A Couple of Cuckoos

I'm not entirely sure where to start for this one. Honestly, I'm a bit surprised that I chose to rate A Couple of Cuckoos as high as 7/10 in my personal ratings. Looking at it objectively, the story of this anime is muddy and inconsistent, with a lot of moments that lead nowhere or are resolved almost immediately. And yet, I find the characters charming, the animation is great, and most of the cringe moments are outweighed by the heartfelt ones.

I will say, the first 12 eps are more consistent than the latter 12 in terms of characterization and overall plot, but I don't think they were nearly as bad as I've seen people say. My biggest gripe was actually that they changed the OP and ED, as I liked the first half's music much more. But I digress, let me talk about the actual contents of the anime now. I'll do my best to keep it spoiler free, as usual.

Nagi is pretty annoying, but as far as harem protagonists go, I find it refreshing that he's constantly getting beat up by the girls instead of having them all swooning at his feet. Some of the humiliation moments are incredibly cringe, especially with how often they have him ogling the girls. But I also thought his straightforward nature as a protagonist was a strength for him, because it gave me a reason why all of these girls might become enamored with him. I found his heartfelt moments to feel surprisingly genuine also, especially with his promises to try to help Erika and Hiro, to keep it vague. I value a kindhearted protagonist a lot, and Nagi is usually trying to help, even when he fails miserably at it.

As for the girls of the harem...

I like Erika more than I expected to. She can be quite annoying and incomprehansible. A lot of her actions make no sense, and they feel thrown together for the sake of the plot, but watching her grow and become more comfortable with herself and her friends is quite sweet to me.

Hiro is my favorite, but I've always loved nerds. I like that she's portrayed to be perfect, but later on you see that she has vices and issues just like any other girl her age. I do think some of her behavior comes out of nowhere, and that they could have done a better job blending her studious side with her more reckless side.

As for Sachi, well, I think that her presence doesn't do much overall as a love interest. She's not blood related to Nagi, but there is a lot of emphasis put onto how she's his sister regardless of blood ties. Her role seems to be to sabotage Nagi's efforts to win over Hiro, but I think she could have served that role just as well as an actual little sister instead of one of the romantic candidates, especially since the two have basically no real romantic moments throughout the entire season. I think they should have either leaned in all the way or kept her back as a sister, but the jealous middle ground she sits in basically serves no purpose except to create tension in the episodes.

I think this had the potential to be a great story, but as of now it's just a decent one. I'm sure the majority of these issues stem from the manga, so I do want to emphasize that I found this anime very visually appealing. The girls are all adorable, and most of the side characters also have interesting designs. The worst offender is Nagi, who suffers from generic protagonist syndrome. In comparison to the girls he looks very flat visually, which makes sense as a point of contrast but he could at least have a compelling accessory or hairstyle. I loved the environmental design and I thought all of the backgrounds and visual choices were very well done.

I won't say that I recommend it necessarily, but it's good enough that I'm willing to try the second season to see what comes next. If you like the character archetypes and you're looking for a filler anime though, it might be worth it for you!!