So, even though I really love and get into a lot of anime, I haven't really tried reviewing one yet. There are a myriad of reasons for this, but the most relevant is that I feel like my review wont be able to do justice to the complex relationship I have with the show and the reasons I felt the show was deserving of the rating I gave it. However, I'm going to give it a shot anyway, and I'm going to start with a show I fell in love with almost immediately.
This show focuses on the relationship between Kyoko Hori and Izumi Miyamura. Hori is an outgoing, popular girl. The kind of girl you'd expect to be hanging out with friends outside of school, not rushing home to do housework and babysit her younger brother. None of her school friends know she's really a homebody either, as she hides this aspect of her personality. Miyamura is a quiet kid who wears glasses and everyone thinks he's a loner/otaku and doesn't really try to get to know him, but outside of school, he has multiple piercings and wears his long hair up to show them off. So, it's no surprise that Hori doesn't really recognize Miyamura when he helps her younger brother home after he's fallen and gotten hurt. What is surprising is the friendship that forms between the two over the fact they each know one another's secret.
What I really liked about this show: The show grabbed me first with a catchy opening and beautiful animation. Then, as I met and learned about the characters, I fell in love with them as well. Hori is a lot more than the popular pretty girl trope. She has a temper, but she's not your typical tsundere either. Miyamura isn't the loner/otaku he seems in school or the rebel he looks like out of it. He's actually just not very good at making friends on his own and the story behind his piercings ends up being quite interesting. The relationship dynamic between the duo pretty much flips the gender script in some ways, Miyamura being the first to confess his feelings to Hori when he thinks she's out of it and can't hear, and Hori often being the more domineering of the two. The show also has great secondary characters and interesting romance plots between them as well. Unlike so many other romance anime out there, Horimiya does not keep the viewer in suspense about their relationship and where it's headed. They start dating fairly early in the show without a lot of misunderstandings (there is one, but they sort that out pretty quickly) that get in their way. The show is less about whether or not they will date, and more about their relationship and them growing as a couple and learning about one another.
This show also gave me the feels pretty hardcore. I know, I know, like that's hard. But there was something about Miyamura in particular that I identified with and especially in the episodes that expose his past and why he ended up the way he did. In one episode he has a dream where he talks to his past self (I'm tearing up just thinking about it) and the younger version of him talks about hating doing various things because of people and not having friends and the older tells him that it will get better, but one particularly heart-wrenching moment was when the younger self says "can I die?" and when Miyamura wakes up, you see tears streaming from his eyes, and his immediate reaction is to call Hori.
I also liked the directing. I thought they did a very good job of using the animation to convey what the characters were thinking and feeling and they coupled this with a soundtrack which was perfection itself. The voice actors all did superb jobs as well. Basically, I loved everything about this show. There are some people who think it's over-rated, or not as good as some other shows, but I disagree. The only thing I could possible find to fault it on, was that they didn't adapt enough of the source material. I would have watching a 24 episode show that kept more of the manga and loved it just as much.
For those of you who have seen it, one of my favorite scenes was when Miyamura stole Hori's candy. And for those of you who aren't in on the joke, watch it and find out. (currently available on Hulu)
Thanks for reading and see you all soon.
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