Romantic Killer

Anzu Hoshino needs only three things in her life: video games, chocolate, and her beloved cat. Unlike other high school girls, Anzu has no time for or interest in romance. But as she begins playing a poorly programmed 3D otome game, a bizarre flying wizard named Riri emerges from the screen and calls Anzu "subject one," the first person who will experience a dating game harem storyline in real life.

Despite Anzu's fiery protests, Riri confiscates her favorite things to force her to focus on love. Riri orchestrates a series of unlucky incidents and romantic cliches that lead her to meet Tsukasa Kazuki, one of the most attractive boys in her school. Still enraged, Anzu is adamant about resisting Tsukasa's charm. As all the ridiculous fabricated scenarios help Anzu warm up to Tsukasa's pleasant nature, Riri throws other stereotypical pretty boys her way—and avoiding romance quickly becomes almost impossible.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Hoshino, Anzu Main

Takahashi, Rie Japanese

Riri Main

Komatsu, Mikako Japanese

Kazuki, Tsukasa Main

Umehara, Yuuichirou Japanese

Hayami, Junta Main

Kajiwara, Gakuto Japanese

Koganei, Hijiri Main

Hanae, Natsuki Japanese

Takamine, Saki Supporting

Iwami, Manaka Japanese

Tsuchiya Supporting

Tsuda, Kenjirou Japanese

Kazuki, Arisa Supporting

Inoue, Marina Japanese

Oda, Makoto Supporting

Shimono, Hiro Japanese

Kishi, Yukana Supporting

Hikasa, Youko Japanese

Hayashi, Tatsurou Producer

Murakami, Maasa Producer

Ichikawa, Kazuya Director

Ooba, Sayuri Script, Series Composition

Reviews

Nov 19, 2024

nagisayamada

Recommended

Netflix if you cancel one more good show I am going to lose my mind.
I was bored and wanted something nice and simple, like any typical shoujo, to entertain myself. And then I stiumbled upon this anime, not expecting much. You can imagine my surprise when I became glued to my seat, binging the whole thing in one go.
I really enjoyed the whole plot surrounding the romance in this anime, I think its much better than the romance itself, with plot twists and complicated backstories as well as recurring trauma/issues. The romance itself was lackluster, I wanted a little more of it but I didn't ... mind much because of how good the actual plot is.
However, I will say the male leads just felt like they were multiplying for no real reason because all of us knew that other than the first two, the competition was nonexistent, and those last male characters just felt like background characters who accidentaly got pushed to front row. But we can easily forget this as they aren't brought up very often or seen as serious competition.
I really wish I could see more of it, to know what comes after those cliff hangers and continue the story, but allas I won't.
I definetely recommend this to anyone looking for a sorta dark and very interesting shoujo anime.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jan 24, 2023

H-A-M-M-Y

Mixed Feelings

It was the summer of 2022 and I was scrolling down and checking out which movies and shows are coming to Netflix soon. That was where I came across this anime called Romantic Killer. Never heard about the anime before, didn't see it in any of the seasonal charts, and didn't even know it's based on a manga. Based on the anime's description given on Netflix, being about a girl who's an avid gamer and comes across a mysterious game. At first, I thought said game would happen to be a portal to another world where she gets her own harem, is some assassin, and ... stuff like that. I was expecting it to be a run-of-the-mill isekai and would take some inspiration from My Next Life as a Villainess.
Apparently, that was not the case at all when the preview was released. There is no isekai, no assassinations, no resurrections, nothing of the sort. Heck, it’s not even shoujo; it’s a shounen anime. Oh, and it’s a romantic comedy set in modern-day Japan. So, what on earth is Romantic Killer all about?


STORY:
The story is about a high school girl named Anzu whose life centres around her “Three Greatest Desires):
1) Video Games
2) Chocolate
3) Her Cat (Momohiki)
As a result, she has had absolutely no interest in anything else. And yes, you guessed it right, not even romance (it’s in the name). And since this anime is a romantic comedy, some wacky hijinks are to be expected, as well as getting introduced to some potential love interests. How that starts is uh… well, here’s the gist:
So, one fine day, Anzu is minding her own business playing a visual novel (VN) she recently ordered and was complaining about all the common and clichéd tropes the VN was playing… Then BAM! A weird yellow creature in a wizard’s garb pops out of the TV! Now this yellow creature is named Riri and he is a Love Cupid and his job is to spice up Anzu’s love life by turning her life into a real life dating sim. Why? Two reasons: to help solve Japan’s declining birth rates and for his salary (Yes, cupids in this anime happen to function as an organised door-to-door marriage bureau who will barge into your house if your love life is non-existent. Let that sink in.).
However, there’s a huge problem in kickstarting Anzu’s love life: her Three Greatest Desires. How’s that solved? Well, Riri confiscates all of them. At this point, you might be wondering “Wait, if he’s confiscating the cat, how’s he gonna be fed?”. Don’t you worry, dear reader! Riri has a solution to that! He uses his magic to send Anzu’s parents overseas and sends the cat with them. Now Anzu is all alone in her house and all her chocolate and video games are gone and is left at the mercy of a supernatural marriage consultant shoved down her throat. Riri, marvellous work for promoting parental neglect and putting your client (who also did not want your help) under an informal house arrest. Well done! Will definitely reach out to your agency whenever I plan on getting married!
And with all that the plot of the story finally begins. While the start of the story was bumpy to say the least, the rest of the anime had slightly fewer random moments, which I’ll get to in the characters section.
For the most part, the anime first parodies common romance tropes and then plays said tropes straight to a T. Personally, I found this a bit confusing and thought it was rather unnecessary to lampshade the same tropes it was mocking repeatedly. Even so, the first two-thirds of the story was somewhat enjoyable, just nothing too unique. I did like how some of the characters interacted with one another. I did not like how Riri would show up completely out of the blue and would force me to take medicine to keep my blood pressure normal.
I felt that the last third of the story did not fit the overall premise of the story. It was significantly more serious and realistic. Not that that’s a bad thing, but it definitely stood out from the rest of the story due to its tone. It would’ve been more appropriate had the anime been much longer than 12 episodes and was far less rushed; it would’ve been even better off if it were a separate season or even show in its own right. I won’t delve too much on the last third of the anime so as not to give away spoilers.

CHARACTERS:
1) Anzu Hoshino: The protagonist of the story and the biggest recipient of Riri’s abuse. She showcases quite a handful of traits common among shounen protagonists, such as being hot-headed, passionate, a bit of a ditz, and also being a good friend to others. And while she’s subjected to constant abuse by Riri, she does fight back quite a lot (Oh, and she does go full on macho and muscular on a few occasions similar to Lt. Armstrong from Fullmetal Alchemist.). Overall, a decent character and has helped many of her friends to become better.
2) Riri: The Love Cupid assigned to Anzu and pretty much the one character who has contributed the most in steering the story; he can also be seen only by Anzu. As you might have guessed from my tirade earlier, I do not not like Riri at all. This ball of a sweaty blond Viking’s armpit hair is incredibly obnoxious, selfish, and needlessly complicates things for not only Anzu but pretty much everyone involved. The guy is a huge and overpowered plot device who uses various methods to keep the story going, much to many of the characters’ chagrin.
3) Tsukasa Katsuki: The first potential love interest Anzu encounters. A brooding individual who keeps his distance from others. He also happens to be popular among the girls in the anime due to his good looks, but has rejected all romantic proposals. At first, he maintains some distance from Anzu but after some unforeseen circumstances (Hm… I wonder what could have caused them?), he is forced to stay with Anzu from where he begins to slowly warm up and open up to her. Personally, he is my favourite character in the whole anime. I first thought he would be your conventional aloof character common in romance anime (similar to Kyouya Ootori from Ouran High School Host Club or Sasuke from Naruto) and he did initially play that trope straight. But after undergoing quite an engaging character development and getting to know more of his backstory, I came to like the guy a lot and was honestly hoping he and Anzu get together.
4) Junta Hayami: The second potential love interest we are introduced to. He is Anzu’s childhood friend and has had a huge crush on her since they were kids. He’s also quite popular and plays for the school’s baseball team. Oh, and he’s deathly afraid of cockroaches and cares about his friends (two traits he shares with Anzu). And yeah, that’s kinda it, and that’s my main problem with Junta. Of the 3 potential love interests, I feel he is the least developed and the most forgettable one. I think he was shoehorned into the story just as a tool to play with the whole Childhood Friendship Romance route.
5) Hijiri Koganei: The third potential love interest we are introduced to. He’s the resident rich brat (and later transfer student) who is also popular but has an obnoxious personality second only to Riri. Anzu also sees him with disdain for understandable reasons. So, Hijiri became interested in Anzu because of her lack of interest in him and tries to win her over with gifts, only for her to either return them or outright reject them. While he did start as a narcissistic swine, he does undergo some admirable character development after his dad puts him in Anzu’s public school so that he can learn to be more responsible and learn to live more independently. Anzu also contributed to his character development by prompting him to take up a part-time job as a cashier in order to buy gifts for her by using his own money (he used to use his parents’ money to buy said gifts, something which Anzu calls him out on). While he does retain most of his obnoxiousness, I warmed up to the character after seeing what he goes through. Quite frankly, I was impressed that he decided to work as a cashier and found his narcissism to hold some merit after that.
6) Saki Takamine: Anzu’s best friend and someone who definitely deserved more screen time. She’s also super popular among the boys in her school. While a minor character, I found her bond and backstory with Anzu to be quite touching. I also respect how she snubs comments from other guys. Seriously, why did she not get enough screen time while Riri gets to be a main character?!
Of course, there are many other characters in the anime, but I will not be discussing them for 2 reasons: the character section is already pretty long by now and I don’t want to give out spoilers.
Overall, the cast of characters is moderately decent. Riri can go rot in a nuclear waste-filled hell though.

ANIMATION:
The main studio behind this anime was Domerica. I swear, I searched up the company’s name while writing this review. The company was founded in 2010 and one noticeable contribution they have made in the past was working on the 3DCG animation of some episodes of Girls und Panzer.
Anyway, back to the animation. Well, it’s not bad. For a new Netflix anime, it’s not bad at all. It’s neither visually stunning like Violet Evergarden nor is it eye gouge-inducing like EX-ARM (In case you’re wondering, yes. I’ve sat through EX-ARM. All of it. And I ain’t happy about it.). It’s just that’ it’s passable. The sudden super-deformed artstyle can be distracting, but I didn't see any other noteworthy issue with the overall animation. As someone who walked into this anime without knowing anything about it, I found it satisfactory.

SOUND AND MUSIC:
The opening of the anime “Roma Kira” was performed by Yurika (who also sang for Beastars), while the ending “Romantic Love: Ren’ai Shimasenka?” was written by Ayato Shinozaki and Ryousuke Tachibana (both of whom also wrote for Re:Zero). The opening song was kinda run-of-the-mill; the vocals did remind me of the opening songs of the earlier Tales games for some reason. The ending song was performed by…. *sigh*... Riri (To be fair, it was performed by Mikako Komatsu - Riri’s voice actress.). While the song was catchy, just seeing Riri during the ending segment ruined the song for me. Apart from that the music used in the anime was adequate.
I’ll be honest, after finishing the anime, I don’t quite remember any of the music. I actually had to listen to the opening song again to recall how it was. The only one song I did remember was the ending song… for obvious reasons.

FINAL VERDICT:
5/10 (Average)
While the anime was not as bad as I thought it would be, I believe it did have more potential. My two biggest gripes with the anime are Riri and the show’s indecision with regards to parodying, deconstructing, and playing romance tropes straight. Nonetheless, it wasn’t a bad watch. The characters (sans Riri) were nice and the animation was serviceable.
If you do have some time to burn and just sit back and relax, the first two-thirds of this anime might help out. Do check it out if you’re interested.

Likes: The parody parts of the story, Hijiri and Tsukasa’s character developments, and Saki calling the boys in her class out.
Dislikes: Riri and the story juggling between parodying, deconstructing, and playing the romance genre straight.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Nov 25, 2023

BadGuyBoog

Not Recommended

This is the difference between satire and parody. After I announced my frustration with the rom com genre where I finally got fed up with its bullshit in Couple of Cuckoos, I saw the synopsis of this show about a girl absolutely refusing to be part of that bullshit. It was a parody of the genre and I was all for it. There were some really funny jokes in this show shitting on the tropes and cliches. Rom coms are almost always driven by coincidence and contrivances and so this show takes it to the max with literal magic manipulating the events to cause, what ... I like to call, “anime moments”. Like when they fall on top of each other, or run into each other in the halls or when (this is my favorite in this anime) the love interests are forced to live in the same house with each other. This show goes so far over the line to make this shit happen that it’s genius. The only reason this show isn’t higher is because I don’t think it went far enough. It was a parody, not a satire like it should’ve been. Like all the love interests are all cliche. That’s of course part of the joke but it doesn’t stop the fact that they’re not enjoyable or interesting characters. If they were mind controlled to be as boring as possible then that’d be a different story but they are all supposedly real people in the show, so to have them just be the stereotypical archetypes in this parody is kind of underwhelming (especially the childhood friend). This show pokes fun at all the tropes but it doesn’t say anything about them or make them better. Konosuba worked as a parody because it not only parodied the isekai genre, but it fixed the flaws of the genre as a whole, which was boring characters and a boring world. In isekai you always have an overly virtuous overpowered protagonist, so Konosuba gave us a weak scumbag instead. When it did have the generic protagonist gag character in Mitsurugi, they pointed out the major flaws within his character and therefore the rest of the isekai protagonists as a whole. It didn’t fall into the tropes but instead subverted them. When it did fall into cliche it built upon them with new depths. That’s what I wanted for this show, but ultimately both with the characters and the plot, it’s as cliche and boring as the shows it makes fun of. Still there were still some top tier jokes. There was one character who was always in the stupid handsome-boy anime pose every time he was on screen and it was just hilarious. The main character Junta is very enjoyable as well and overall it was a funny and enjoyable show.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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'Romantic Killer' Reveals Additional Cast, Trailer

Netflix Japan revealed six additional cast, the first trailer, ending theme, and a key visual (pictured) for the anime adaptation of Wataru Momose's Romantic Ki...read more

Sep 19, 2022 8:09 PM by DatRandomDude | Discuss (9 comments)

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Netflix Japan announced an anime adaptation of Wataru Momose's Romantic Killer manga on Tuesday, revealing the main cast, staff, opening theme artist, and a te...read more

Aug 22, 2022 7:38 PM by DatRandomDude | Discuss (30 comments)

	Poll: Romantic Killer Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) RafaelDeJongh - Oct 27, 2022	176 replies	by Mirorin »» Oct 29, 10:39 PM
	Poll: Romantic Killer Episode 10 Discussion shuffleair - Oct 28, 2022	38 replies	by Mirorin »» Oct 29, 9:44 PM
	Poll: Romantic Killer Episode 9 Discussion shuffleair - Oct 28, 2022	35 replies	by Mirorin »» Oct 29, 5:02 PM
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