I was pretty surprised to see that there were no reviews for Yakuza Fiancé when I found out about this series and was considering watching it. The description, tags and the trailer all looked really decent and the average score was not that bad. But the lack of any reviews shrouded the real quality of the show in mystery. That's why after watching this anime, I decided to give it a shot and try writing a review myself, even though I've never done it before.

But the main reason why I undertook writing this is the amount of questions and doubts that arisen in my head while watching the show. The main question is: what is this anime even about? Is it focused on the ways of yakuza? Or maybe is it a hot romance caught in a spiral of events going on between the Japanese mafia? Or... is it just a high school settled comedy show...? Until the 7th episode I seriously thought they just suddenly dropped the whole yakuza background for no reason and went for an almost typical romance between cute highschoolers with a one sided hater to lover type of relationship. Studying for midterm tests, going on an aquarium date, making a fuss over a protagonist catching a cold - it was nothing you would expect from a crime and gore drama this show was supposed to be. What's even worse, those events didn't even mean anything important and had basically no real impact on the story - the story than only really started picking up in Episode 7.

For the half of the entire season I was bored and didn't even know where the story is going, what are the character's goals or what in the world is even happening on my screen right now, because it was all so random and often unimportant. The supporting characters like Shouma or Tsubaki were so plain that I couldn't understand what even is their purpose in this story. I didn't feel like they were part of it, but rather like they were there just to fill the gaps that occurred in the process of making the anywhere near sensible plot and besides that, didn't have any value at all. The only interesting character was Somei Yoshino herself. Both her looks and personality were truly appealing, and her voice - top notch. It's a real shame that sometimes her potential got kind of nerfed. As someone with such a strong psyche, capable of speaking her mind with unshaken firmness and ready to take action whenever it's needed, there were a lot of times when she acted a little bit too helpless. Or rather, I think it's Kirishima that made her look that way. With that being said, let me express my feelings towards this guy.

Miyama Kirishima - the greatest red flag I've ever seen in my life. He may have started to look more gently and less dangerous at some point, but I couldn't nor I didn't even try to forget the feeling the first episodes left me with. No matter what you do, there's no excuse for someone who tells you to go and sell your body because you're so damn boring that in a matter of seconds you've became the real pain in the butt and that there's no better use of you than making you a money machine. And then, suddenly, he tells you that he loves you after you yell at him and the romance peacefully develops, medetashi medetashi? There's no way.
The same guy slept with many other women in the past and he keeps doing so even after he confessed his love to you, with no sign of shame on his face at that. And here's the cherry on top - he also has the audacity to tell you that there's no other woman he could marry and no other man in the world you could marry other than him. What kind of awful and rotten to the core male lead is that? Why is he even the male lead in a first place? Shouma is way more fitting for Yoshino than Kirishima and I will never accept a scumbag like that as Yoshino's boyfriend. Yoshino is the best character this anime could ask for, but she deserves more and her accepting Kirishima makes her also the biggest fool in this show. The only good part about Kirishima is being voiced by Akira Ishida-san, which truly fits his personality nonetheless.

Now about the positives. The story in the second part of the show was pretty nice and enjoyable. The action was interesting, Yoshino's performance was great, the existence of two men fighting over Yoshino shown in both an opening and ending song finally began looking authentic, and so did the entire existence of yakuza in Kanto region. I mean, almost. Because still, the idea of two high schoolers dealing with a big-scale yakuza related event with absolutely no sign of local yakuza literally anywhere especially when the granddaughter of a head of a clan is involved makes this story a little bit strange, but it wasn't bad in general or at least it was the best part anyway.

Hats off to The Oral Cigarettes for making another great opening song, and the ending song performed by Yoshino herself with kansaiben features was a perfect hit too. I don't remember any background music though, might be because it didn't stand out. I enjoyed the humor of this series and the visuals were fine as well. The strong feeling of thick lines in the artstyle matches the vibe of the show. I also noticed that all of the more important characters were color coded in a somewhat unusual way too. Yoshino as a core character got color red, all the boys that have an interest in her are green and the girls have more bluish hues. Which actually made them slightly difficult to tell apart sometimes, but honestly I might be blind. The idea of making them all have different pupil shapes is truly interesting, but I wouldn't call it particularly aesthetic. The animation was pretty good, it was pleasant to watch, especially during the fights. I don't recall seeing any weird faces nor awkward movements either, so I'd say the animation quality was above average, but it wasn't standing out.

To sum things up, I feel like the anime of Yakuza Fiancé: Raise wa Tanin ga Ii could be much better. It had a lot of potential, because there's no doubt that the sole idea of ​​a woman living and fighting with the yakuza has a spicy and appealing ring to it, but the execution did not meet my expectations. The toxic relationship made me feel indignant while the chaotic way of telling the story was simply confusing. The lack of any evident purpose (except for Yoshino's survival in Tokyo I guess..?) made me wonder why should I even watch the next episode which is extremely rare for me as I believe that every show deserves being given a chance for the story to truly unravel before you decide to drop it. I didn't consider dropping this one, but I wasn't necessarily looking forward to the next episodes, because rather than curiosity about future events and possible plot twists, I felt... relatively nothing as I couldn't predict anything due to the unknown direction this story was heading in. If the second season ever happens, I truly hope it will be better than the first one.