Mikakunin de Shinkoukei

This anime was cute, yet frustrating. The main characters that are engaged never actually get any alone time to talk to each other and when they do, Kobeni just mumbles and doesn't actually talk about anything.

The story was very vague and didn't have any strong points and was disappointing. The ending was a let down in my opinion.

The art was very good, Kobeni is one of the cutest girls in anime, and each character is very well animated, and the settings are done decently. The characters are the strongest point in the art department.

The sound was pretty cute. They had little piano parts here and ... there and funny music. Reminded my of Kirby's Epic Yarn at some points actually.

The Characters don't ever develop. They stay very much the same throughout the entire show. Hakuya never speaks for himself, Kobeni never reacts the way you want her too, Benio was funny at first but then it gets super old, and Mashiro never leaves Kobeni or Hakuya alone.

Overall it was a little disappointing with some cuteness mixed in, and it wasn't worth it but it wasn't awful. I'd suggest looking elsewhere if you're looking for a romance anime, because I'm sure most would have more romance than this one.

The slice of life genre and I have never really had what one might call a stable relationship. It's a genre that often consists of nothing but charming visuals and comedy that does very little for me. So, to counteract this, the slice of life anime that end up in my cue usually have at least one extra theme or genre added, the most common being a romantic plot line. So, was my latest bundle of romantic cuteness enough to stave off the nothingness of a typical slice of life series?

... I will say that as someone who is generally very uninterested in slice of life, this series had my attention for most of its run time, and there were certainly less moments than usual where I felt like the series was dragging or the pacing was too slow. As is the case with many other slice of life series, the humor is crazy and wild, but is still grounded in stereotypical anime style that never really reached a gut-busting level of hilarity. This is definitely a series that you can just sort of throw on if you've got nothing else to do.

That being said, a lot of the humor still relies on the characters who execute it, and that ended up fluctuating quite a bit throughout the series. Kobeni herself is very plain in personality and often serves as the straight man to the comedic bits of the other characters, but she's also still very endearing in how much she thinks of the others and how to keep them happy. Conversely, we have Benio and Mashiro, who were meant to serve as the comedic core of this series, putting me in the awkward position of not really getting too engaged in them, thus causing a lot of the jokes to illicit no more than a slight chuckle from me. Benio is the "perfect schoolgirl" who ends up having a much more spastic personality at home, while Mashiro is the token loli with a childlike personality that one would use to market this series, and I felt myself constantly shifting back-and-forth between finding her enjoyable and absolutely annoying. Much like with Kawai Complex, there were a lot of moments where these two were actually ruining some of the romantic tension between our two leads.

As for the romance, it's probably the most solid point for this anime. Throughout the entire series, you really do get the sense that Kobeni is struggling with how she feels about being engaged to someone she has no memory of, and the progression from not feeling anything towards him to possibly liking him is gradual and very smooth. It's just unfortunate that Hakuya is basically a pseudo-kuudere and rarely ever displays his emotions overtly. While it is often very obvious what he is feeling, we never really get a sense of his personality, his likes and dislikes, or anything else really other than his engagement to Kobeni.

As one last note on the story, there is a slight supernatural element, and while I wouldn't say that it was poorly executed, the story definitely didn't need it to work.

The animation was produced by Dogakobo (Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun, YuruYuri), and this is a studio that I consider second only to KyoAni when it comes to cute girls doing cute things. The character designs are incredibly adorable, and the movement animation is either very smooth and fluid for attractiveness or spastic and frantic for comedic effect, though there are also point where slower movements take larger than necessary arcs that almost make me feel like they really wanted to draw attention to how the movements are done.

There is currently no dub for this series, and as a slice of life anime, I think it would be perfectly fine without one.

The music was composed by Jun Ichikawa and remained relatively unremarkable for most of the series. Some moments highlighted emotional climaxes rather nicely, but never really drove them home completely. Both the opening theme "Tomadoi→Recipe" and ending theme "Masshiro World" were performed by Mikakuning!, the three main voice actresses for the series, and both tracks provided an upbeat and catchy J-pop track that fit incredibly well with the tone of the series.

Overall, Engaged to the Unidentified is watchable, but not very remarkable, though it should definitely go high up on your list if you're a more enthusiastic slice of life fan.

A show that is so amazingly good, only held down by it's lack of well made drama, that comes off as bland and milquetoast-esque, and it's very slow development throughout it's 12 episode run.

First off, this is not a bad anime, it just does some things very poorly, which can lead to the viewer feeling pissed off by it's lack of focus on the central romance plot. Secondly, I rated this a 7, so it wasn't bad, but it is very annoying and frustrating how it has the potential to be a 10/10 show, but doesn't make use of nearly any of it's potential.

All of ... the show's problems leads down to 5 major points.
1. The romance between Kobeni and Hakuya progresses extremely slowly, which it feels like it doesn't progress enough to lead to the conclusion of this series. This is by far the most frustrating part of the show because when progress is made, it is undoubtedly very well done, but it happens at such an undeniably slow pace that it gets really frustrating to watch, since it feels like the romance actually progresses once every 4 episodes.
2. Lots of filler content gets to be hard to bare. This kinda coincides with #1, since the filler content feels like 60% of the series, where no progress is made, partially leading to the slow progress for the romance between the two MCs.
3. Dumb & annoying characters that are there just to disrupt scenes. I am directly stating Benio, Mashiro and Konoha for this, they all take the stage for 70% of every episode, with very little focus actually being on the main point that Kobeni and Hakuya are engaged. Now they are meant to be this way, to be comic relief, but they take up far too much time in each episode that it doesn't allow the engaged couple to get closer to each other emotionally.
4. The engaged couple maybe gets ~15 minutes of alone time in the whole 12 episode run. This ties into all other complaints here, in the fact that it's so unrealistic for their love to be deepened when they get almost no alone time to actually chat and learn each other in all of these episodes.
5. The ending is so stale with tension that shouldn't exist, thus it makes much of the show feel mute, like nothing was gained and ruined some of the development that happened previously.

All together though it really is a good/decent anime, one that I can overall recommend, but cannot say that it is altogether something that I can recommend to everyone.
If any two of the points I pointed out makes you not want to watch then I wouldn't, this anime takes a lot of patience to push through for something that is overall good, and if you do not have the patience then you will be upset and it will likely make you frustrated.

🗿 7/10 🗿

The story would have been more interesting but it drew too much on the creepy sister and her weirdo fascination with Kobeni and Mashiro. Wish they'd shown more interest in the relationship between Kobeni and Hakuya, their bonding into a relationship, etc.

Never read the anime so no idea where that storyline went.. kind of wanted to learn more about their secret and origins, what made them meet etc. One big factor which was sadly under used was that Hakuya just seemed under developed. His silent but strong ways were just.. mild instead. His character needed more meat in the story, it was almost as ... if it wasn't even about them.

this is not going to be really a review but something i just had to get out of my chest. this anime is possibly the most wasted potential I have every witnessed in my life.

From the same guy who directed "Plastic Love", Engaged to the unknown is enjoyable if you are looking for cute girls and more than decent animations but that is where it pretty much ends. the premise of the plot and the backstory of the Male love interest could have been so much more than what it was and if the conflicts of this anime did not only rely on misunderstandings then ... this could have been one of my favorite romcom. There was barely any build up to any of the major reveals except one that I can certainly tell that it did have some build up and the romance was not really strong at all as the main plot of the show is barely given any development and the climax of this love story is... how should I put this... all too sudden, why? Because there was not enough build up in the romance.

so there is my rant, had to get that out of my chest. I still enjoyed it nonetheless but the story disappointed me for not being what it could have been.
Should you watch this show?- honestly you probably have better ones to watch other than this but its worth a try if you like cute girls but can handle the story being.... okay....

Longing for a pure yet simple anime was an idea with which i came to watch Engaged to the Unidentified.

Visual - Great looking,
Music - two bangers - opening and ending + additional music used in show,
Deatils - great to the level of creepy sometimes,
Comedy - gag situations amazing most of the times.

However hold your horses with giving it a straigt 8. Problem with this show for me comes in a way of story and two main characters.

Story is candy-like, everything good kinda happens but at the end of the day everyone either forgets about the problems or not talk about them at ... all. Gag characters help to defuse those situations but they make the story unsasisfactory.

Characters, two main characters Kobeni and Hakuya and especially Hakuya is hopelessly boring. Kobeni is a great character with some memorable moments, yet in comparrising to other like Benio or Mashiro is ... shy and timid. Considering this she is OK, but not having much of the flaws she became a blunt OP isekay like character who destroys everyone with a sound of her heart. *couth* *Ano...* *couth* I mean she is boring becouse she is perferct in almost every way.

this is mainly a quick thought about the character design. mostly my opinion

konoha is one of the worst characters i've ever seen in my life. in some animes there are the conclusion jumping oblivious characters but they usually don't go so far as to be completely 2iq rocks when they are a teenager/adult age, they flirt the line between stupidity and not stupidity for comedic value, but konoha goes far and above with how fucking retarded she is. every single decision she makes is a retarded, out of the box conclusion on top of another conclusion on top of another conclusion. She thinks before she ... acts, but she assumes every single little detail of what is happening to her currently and makes a choice based on the assumptions then doesnt listen to the other people and continues to make completely dumbfounded choices based on what is going on in her half brain instead of the clear input that others are giving her (they also have no reason to lie to be a cunt to her). what a piece of shit character, worst character in an anime i've ever seen 0/10. that little girl dog (cant even remember her name) is also not a great character but not on the 0/10 level that konoha is. the majority of her interactions with others is just complaining and blurting out the first fucking thing that comes to her mind, she's more on the opposite side of konoha where she doesnt think and just speaks. she can't take a second to figure out the current problem happening to her and ways to fix it, she just yaps at the person causing the problem then cries about it and eats some shit then goes all happy again to seem like a good character, but shes fucking not. i get that shes like 9 or 10, but thats no excuse for not having a single complex thought ever 3/10 character design.

I never really had any reason to watch this, I just random started watching the first episode and rather enjoyed it.

Story - The story isn't hard to understand, you get given the point of it in the 1st episode. Kobeni, who has just turned 16 finds out that a boy Hakuya will being living with her and her family and that she and Hakuya are engaged.
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Art and Sound - Decent but average, nothing really worth mentioning, although the find the ED song a bit catchy.
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Character - The main characters are Kobeni, Hakuya, Benio and Mashiro.

Kobeni has been told that she, ... due to an arrangement by her grandfather, is engaged to Hakuya, who will be living with them. She is originally against this but as the series goes she comes to understand Hakuya more and begins to recover memories of an incident involving her and Hakuya, as well a secret about him and Mashiro.

Hakuya, a quiet but kind and tries to help Kobeni when possible including shopping. He has very sharp senses and knows Kobeni despite the latter not being able to remember him. He feels he is responsible for the incident involving him and kobeni. He and Mashiro are apart of a mysterious family with a big secret, although the secret is eventually revealed to Kobeni and Benio.

Benio is Kobeni's sister and is the main source of comedy, she has an extreme sister complex and as a result of this, there is almost no major progression of the relationship between Hakuya and Kobeni. Benio completely opposes thier proposed marriage and is extremely jealous of Hakuya, the two almost never speak to each other.

Now we have Mashiro, Hakuya's little sister and unlike Hakuya, Benio thinks of her as her own little sister and teases her a lot, to Mashiro's annoyance. Mashiro has a fear of aliens and UMAs and has a liking for sweet foods.
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Enjoyment - Overall it is good and very funny. I found that Benio's sister complex can be funny at times especially towards Mashiro, but it can also be very annoying at some points because it just ruins any progression that Hakuya and Kobeni can make and as a result this anime barely has any romance in it at all.

Story (6.1): A simple but functional plot, personally I really like this type of romantic comedies so I enjoyed it and in my opinion the same being objective it was entertaining enough, about the plot twist of the origin of Hakuya and Mashiro it seemed to me I started something unnecessary not bad since it had its bases but in the end it did not turn out to be bad and I support several future points in the plot

Music (6.3): a simple opening and ending but at the same time catchy both audibly and visually just like the ost

Animation and drawing (7.05): To begin with, ... I do not like the use of the lights in the characters, although the rest is fine, at various times the animation was perfect with perfect fluidity, the detail of the drawing was normal without anything remarkable but it's okay

Characters (5.52): Kobeni is a good protagonist, not one of the best but at least she knows how to manage the plot, they all have their defined personality which does not make them flat at all making them pleasant but even so there is a clear lack of development, depth and all the qualities of good characters so for that reason they seem functional and acceptable but they are not something that I would classify as good