that’s where we saw the growth of all the losing heroines, and how the Literature Club was able to stay afloat, despite all this drama.

Now, the drama’s great and all, but the comedy was just as great, and here is where the staff I think went above and beyond, especially with their comedic timing, and the nature of the jokes. They were not afraid to step into some weird territory, such as extreme BL jokes, tasteful fan service gags, or some not-so-subtle sexual jokes, which had me howling in laughter sometimes. If you’ve seen the Twitter account and the website for this anime, you would know how much they care about some really random stuff, for example, like Anna, one of the main female protagonists, and how many calories she eats per episode. It’s in these little things that I could tell that the staff had a lot of fun even in their hard work, and that is always a sign of a good anime, when everyone working on it can have a good time.

With passionate staff, comes great production quality, at least most of the time, and here, it was one of the best animated things I have seen this season, and maybe even the year. It’s not just from a purely animation standpoint either, but the framing, cinematography, lighting, all of those aspects were excellent. Here are some of the moments that stood out to me.

▶ Video #####(Credit to Hiroaki Gouda)▶ Video

And lastly, in one of the ending themes, as you can see in the behind the scenes clip below, the staff went so far as to getting rigs outside to create that real life camerawork that was there. Always like to see the extra effort.

▶ ▶ Video

A complaint I do see sometimes about this show is that there isn’t enough romance, but I’m honestly glad that was the case. I can’t speak to what happens later on in the story, but seeing the main character stay friends with his female classmates I think fit the mood of the show much more than forcing him to end with one of the losing heroines. The relationships build naturally, the dialogue gets more natural and the characters play off each other better and better as the anime goes along, which was very enjoyable. To anyone that has not seen this show, that is something to take note of, that it’s less of a conventional romance show between the main character and the other characters, but more a show that features romance as a side dish, at least for me, because the comedy and sometimes the drama were the things that I enjoyed the most out of everything. Is every arc seamless? No, but it handles a lot of its topics and themes with a lot of care, and most importantly, the developments feel earned.

There are many trainwrecks that we don’t want to look away from in the anime sphere, but here, I can happily say, it is one of the best trainwrecks I have laid my eyes on. One of the best anime of the year for me, and was a great A-1 Pictures passion project. See what they can do when they work on romance anime?

Now, excuse me as it is time for a midnight snack. What do you mean it’s not good for you? Anna Yanami told me that ice cream doesn’t make me fat… just look at how reliable she looks!