Even before the anime premiered, I came to know this series because of its massive score in absolutely every aggregator site, the consensus about it seemed to be extremely positive, to the point of being called one of the best romance manga of all time. I always thought that that must be an exaggeration, after all, I know I don’t agree with what most people say a lot of the time, but there surely must be a tangible reason as to why this series gets such praise, right? So, when I sat down to read the series, I noticed how it was a failure even going by the basic premise. I’m not even disappointed by it, as I never expected it was going to blow my mind, but seeing that it’s just another stupid Romeo & Juliet-esque setting, I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. I mean, can I really take your show seriously when it’s just Romeo & Juliet but with an even stupider plot because the school conflict looks and feel so fabricated that it hurts? It was pretty easy to come to the conclusion that Kaoru Hana wa Rin to Saku wasn’t just overrated, but that it is shit.

The praise from this series feels like I’m living in a different dimension, it seems to be because of the fact that this series is the safest shit you’ve ever seen, to the point that the dialogue is extremely artificial, like, have you seen how much they apologize and thank for every minor detail? I know that if I call it unrealistic (and it is) people will say that a series doesn’t have to be realistic, and I can see their point, but this dialogue is not something that will keep you interested, they feel like robots programmed to not say anything bad to each other and if they do they’ll bow down and apologize 10 times in a row, some conversations will go as far as saying “I’m sorry x3” and then the other person will say “you don’t need to apologize, I’m the one who is sorry for worrying you”, it’s exhausting seeing how much they apologize. In fact, just for my satisfaction, I decided to count every time they apologized

-Episode 1: 9 times
-Episode 2: 13 times
-Episode 3: 12 times
-Episode 4: 7 times
-Episode 5: 6 times
-Episode 6: 19 times
-Episode 7: 13 times
-Episode 8: 9 times
-Episode 9: 6 times
-Episode 10: 9 times
-Episode 11: 5 times
-Episode 12: 10 times
-Episode 13: 6 times

As you can see, they apologize a whole fucking lot, it got a little better in the second half, but it’s still stupid, I know the Japanese are known for apologizing a lot, but this is a ridiculous level, at some point I realized that I should also have counted the amount of times they thank others, but I leave that work to someone else. Some seasons ago, I thought that Ao no Hako was boring, as it seemed to be an extremely safe romance show (because it is), but this show makes Ao no Hako look like White Album 2. Thinking that just because there aren’t love triangles or not relying on tropes makes a show more believable is simply not true, this series is painful in a unique way, as the author and the fans seem to think that mature and realistic communication is done by apologizing about everything, series that rely on a whole lot of misunderstandings and stubborn people are more believable than this, just because a series is le wholesome chungus doesn’t mean that it isn’t bad. I have seen people say that there is subtlety in this series, which is a blatant lie, nothing in this series is subtle, this isn’t something exclusive to this series, most romance series will tell you everything the characters feel, and this one is not an exception. The funny thing is that, as time went on, more people seemed to notice these cracks in their dialogue and grow tired of it too, while there’s still a lot of praise coming from people who only watched the anime, you could see how the apologizing became annoying to more and more people.

The setting isn’t believable at all either, the girls from Kikyo treat the boys from Chidori as if they were the scum of Earth, but when you look at them, you will see that they behave like these cute little kids who also can’t do no wrong, there aren’t conflicts even inside the school, you don’t see them behaving badly or like delinquents, they are pretty normal if stupid. You can say that there’s preconceptions about how Kikyo girls perceive Chidori guys, but there’s no reason for these to exist and if there are the series doesn’t say anything about them. The protagonist Rintaro is scawy-looking and has blonde hair, but actually he’s a gentle giant, he may be awkward but he has no mean intentions towards anyone at any point in time, he thinks he has no friends yet he spends all his time with 3 other guys. Speaking of these other guys, you can tell the author is a woman because of how they behave with each other, at no point they have a portrayal of male friendship that makes sense, even less with the given setting, they keep praising each other, getting embarrassed, saying how glad they are to be friends, they can sometimes tease each other but then they will say a hundred of different praises too, as if teasing your friend was this horrible thing to do and you have to ask for forgiveness… the more you see and pay attention to the setting, it only becomes more nonsensical.

Nothing in this works, the characters aren’t even believable to their own setting, and the praise just confuses me, do I really have to believe this is one of the best romance anime ever made? The answer is a no, given CloverWorks’ track record this season, deciding to vomit 3 anime at the same time and even putting them in the same promotions means that you have to expect something of the quality of the other two, and in fact, that’s exactly what you get, but unlike Sono Bisque Doll that had a nice first season and Bunny Girl Senpai that while it started awful it actually got a little better with time, you have this thing right here, which was easily the worst of the three. The story wants to have its cake and eat it too, the source of all the drama is the opposite of what we see on our screens, and the only thing that could “stop” their romance is a conflict that makes no sense. There’s nothing here that makes me want to support this romance, because everything here feels fake, manufactured, illogical and unbelievable, it’s the opposite of realistic in every possible way.

Thank you for reading.