Creating a comedy anime that draws its laughs from surreal humor is like playing a game of chicken. Absurdist humor's comedic chops are invariably based on how far an already unrealistic and irrational situation can be taken, and whether the audience happens to find such humor funny in the first place. The feeling you get when watching a good surreal comedy is always that the story knows it should probably stop, but since it's already knee-deep in the water, it might as well see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

With Love Tyrant, the plot always feels too aware of its own shortcomings to take its depravity and tastelessness to the next level. Love Tyrant is subsequently unable to turn its unbearably cliched setting and painfully drab cast of characters into more than the sum of its parts, and squanders its potential as a result. Nothing about the series is so weird that you can't help but laugh, but that in itself becomes a weakness. A comedy that requires you to completely shut down your brain might still be worth a watch on the darkest of days - Love Tyrant, unfortunately, doesn't quite hit that mark.

Premise (2/5): The coupling of romantic comedies with the historically-ingrained human obsession over the notions of angelic and demonic entities is nothing new. Love Tyrant doesn't stray far from the beaten path, though its portrayals of Heaven and Hell, as a tatami-floored room and a bustling office district respectively, are at least relatively novel. However, everything you need to know about the series can easily be summarized in a blurb or synopsis, and sometimes it can feel as if Love Tyrant is allergic to plot twists, given the straightforward way in which it lays out its premise. You know what's going to happen; you know what each character is going to say. Some will appreciate that sort of no-nonsense storytelling, but in an absurdist comedy, such frankness of development can be fatal.

Despite the setting's flaws, there's a surprising level of depth regarding the backgrounds of each character that deserves at least a mention. Unfortunately, perhaps as a result of the anime's relatively short episodic length, those backgrounds are never quite explored to anywhere near their fullest, though you wouldn't really expect much else from a series where the focus is chiefly on the jokes, and little else.

Characters (2/5): It's rare to see a yandere character take center stage in a rom-com in the way that Akane Hiyama does in Love Tyrant. That in itself is interesting, and a source of much hilarity throughout the story. Nevertheless, the rest of the cast are as bland and uninspired as they come: Seiji is the punching bag that occasionally summons an inexplicable sense of pride and honor out of nowhere; Guri is the happy-go-lucky, seemingly stupid and shallow half-angel-half-demon who, to her credit, probably undergoes the most character development in the series (though that isn't much by normal standards); Yuzu is the haughty, rich ojou-sama whose heart is easily swayed; Shikimi is the detestable, near-demonic presence whose sole role in life is to be as much of a homewrecker as possible; Aqua is the tsundere little sister who hides her affection for her brother behind a veneer of violence and tomboyish nonchalance. The other minor characters dart in and out of focus, never making much of an impression. Nothing out of the ordinary, and certainly nothing to be sympathetic about.

The more the story of Love Tyrant wears on, the more it feels like the romantic subplots rely on Akane's yandere antics to get going. Maybe it's because I have a soft spot for well-endowed redheads with manic obsessions towards their chosen targets of affection. Maybe not. But it's certainly clear from the title that the "tyrant" is supposed to be the focus of the anime, so it feels a little cheap when she somehow doesn't really end up being the final focus of the attention or the most-developed character in the series - those awards instead go to Guri, the true main female character. Disappointing, but not surprising.

Audiovisuals (3/5): A surreal comedy that generates its humor from straight-man acts and other similar interactions between its characters needs to display that capacity for absurdity in as imaginative a way as possible. From Akane's features darkening as her yandere side is awakened, to Guri having her ever-changing moods written all over her face, Love Tyrant does a decent job of bringing the comedy to life on the screen. The background art is of an average quality, and the foreground art, which features some interesting choices of lining color, mostly brings out the best of each character. The fanservice is neither here nor there, sometimes coming out in full flow, sometimes seeming almost reluctant to appear, and this wishy-washyness is somewhat symbolic of the series as a whole.

The soundtrack is just as average as the background art, which isn't really a flaw in any sense. The sound effects are well-timed and appropriate, the voice-acting is of the standard you would expect from most anime, and the OP and ED are alright. It's difficult to make a judgment on the audio aspects as a whole, given how unmemorable they are, but it's enough for me to know that they do their job.

Execution (2/5): I read the manga a long, long time ago, so it initially surprised me that it took so long for me to get around to watching the anime adaptation. From what I've now seen of the anime, if the anime is a faithful rendering of the manga, then I probably understand why.

Absurd comedies require viewers to take a lot for granted, but Love Tyrant asks a little too much for my liking. For example, you never really see how the passage of time works in the anime - given that the main characters need to fulfill their roles as cupids in order to save their souls, it seems somewhat strange that after the first couple of episodes, they barely get any of their duties done, instead choosing to forget about them and faff around with each other until the end. But, maybe that's just me nitpicking.

Love Tyrant never seems to know whether it wants to focus on stretching the limits regarding the audiovisuals, or the character development, or the premise, or any other facet of the anime. It's good value for money for the few hearty laughs that pop up from time to time, but other than that, it doesn't really offer much. If you want a good comedy about angels and demons, watch Gabriel Dropout. If you want a good romance with supernatural elements, I can point you to many other series, such as Kokoro Connect. And so on, and so forth.

Ultimately, nothing about Love Tyrant makes it stand out, because it doesn't really try to. And that's what kills it in the end.

Overall rating: 2/5