
"Why do you want to die?" - Shiori Oumi
My reaction after finished watching this show, probably (she is me... fr fr).
We should go back to the title then, which lit. means "This Monster Wants To Eat Me."
Did you notice the similarities?
Hinako never felt like wanting to live.
However, does this ever come true? Any odds for it to ever happen?
And mayhaps, this was her merely perchance.
She could indeed see how familiar it was.
It seemed like the unstoppable force that brought her family to death a long time ago.
But then, a twist.
All of a sudden, she met a blue haired girl.
For the sake of simplicity, let's call her Shiori (never mind, it's her name indeed).
And together, they embraced the passion and lived long after together.
Okay, that was quite misleading.

Hitodenashi offered a premise that no one could ever refuse, especially when they were into these: A slice of life filled with fruity passions and delightful desserts, wrapped into the sunset that emerged within the chaos. A destructive chaos which could rather make the audience getting intertwined by the twist, the magical serendipity within the precaution that such a romance was beyond the societal norms, both literally and metaphorically. Or perhaps, platonically too.
Though, if you found these terms arduous, let me make it crystal clear, short and concise: This story offers a slice of life yuri romance, narrated from the non-human perspective. Or does it really?
And yes, you heard it right.
However, here is the crude version of this gist:
This monster wants to eat Hinako. And she had no qualms of it.
"You are not human, after all."
To answer these questions, we should go back to the reiteration throughout the first paragraph:
Repeat, supernatural. As in youkai, human eater, monster.
Now, did it get stuck into your head? I bet it did.
But here is a more important question: does it deliver?
Indeed, it does. And perhaps, a bit too much.

That sentence above would perhaps be your response to this 'too much' opinion I gave out. But hear me out: It in-fact has too powerful premise despite being yuri romance, and perhaps it is too heavily philosophical, especially for those who simply got baited by YURI on itself.
Yes, the yuri was there, existing. But it appeared as if the author wanted to click-bait us even further by the use of slice of life and perhaps those lovey dovey moments to portray the sanity (or its lack thereof) between both of these in quite an inhumane (literally) relationship between youkai and human.
And it worked. Miraculously.
Every piece of themes, one-by-one, fell into a puzzle. It grasped the opportunity to show the philosophical struggles between inhumane demeanours, humanity, and societal norms. As if a tell-tale such as "No Longer Human" wouldn't be enough to decipher the complexity between both, whether psychoogically or philosophically.
In-fact, the aforementioned complex premise intrigued even non-GL romance enjoyers enough to get audience captivated.
I couldn't tell that much so not to ruin the enjoyment, especially since this was not a review intended for philosophical works but I could give you a little taste of its psychological perspective:
"Overlooked, underrated, and mostly unexpected."

Albeit it has to be noticed that there were plot holes, the twist within the plot was otherwordly. Ethereal if not giving you this "I never saw this coming" kind of reaction, especially when you never played a certain franchise game that might perhaps be the reference to this show.
These characters meanwhile were top-notch. Though not masterfully-written, each has a certain complexity, even some random cameo NPC that did come out of nowhere was given perhaps its most intriguing background, while the atmosphere was... clearly something else.
The clarity ambient transition between water, sea then transversed back to the abyss, void within the classroom followed by loud cheers by other students were quite suifficient enough to give us quite a sight to behold and music in your ears, especially when you watched it on your TV. In which I did.
However, biggest props should be given to these voice actors, who really aced these complexities, conveying them to the voice for each character, molded within such a crude perspective that should be considered as anything but mundane and repetitive.
Another thing to notice would be the music aspect and obviously these songs: I could rewind and replay "Sacrifice" for hours if I want to, and the ED was also perfect, given the premise.
Though, despite credit where it's due, it sometimes gave some mixed signals: I noticed some issues as to these character's motivation or perhaps their eagerness to 'murder each other', not to mention a certain plot hole but given its irrational premise, it should be understandable.
However, if you are not quite an acute observant with extremely perceptive awareness as I am, it doesn't matter since turns out it has to do with its discrepancies akin to the original work (which seems to be rather banterous) so this should be no problem if you simply enjoyed it for the sake of it, thus not analyzing themes re-occured throughout the show.
Because overall, it offered you too much of foods within the plate
In which you didn't know what to pick sometimes.
Hence thus, in the end, I could recommend this show for those whom may prefer experiencing an in-depth tell-tale of how a forbidden romance between different creatures enthralled your eyes that got intertwined by a simple, but elegantly crafted premise, a heavily philosophical (psychological too) work disguised as a girls romance with the sprinkle of CGDCT slice of life, and the all of a sudden but slowly, thus surely kind of plot twist coupled by an unexpected sudden development of plot direction, to create quite an eventful journey throughout a cruel but acceptable realization that in the end...
We indeed are human beings, not some kind of monstrous creatures.
Alright, that's all and thank you for reading this mundane review and enjoy these scenes below as my gratitude:

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