Dounika Naru Hibi

When I first heard about this series I was admittedly very excited. I saw this had a lesbian couple and wanting some representation, I was hoping that this movie would be able to handle it well unlike citrus or other things on that wavelength. As you can see, that has not happened.

Story - 1/10

A lot of this short film felt like a retelling of scum's wish.

So if you like that anime, you may like this one. There are a lot of similar plotlines in both, with different iterations. For example, possible incest is present in both, teachers, and just horribly done yuri.

Things just don't seem ... to wrap up nicely too. It makes you feel extremely unsatisfied and wondering if there is going to be more.

It also just felt so slow. 55 minutes feelings like such a long time at the pace this movie was going. This movie also had an issue with repeating jokes and lines, and it feels like we were going in circles. This is especially present in the third story following this guy and his girlfriend go through the struggles of being in love when the guy is attracted to his cousin who does porn.

It feels like such a cheap way to add tension and make jokes, especially considering the length of the time frame the issue occurs for.


Art/Sound - 4/10

They were both okay.

Not great, not even that good, but they were fine. The art was cute, but that was it. It isn't spectacular, and the colours were a bit drab at times, but it was alright.

The sound was also fine. The opening and ending were both fine to good, depending on what you favour in music. It was also quiet for a lot of the times, not a lot of noise or sound, it felt extremely empty. When background music was used some of them felt very off and some of the tracks just ended unexpectedly, bringing you out of the illusion.

There is also a scene where there is someone using the restroom, and the sound just does not fit. It sounds like there's rain pouring, but it occurs in a locked room and there's no sign of downpour.

Characters - 1/10

The characters are so very bland. Since this is a collection of short stories there are a lot of them. I completely understand not being able to develop characters in the span of about 15-20 minutes each, but they just made them so unlikable. For example, story one, the two main leads have zero chemistry. The only thing distinct about each of them is how they look, they're both in love with their ex and they both are sexually active, that's it. Even by the end of the ~15 minutes, their only real interactions are just to talk about their ex and have sex.

Enjoyment - 1/10

The feeling of checking when this movie would end was there with me the whole time. I kept checking the bar just to see how much time was left. It was boring, plain and simple. 55 minutes felt like 90, and it just dragged on and yet, It left me feeling so unsatisfied.

The endings to these stories felt like a massive cockblock and some of these lines just made me so confused, that I had to pause and think, "They really want to keep this in? Alright."

Overall - 1/10

All in all, this movie is just so boring and so mindlessly unentertaining. Stories go nowhere, and progression is just clunky. They could have made these into three separate stories spanning a few more episodes so development could occur, but they decided to just mash them all together ultimately, leaving the viewer confused as to why it existed in this form in the first place.

What we have here is a strong case of "what did they mean by this?" and "why did they post this?" Like, it's not BAD. It is by no means GOOD.

It seems to be trying to depict semi-taboo relationships that are nonetheless totally normal, which is fine in concept. But if these are more-or-less direct adaptations of stories from the 2002 manga (I have no idea), then I just have to scream "things have CHANGED!" Gay couples, like, exist. And always have. So opening a movie with this theme with a completely ordinary lesbian couple gives off weird vibes to me. (I recognize that I ... am writing as an American and this is a Japanese movie, but I'm explaining my feelings here.) The other three stories were about relationships that had real boundaries that were somewhat inappropriately crossed, so I just thought starting with an odd one out made little sense. Maybe they were connecting it to the others by having the high school girlfriend kiss her unprompted, but that's not the relationship that the story was really about. Very little happened in this story and it didn't bother giving us any characterization as to why the women were into each other, so I didn't care very much about it. It was the least objectionable one, though.

The second story was about a high school teacher man whose boy student confessed to him. This went nowhere, which is fine. But the story was more about the teacher's sense of longing for connection to his students, symbolized by kinda wanting this romantic fantasy to work out. Which is less fine. At that point, they're not teacher-and-studnet anymore, so I'm not going to say they would be breaking a Rule or anything, but the framing of the story keeps the focus on the high school kids of future classes and is consequently uncomfortable. But, like I said, it goes nowhere. It's very whatever because, again, we never actually get characterization.

The third short is a story about a grade-schooler's relationship with his cousin who has been disowned by her father because she appeared in a porn tape. She's very sexually open and talks to him about sex and teases him about his close friendship with a girl who goes to his school. And I think this is weird because sex is not high on my list of things to talk about with children, but I'm not going to pretend like keeping kids completely ignorant of sex somehow protects them. So, like, I'm not going to condemn this out of hand either. Its real sin is that it ends abruptly and serves mostly as a lead-in to the fourth short, which is about that boy and that girl. Do I even need to say that we don't actually get any reasons that the boy and girl like each other?

So, in the third skit, the girl proposed having sex with the boy and he declined. The fourth skit takes place years later, when they're in high school. It's about how they still want to have sex with each other and are awkward about their sexuality. And, like, ugh. There's no other way to say this. I don't understand any adults' fascination with children having sex or wanting to have sex. Acknowledging it exists is one thing, and that's what the third short skirted just barely on the "Uh, valid, I guess" edge of. This fourth skit is a lot more explicit about how horny they are and how much they want to have sex, but he doesn't feel ready in the way that she does. I just keep asking myself "Who is this for?" Who's the audience for this? Is this a movie for high school kids? If so, I Guess this could work as an interesting subject that could give a young person some sort of validation. But if this movie's audience is adults (or "everyone" 9_9), then why are we dwelling on child sexuality in this way right after the skit from a teacher's perspective about romantic feelings prompted by a student?

I dunno, dawg. The movie starts with something easy and palatable, but then takes risky swings for really difficult subjects. People have serious, valid hangups over these sorts of situations, which are nonetheless serious and valid themselves. The way that they depicted these scenarios seriously did not work for me, and the intentions of the film are truly opaque to me.

Story 1: Terribly done WLW relationship. Gives off fetishization of queer women vibes but that might just be me.

Story 2: A teacher is attracted to his student(s), yuck. Giving this the benefit of the doubt (though given the third story it really doesn’t deserve that) maybe they were no longer minors but that really doesn’t help. It’s still creepy and gross. To make matters worse it’s MLM attraction so it’s also horrid LGBTQ+ representation. Im’s so tired of MLM only getting creepy/fetishizing storylines.

Story 3: By far the worst of the three stories. Includes...
- very young minors (5th grade-8th grade) engaging is sexual acts
- ... incestuous attraction where it’s implied that a 5th grade boy repeatedly “gets off” to a sex tape of their 20+ year old cousin
- the father of the 5th grade boy “jokingly” asks his niece (the 20+year old cousin of the 5th grade boy) for a copy of the sex tape
- and the 20+ year old cousin repeatedly sexually harassing (borderline assaulting) their 5th grade cousin.


I was so looking forward to this. I mean “love is love” is the first line of the plot description and I love slow and artsy anime's like this. But the plot absolutely ruined any of that. So gross/creepy and terrible.

I am extremely disappointed in this movie putting wlw and mlm relationships in the same category as underage. The amount of fetishization in this film is ridiculous. The wlw relationship was mediocre, the high school teacher had a student fetish (extremely unethical), and the last one... was a creepy adult woman asking her 5th grade aged cousin if he had had sex before, and constantly sexually harrassing him.

The fact that this movie's tagline is "love is love" is so demeaning to the LGBT community. The mangaka should really stop seeing LGBT individuals as scandalous objects, and not categorize them with pedophiles, at least.

All in all ... even more disappointing than TPN season 2. Don't watch this.

I stopped at the start of the second couple and is sad really because I was expecting cute or decent queer rep but got whatever this is...

1. a wlw couple, and the girl goes to the wedding of her first love from highschool. she meets this girl who also is getting over the same girl. they bond over complaining about their shared ex, and get drunk and have sex the main girl did not fully consent to while the other girl is drunk. their relationship feels empty and they seem to just to do it to get over their ex. terrible to watch

2. mlm, a ... kid from his class seems to plan to confess to his teacher at an all boys school. once again weird pedo teacher x student trope for bl, i really hate

1/10 this was painful

this review may or may not contain spoilers - read at your own risk!

three arcs containing lesbianism, essentially pedophilia, and definite pedophilia (with a touch of incest on the side!)

arc one was the only one i enjoyed at all - i thought the concept of two girls falling in love after both having their hearts broken by the same person was interesting!! the only problem i could find in it is the seemingly unconsensual advances.

arc two and three are just. eughhhh... i understand that societal taboos and atypical relationships can be explored but surely not in a way that makes them look like they're a ... good thing? i'm not gonna talk too much about it since other reviews did and i'd prefer to get this movie out of my head asap!!

the visuals were quite pretty but, though i'm not the type to be stuck up on it, the animation really didn't help score-wise.

i found the stories incredibly boring which is a shame because lesbian/age gap/young love is all quite easy to expand on.

3/10 feels generous to be real

I can see why this movie has such poor ratings.

I'm an avid yaoi/bl/smut/shoujo/josei reader/watcher and I have consumed my fair share of these genres. Let me tell you this movie is down right boring and awkward.

Boring as in the stories never gets anywhere and the pace is so damn slow. Awkward because 2/3 end in such an awkward feeling or the story itself is collar pulling awkward.

Lets break down each story.

1st Story: A yuri couple who find each other at a wedding for a girl they both dated/loved. Now I'm not a big fan of yuri stories (Team Yaoi here), but I'm not ... against watching yuri if there is a good story. I think this story probably could have ran the whole movie if they fleshed it out more. Two broken hearts becoming one is great story. Alas we never get to know the girls besides the glossed over sex scenes, some short small talk about their past love, and I guess the very still scene of them watching a movie together. All in all very boring but I guess very normal.

2nd Story: Here's the BL I was anticipating. Alas all I got was disappointment. We start off with an all boy's highschool teacher. He's bored out of his mind because the graduation ceremony for the boys is just him passing out diplomas. After the "ceremony" he's at his desk and a newly graduated boy confesses to him. Nothing really happens as both of them are completely silent, and no one is blushing or anything. That moment gets interrupted by a teacher and now we move to the teacher in his bedroom looking at the yearbook. He find's the student who just confessed to him and starts to have those "lovey dovey feelings". Aaand then a year passes and nothing happens. He has some dialouge where "highschool boys will be boys". He meets his sister, finds out his sister is with a guy who looks kind of like the student that confessed to him. I guess teacher figures out he likes highschool boys? Fast foward two years he asks his graduating class to hang out with him. They do and then one of the boys decides everyone should go to "sensei's house". Which teacher is like but everyone will be packed in. The student goes "and we will be touching like (shoulder to shoulder)." Which the teacher blushed a little and tried to invite them....and then END.

If you are super confused, so am I.

3rd Story:I believe this is a coming of age story but its hella awkward. We start off with an Elementary school kid doing his homework with a fellow classmate girl. I suppose the image is innocence and naivity. Now in comes the plot device, a college graduate porn star lives in the kid's house. She's the image of adulthood, big boobs blonde hair, and I guess enlightens the boy on puberty. Of course she has her porn tape and the two kids find it. The boy is very afraid and the girl she is curious, but you know what they say..."curiosity killed the cat". And now these two kids have just realized what sex is. The girl oh she is just gone, the boy is embarrassed. He starts to have wet dreams, which he is super against washing is trousers in much rage and trying to rid himself of what he watched. One day the girl wants to try out what they just learned, which the boy is super against. Now we fast foward a few years they are in highschool and its now the girl's point of view. She I guess attempts to masturbate/try to orgasm. Watches the porn video. She is in love with the boy and wants to try sex with him. Eventually they figure they love each other and the boy get's a handful of her tatas in a storage room at the school. They are nominated best couple and get prized a condom and I guess the ending the author wants us to get is that they had sex. Oh and I guess the porn star was a rival to the relationship but not really. I think it was more like the boy awakened his sexuality.

Now if you are just pulling your collar after reading that and going...."Uhhhhhhh." so am I.

The stories while they really could have gone somewhere (or maybe not even existed) should have really fleshed out the characters and have a complete ending. Or maybe stick to one story in a 53 minute long movie.
1/10

Art:I would say mediocre. There wasn't a lot of animation, more like still images or very slow. This would have a much higher score if it was a manga. 5/10

Sound:Felt like background music. I'm not a musician but the music never really boosted the scene. Just kinda there. 3/10

Characters: Dreadful almost pathetic but I suppose realistic with the yuri couple. The movie never really fleshed out these characters. So I never really got to know them. I only know them at face value/cliches. 2/10

Enjoyment:Very boring and/or very awkward. For all the reasons above^^^ 3/10

Overall: 3/10 would I watch this again? No. Would I watch a sequel? No. Would I recommend it? No. It only gets a 3/10 because the art is okay and the potential was there. They just dropped the ball pretty much 90% of the movie.

OKAY here we go

1. this suck but that's not all! the yuri part was okay too me. it seemed normal but later on it was getting weird, that they would always talk about the "yuri" girl and then be like "i still like you tho"

2. the MLM shit.. gay ppl always get attacked for being "Groomers" AND the story feels like they're trying to prove that.
it's really weird and gross and i don't know if they thinks it's okay but that man NEEDS to go to jail.

3. in the u.s kids in 5th grade learn about sex
i do think it's normal for ... kids too be curious about it BUT i think they could have show that in a better way than just being gross
the cousin needs to go to jail and the parents need to be better parents
the last story really sucked and the whole movie did too
not saying if you like this you need to go to jail but you need to go to jail

I'm keeping this short this movie is garbage, not even the 'so bad, it's good " kind of garbage but I will separate categories because it's my first time writing a review so without further Ado let's go into rabbit hole(ugh):

Story:💩
WHAT STORY, THIS IS WAS WEIRD.the story was confusing, atrocious and WTF kind of story I really don't know what went wrong but ugh so bad they are split into 3 separate stories and if I have to be honest the 1st one was good and somewhat cute but the 2nd one was downright fetish-indulgement a teacher fetishing for their students🤢 and don't even get ... me started on 3rd one, it's just eww and cringe and uncomfortable if you're watching this please go watch a lot of cuteness because you'll need so for the 1st one I'm giving it an 5/10

Characters:😤
These characters are offensive not the 1st two they were cute and a bit likable and the rest are shitty, generic, should be in jail and should be kill with fire you'll understand when you watch it 4/10

Plot:7/10 for 1st one and 4/10 for the second one and -1/10 for the 3rd one so 5/10

Animation:😶
It was okay I guess, therw wasn't any details but the characters honestly look good and nice I guess but it was ruined with the writing

So with that I give a 4/10 it was bad and I would have given this a 7/10 of the story focused on the 1st girls but maybe they would have ruined it anyway I hope you enjoyed my review.