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anime: Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun
Mar. 26th, 2013 09:43 pmAn entertaining, if odd, shoujo romance. Our Heroine, Shizuku, is a "studybug" who literally doesn't care about anything but studying and homework. Her teacher asks her to take homework to a classmate named Haru who was suspended for fighting and hasn't returned to school even though his suspension has been lifted. Haru (who appears to be the extremes of every kind of shoujo hero, both good and bad, all crammed into one characrer) initially assumes Shizuku was sent by the school to try to force him to come back, and then decides that they're friends, because apparently only friends bring each toher homework. At which point, he decides it's ok to go back to school, and the rest of the series is a thoroughly bizarre courtship as the two acquire oddball friends.
It's pretty consistently entertaining, despite several scenes that make me go "no...not really, no" but it doesn't seem to quite know what it wants to be. It wants to be a straight-up romantic comedy, but it also wants to be a slice-of-life coming-of-age series, and sometimes it also seems to want to deconstruct shoujo romance. It could be a really strong series if it chose any one of the three, but it wants to be all three at once ,and as a result, it fails to really succeed at any of them.
I also have difficulty seeing Shizuku/Haru as a relationship that would last long. They seem more the friends who everyone thinks should hook up because they're always together, and they like each other because they're teens and have hormones, but ultimately aren't compatible at all. (At this stage, at least. Maybe 5-10 years later when they've both grown up, it'll be different.) Haru also has severe issues with violence and control (which are never really fully explained, though he does at least come to understand the concept of personal space and not touching people without their permission) and could just as easily become a controlling abuser as a decent, if somewhat awkward, dude who's worked through his issues, and I refuse to support any relationship involving him without feeling sure I know which it'd be. I suspect a lot of this is addressed in the second half of the manga, which the anime doesn't cover.
So, entertaining, if somewhat problematic, and worth watching even if it doesn't live up to its potential.
It's pretty consistently entertaining, despite several scenes that make me go "no...not really, no" but it doesn't seem to quite know what it wants to be. It wants to be a straight-up romantic comedy, but it also wants to be a slice-of-life coming-of-age series, and sometimes it also seems to want to deconstruct shoujo romance. It could be a really strong series if it chose any one of the three, but it wants to be all three at once ,and as a result, it fails to really succeed at any of them.
I also have difficulty seeing Shizuku/Haru as a relationship that would last long. They seem more the friends who everyone thinks should hook up because they're always together, and they like each other because they're teens and have hormones, but ultimately aren't compatible at all. (At this stage, at least. Maybe 5-10 years later when they've both grown up, it'll be different.) Haru also has severe issues with violence and control (which are never really fully explained, though he does at least come to understand the concept of personal space and not touching people without their permission) and could just as easily become a controlling abuser as a decent, if somewhat awkward, dude who's worked through his issues, and I refuse to support any relationship involving him without feeling sure I know which it'd be. I suspect a lot of this is addressed in the second half of the manga, which the anime doesn't cover.
So, entertaining, if somewhat problematic, and worth watching even if it doesn't live up to its potential.