I had been a fool. I gave season 1 a 3/10, calling it self-aware slop. I knew that S1 wasn't how it worked in real life, and that the writers knew it wasn't how it worked in real life. But all that says is they're making junk food, lowest common denominator junk food.
I understand now. My problem was that I hadn't removed this from reality enough - yes, it's seperated from reality, but it doesn't end there. This isn't even meant to stem from real-life romance. You aren't meant to take it even remotely seriously. This is like injecting pure dopamine into your fucking veins.
The concept is kinda genius: "What if we took the best parts of every anime love interest archetype, and made them the main ensemble in a slice?". It's just slice with neuron-activation monke moments of the cast interacting with MC in lovey ways, and nothing deeper.
If it was just that alone, this show might graduate to maybe a 4 or 5 out of 10. But then you actually need to start evaluating it as a show, and then I'm forced to acknowledge that the writing was kinda funny and the character writing was consistently charismatic and diverse, the plots were engaging enough and the actual arcs ranged from fine to well-executed.
Usually anime pacing bothers me, and this show has standard-issue anime break-your-neck-and-spine pacing, but it feels at home here, with the way the entire plot is designed to fast-pass endorphines directly into your grey matter. The fan-service didn't get too bad either, which is insane considering the entire vibe this show exhudes.
Harems would also typically rub me the wrong way, but this show doesn't really feel like a "harem" - let me explain. This show is only a harem because the concept needs it to be. The most important distinction is the MC's personality and consequent tone. Usual harems would have the love interests fighting, and cop out at the end with a "i choose everyone!". But here MC "nah, I'd win"s and busts his ass to make them all happy, no jealousy, no one is upset. Again, this doesn't make a lick of sense if you're still attatching the romance in this show to reality, but you can't do that. Not even just superficially, but on a deeper level, this just doesn't even resemble how we understand relationships.
If you were a total moron you would watch this and think it's awesome. If you were like me and not thinking too hard, you would watch it, take it as fast food, say it was garbage but good garbage and move on, not ever truly feeling satisfied with your assessment. If you are based, you accept that it is "garbage" but recognise that "garbage" doesn't mean critically dismissable, and understand that the very foundation of the show is designed to reap the benefits that come with embracing the show's made-up invention that replaces "romance"; their proxy for relationships. I wouldn't watch this with other people, but that doesn't justify a low score.
This show is mcdonald at 4am, and I have learned to stop denying the way it makes me feel. Take my fuckimg score and leave me to grapple with who i have become
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