I’m gonna be honest, I came off of the back of this one kinda anticipating that I was going to rate it relatively highly, so it was pretty shocking when I saw such scathing reviews here. Then I thought back a little more critically, and ultimately, everyone’s mostly right. But, I think it deserves a bit more credit than a lot of these reviews are giving it.

It’s another case of, “critically, this is really not great”, but “I kinda got everything I wanted out of it” here. Not truly everything in this case, but pretty close. The only difference is, in the areas where it mattered less, this one really wasn’t much to write home about.

Neither of these characters are particularly interesting, nor appealing in isolation. They don’t have very unique traits, there isn’t a lot of progression besides the main romance plot, though they weren’t inconsistently characterised. The actual things happening weren’t fresh. There wasn’t much active listening, and there wasn’t even much stuff to be active listening for anyways. When there was some level of backstory, though active listening could reveal stuff ahead of time, they eventually hit you over the head with it.

Music was unremarkable (though that start of that OP with the male falsetto BG vocals made me think of KIRINJI for a second. Wonder if they’ve done anything for anime before). Art quality was inconsistent, sometimes very mediocre, usually pretty fine, very rarely good. Animation was low, though it may just be a general scope situation. There were a few questionable and jarring cinematography choices here and there. There really weren’t many different locations, so I’m assuming this was a pretty low-budget show.

I like the lighter golden tones used for the eyeliner and outlines here, gives it a very soft appearance. His arms are way too short. He has baby proportions. This show is lacking in a lot of places; these are totally fair criticisms. But in the end, it’s all about priorities. So, let’s talk about what I believe matters the most in the kind of romance media they're trying to craft. Spoilers starting ahead.

I appreciate the progression over time here. Initially, it was pretty clear that Mahiru was keeping him at arm’s length, and they were both content with that for a while. That was the way she was internally justifying being in such intimate spaces with him, but it pretty quickly turned into genuine affection, and like halfway in, they couldn’t keep their hands off of each other. A little too much to not be dating, to be honest, but you can slightly justify it as they both clearly have detachment issues, and aren’t sure how to handle it.

I thought there were a fair few moments in time where we got some pretty telling insight into what these characters were thinking regarding their feelings for each other too, especially at the start. I feel like I see so many romance where they don’t start appreciating each other until they’re already interested, but here they traceably go from strangers to friends to lovers.

It started to come apart a bit later after they’d already effectively started dating, but that was kinda the “phase 2” of the anime. You’ve seen the progression, this is the payoff. Now you just watch them be cute together. And we enjoy this – this is why we’re here, lmao. This is where you smile like an idiot, looking at drawings doing stupid shit.

▶ Video▶ Video I think they didn’t even need to do the shots with the inside of Amane’s room here. I think, in context, the sound cue is all we needed to know exactly what he’s doing and thinking.

Not a fan of the way it ended. It has the trademark “cram everything into episode 12” syndrome, where they don’t actually build toward the climax properly, and it feels unsubstantial. They didn’t kiss because they want to make another season, and everybody knows that it all ends at the kiss, but I believe it should’ve ended there. They haven’t left enough questions unanswered to do a season 2, mostly because they didn’t ask many questions in the first place. You’re allowed to make a simple show like this, but trying to make a 2nd season out of it is greedy. It wasn't as unsatisfying as with Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian, where I really docked marks because of its unsatisfying wrap-up. I think Alya's better all around, but we're kinda comparing apples to oranges here; there are different expectations.

In the end, if you want anything that isn’t simple, surface-level and peaceful, you’re probably going to need to keep looking. If you are, don’t be disappointed when you find out this is all this show has to offer. But to be honest, that’s the most important part, and at least they had it prioritised. There are many bigger wastes of time.