Not all media strives to be a masterpiece and that's ok. You don't need to force yourself to consume something you don't enjoy. But also remember that just because it's not your thing, that doesn't make it the same for everyone. There are manga series that I know full well will be mediocre but still consume and love as long as the art drew my interest. One of them is this. I'm an artist so there's just something satisfying to be had when I read stuff the artists I follow made. Now that that's said and done, the anime adaptation is... boring. I won't be talking about the plot because it just follow the common elements of a comedy/slice of life/romance anime so it's nothing really to talk about. This is more about my gripes with how it was adapted as it seems most people only talk about Uzaki's character.
First off- it's not bad. However, that doesn't make it good either. It looks awfully plain similar to many present-day anime and that's a shame because the manga had a crisp and distinct art style enough to be shared without context in the broader anime community. That's really the strength of mangas like this as they start as one-shots most of the time with the sole purpose of introducing a character idea that hopefully gets popular. The art style is even becoming its own subgenre along with Nagatoro and Komi for having stand out facial expressions.
The adaptation wasn't able to translate that and it felt like it had no interest in itself. That really hurts a series like this since no matter how you may think of it, the charm comes from the art and presentation. The animation style is so streamlined and while I'm not saying it needs to have sakuga as non-action anime aren't really known for that, looking at similar stuff like Kobayashi (big tits + slice life), Suzumiya (bratty + slice of life) or Toradora (short girl + romantic slice of life) - the flat shading, wispy lineart, the unintrusive music and crappy backgrounds- It really shows how disappointing this is and how it just loses the charm of why I got interested in Uzaki in the first place. Present-day anime focus more on looking clean than anything and it doesn't make me want to buy the dvd's over the manga more. Gliding animated comics on YouTube looks more fun than this. That's why I'm also not entirely satisfied with the anime for Kaguya-sama. While I love the songs, the good direction and DIO's voice actor, I dislike how flat anime in this genre had become in terms of art. More examples are Blend S, Grand Blue and Domestic na Kanojo. I like them all but they don't have the visual flair like Chuunibyou, ReLife, or even older ones like School Rumble have. And though Dagashi Kashi (similar for big tits + slice of life) didn't fall into that pit, it completely removed the romance aspect and ended up as a tedious candy trivia show. That's why I'm happy with Rent-a-Girlfriend right now since it actually looks special.
Going back to Uzaki, many people assume that readers only go for it for the massive tits and while that's not entirely wrong for most people, Nagatoro is a similar manga and she's got none of those while still being wildly popular. Even more so with Komi-san and that has absolutely no sexual tension whatsoever. This anime feels so much like a dated adaptation and it will only look older from now despite having more detail like actual backgrounds while the manga will remain solid. In terms of characters, I'm not really offended by them. I can lose myself entirely in a show while still separating myself from it. Maybe I'm just too chill to care but I just don't get why people made such a big fuss out of an unimportant stuff like this. This is not new. The only difference now is the decline in quality. Magic sempai can't compete with Mysterious Girlfriend X despite being both perverted comedy anime.
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