Such a cute chubster, isn't he? There! Now that that's out of the way, let it be known to the jury that OP isn't a soulless loser who's incapable of enjoying cute things at surface level. I feel it's kinda necessary to point this out, as it seems that any discussion surrounding Tonikaku starts and ends with these three words: "It's so cute!" If this was seen as pure fluff and nothing more, I wouldn't bat an eye. Instead, we're dealing with what is supposedly the SOL blockbuster of the season, and I'm not content with ending my observations by stating the obvious. So without further ado, let's figure out where this seemingly innocent show goes wrong as we take a closer, cynical look at the undeserving SOL darling of the season. This review is spoiler-free, but feel free to skip ahead to my Tl;Dr if you'd like to go in completely blind.
We've seen the same love story play out countless times before. Boy meets girl, they fall in love, they struggle to confess, and the show ends right as the relationship finally gets off the ground. It's tried, it's tested, it's tropey as all hell. Aside from the "Will They, Won't They" conundrum, shows typically avoid romantic conflict like the plague. For whatever reason, audiences are sadly subjected to this constant retreading of material.
The series forgoes platonic courtship in favor of finally giving audiences a lighthearted take on married life. Our newly-wedded husband is Nasa Yuzaki, who at 16 almost had his life end abruptly in a disastrous accident. Miraculously he survives, thanks to the intervention of his future wife Tsukasa. On that fateful night, the infatuated Nasa asks Tsukasa out. Two years later, they get hitched, and this all happens in the span of the first episode. Sounds wholesome and sweet… cute even. But in spite of its promising premise, one can tell right away that Tonikaku has little interest in doing much else than what we've already seen before.
Several segments of the show are fun mini infomercials, dedicated to going over the spending habits and practices of middle-class residents in Japan. The Yuzakis face practical problems on a daily basis, and learn what it's like to share a living space with someone from the opposite gender. The young couple also spend time dealing with the consequences of suddenly getting married, and Tonikaku does an impressive job with making their matrimony make sense in a lifelike setting. Topics include purchasing marriage rings, property guarantor laws, and dreaded visits to the In-Laws. These tidbits may be enough to placate audiences looking to get invested in some semblance of realism. While I did find those parts of the show inoffensive, any goodwill I may have had gets thrown out the window once the show settles into its repetitive groove.
On one hand, you have a show poised to deliver its spin on relationships not often popularized in anime. On the other, you have a show that intends to explore marriage only in name; even though Nasa and Tsukasa are a registered couple, they AREN'T married. They may go through daily-life struggles and share moments similar to those between married couples, but fail to put on a convincing relationship. Watching Tonikaku was watching two innocent children, whose pairing makes no sense outside of its shotgun-marriage premise, declaring sweet nothings and grandiose monologues about romance. The show trivialises and simplifies life-long intimacy to the point where the Yuzakis are barely indistinguishable from your stock "puppy-love" couples. That's not a bad thing on its own; not every romance SOL is required to provide some insightful truth on the subject. However, it's worth stressing that what the show is attempting is woefully at odds with what is advertised. Tonikaku is fully content with leaving its ambition at the altar, in favor of playing on familiar ground and formulaic jokes. The former greatly diminished my excitement for the story. As for the latter… well, let's get into it.
By far the biggest offender is Nasa, who is kind, ever-prepared and intelligent… except when he's not. Tonikaku constantly destroys this positive image by instead handing us a daft teenager, who simped so hard it accidentally scored him a wife, almost at the cost of his life. Unless the plot demands him to be the purest snowflake alive, Nasa is possessive and downright horny. He finds strange obsessions within the most unassuming of situations; ranging from following his wife to the lingerie section, to awkwardly cuddling his wife as she sleeps, to undressing his wife in his mind as she changes in the other room (this occurs multiple times, mind you.) Not all these instances are bad, such as the scene in Episode 2 where the newly-wed couple share their first night together. It's at least a scenario unique to the show, and in small doses I'd find these scenarios to be mildly amusing… cute even. But then the joke just keeps going... and going… and going, ad nauseam. This Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Horny Hyde dichotomy does the character no favors. I'm constantly told he's this unselfish and thoughtful individual, but I'm witnessing a child given the means to act out his flights of pubescent fantasy onto a fellow virgin. Speaking of Tsukasa, her utilization in the show is equally irresponsible. While her charming character is inoffensive, what sucks is that she's constantly objectified by her Hubby Dearest. These disturbing interactions make up a huge chunk of Tonikaku, leaving me unimpressed and unconvinced whenever the show takes a break and preaches how kind and compatible and lovey-dovey our power couple are. It's kind of appalling how immature these characters are at times, and how they get away with their creepy implications and one-dimensional characterization just because "they're married."
Kaname's sketches are the saving grace of the series and always put a smile on my face. Most of her gags are low-brow comedy, but they're enjoyable in a way that Nasa's simping is not. The key difference is that Kaname's jokes are very clearly meant to be provocative, while Nasa's testosterone-driven desires are framed as "wholesome." Aya's cluelessness is also pretty entertaining, with some of the series' funniest bits under her belt. Nasa's parents received quite a lot of build-up but fell disappointingly short of expectations. Lastly, Chitose and her maids are pretty awful, with Chitose in particular playing an uninspired tsun. She somehow makes Nasa look less dumb when she's on-screen, so that's quite the impressive feat.
Some shows' chibi slapstick asides look more detailed than the entirety of the series. Sure, it keeps in-line with the mangaka's drawing style, but the simplicity of the presentation makes me wonder if the studio picked up this adaptation knowing they could get away with a cheap cash-grab. The monetary cost-cutting devolved to unintentionally silly levels, when about 1-2 minutes of Street Fighter V screen-capture footage was spliced in throughout Ep 11.^ Tonikaku's OP could have nearly been the best of 2020, if the budget had not run out as the title card dropped. Nothing stood out to me in the score, and the VA performances are nothing special. Konomi Kohara (Chika Fujiwara, Yuuko Yoshida) sounds like she's phoning in her performance as Chitose, and doesn't sound like she's having nearly as much fun as she did in Machikado Mazoku.
There is no honest attempt at exploring married life, outside your everyday I-Love-Yous and embarrassed kisses. What we have instead are immature characters involved in a series of formulaic sketches that are either unfunny or disturbingly horny. I'd like to think that Truck-kun really was waiting in the wings to transport Nasa's soul into another world. A world only slightly different from our own, where the perfect girl falls into your reincarnated lap and is wholly submissive to your every request. And judging from the love Tonikaku is getting, there may well be an audience for this proposed isekai. Unfortunately, I'm just not a huge fan.
In forgoing the confession phase, Tonikaku attempts to mislead you into thinking it sets itself apart from a typical romance story. Unfortunately, it's hard to see much merit with this decision when the characters are written with the same, if not greater, lack of maturity that plagues its contemporaries. Missed opportunities with exploring married life leaves a sour taste in my mouth. There are some moments that make for laid-back viewing, but Tonikaku's warped perception of love ensures that such opportunities are the exception and not the norm. Tonikaku comes across as a cheaply-produced "flavor of the month" SOL, that I wouldn't get nearly so riled up about if it wasn't so widely hailed as the Romance of the Season. 3/10~
"This is a bath episode!"
"I can feel her body temperature directly through my arm!"
"It's like I managed to pull an Ultra-Rare variant of my wife!"
"I want to try all kinds of embarrassing things to [my wife]!"
And my personal favorite:
"I want to hug my bra-less, panty-less wife so much!"
OK, that's it for now. Now if you'll excuse me, I'd like to write about an actual good romance story… more on that soon enough. Thanks for making it this far in my rant, I apologize if I failed to communicate my critique effectively here. If you happen to like my verbose rants, feel free to check out my other reviews (they're a lot more civil I swear) for seasons past and present, peace~
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