One conflict quickly brushed over by the protagonist ignoring it, and another one lunged into. Despite the implausibility of plot, I’m still enjoying this anime though I fear it might be starting to just become a melodrama that is going to bore me by the end.
Episode 5:
The rumours have spread thick and fast about Tsutsui but for the most part he takes being ostracised in his stride. It almost a novel way of dealing with it given Tsutsui explains that with so many other things going right for him, he can’t get all that upset about a bit of bullying (even if it goes beyond just a bit of bullying). I was kind of annoyed at him for his passive approach but I liked that he did get the cause of the issue to explain to his family what had happened. I feel that without this scene I’d have finished this sequence feeling like the anime was simply asking us to accept that bad things happen and you need to deal with them.
The second half of the episode then delves into yet another miscommunication fiasco between Iroha and Tsutsui. Miscommunication is an overly replied upon plot device in rom-coms and generally you can get away with it but when it has already been established that the guy doesn’t get it and yet the girl refuses to actually explain the problem it just starts feeling really forced to create a conflict.
Episode 6:
And now we’re definitely spirally down through teen drama as Tsutsui reeling from his misunderstanding with Iroha causes another issue with Ito (leading to a flash-back sequence of how they became friends). We then finally get a kind-of reconciliation before Iroha spots Tsutsui talking with gardening girl and for some unknown reason gets suddenly jealous, even though she’s exhibited none of the usual emotional responses to events up until this point.
The issue with all of these conflicts isn’t the implausibility of them, but the way they pace them with one feeding another and the overlapping sequences. While it ensures there’s always something happening on screen, it all feels incredibly scripted and fake, even for a high school anime. And while there are some interesting enough moments as the conflicts develop, that artificial tone of each encounter is definitely hurting my overall investment in the series.
Linked Reviews:
- Episode 4: Dark Times
- Episode 3: The Outsider’s Perspective
- Episode 2: Equal Parts Like and Hate
- 3D Kanojo: Real Girl First Impressions
Thanks for reading.
Karandi James
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I’ve said it before, but it really sticks out here in this pair of eps… This whole show feels like a first draft. Like they never went back and smoothed out the transitions.
There are definitely ideas kind of roughly dropped along a plot line and they really are kind of jarring in how they crop up and are then resolved before the next thing occurs.