Koi to Yobu ni wa Kimochi Warui

People fall in love in the most mysterious of ways. This statement seems to be especially true for the affluent genius playboy Ryou Amakusa. When he nearly falls off the stairs one rainy morning, a girl named Ichika Arima saves him. As if by fate, Ryou encounters Ichika again later that night; she happens to be the best friend of his little sister, Rio.

Wanting to "thank" her, Ryou attempts to woo Ichika by employing his usual flirtatious tactics only to be immediately shot down, his target creeped out by his behavior. Rather than being discouraged, Ryou instead becomes more enthralled by her, and he begins to do everything he can to steal Ichika's heart despite receiving disgusted reactions each time. However, as time passes by, will Ichika remain repulsed by Ryou's creepy yet dedicated advances?

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Amakusa, Ryou Main

Toyonaga, Toshiyuki Japanese

Arima, Ichika Main

Kozakai, Yurie Japanese

Amakusa, Rio Supporting

Hasegawa, Rena Japanese

Tamaru, Kai Supporting

Enoki, Junya Japanese

Masuda Supporting

Kimura, Ryouhei Japanese

Matsushima, Arie Supporting

Hanazawa, Kana Japanese

Bartender Supporting

Shimada, Takahiro Japanese

Amakusa, Zenji Supporting

Nakata, Jouji Japanese

Saitou, Shunsuke Producer

Nakayama, Naomi Director

Koizumi, Kisuke Sound Director

Takayama, Hideki Episode Director

Reviews

Sep 21, 2023

Grayegoose

Recommended

I just found this show and it's adorable! Yeah, an age difference like that is challenging, especially at those ages, but in another 10 years, it won't matter. I dated someone 28 when I was 18, so I understand her feelings and struggles. If you can get past the age thing, though, it is a really sweet love story! and for all the haters talking about him being a creeper, he was a different person when they first met. He seemed numb to the world and she was his wake-up call. She even called him a creeper up front. Love can change you and for ... him, it was for the better. I thought this was a sweet and very honest romance. I also have to agree with the other reviews, Rio deserves a spin-off of her own! She was a great wingman! :D

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Apr 23, 2023

mushi_Jyou

Mixed Feelings

Informative

Reason for watching: I went into this thinking it would be more Comedy than Romance, and had thought some negative reviews were exaggerating.
But honestly not much exaggeration.

*Mild spoiler as I do give out the basic premise and gave a general layout of the storyline.

TL;DR at the bottom.

Let me do a quick review and opinion on this:

Visuals: Definitely up my alley. I like the animation of the story, the art style of the animation, the OP, and ED. They are beautiful to me. Of course the animation could be better, but is not like this is some shounen show with lots of action, ... so I do not expect them to put a lot into animating each scene. 8/10

Audio: Seiyuus performance were fine. Is as good as you can expect from such animation. The female lead is able to show emotions through her voice so is not that bad. Male lead on the other hand just seem pretty bland, even for the humane/sentimental (not his stoic persona) scene, there's pretty much not much tone difference. OP and ED are nice, which is the only reason why audio score is above average. 6.5/10

Characters: Very simple. The story relies more on the story plot than the characters personality to tell the story. You can switch around the characters' personality, and the story can still work with a a little tweak here and there. Very average character, and subpar character "growth". Not like I expected much character growth for a 12 episode show. But Male lead essentially just became "kinder" because he fell in love. I get falling in love will make someone happy, but to change how they interact with almost everyone (in a matter of weeks, WHILE not seeing the love of his life frequently) is kind of a stretch. Male Lead's dad just somehow became more understanding because of a one liner from the Female lead... That is not character growth. that's just superpower. 5/10

Story:
Oh this is the part where is ridiculous.
I will echo many reviewers that the premise of this story is unpleasant. To put it badly, is Pedophilic. To put it nicely, is border lining Pedophilic. Yeap.
Is of course not as jarring as the porn genre. But this story definitely has a pedophilic undertone. There is no other way around this. A "Japan's culture..", A "is fictional...", A "consenting age is different...", doesn't change the fact that is pedophilic. You don't see people all up in arms with the porn genre of pedophile(hentai, I know child porn is a big offense) or sexual assault, because we all know is fake. Doesn't change their genre, no excuses to "defend" them either. Also the circumstances leading to those genres in porn aren't as realistic as this story.

The story is of a full grown man, 26 Year old, falling in love with a 16 year old high schooler who is also his sister's BEST FRIEND. Reason for falling in love is sketchy but I do believe we are not able to control our feelings and emotions. But what we, humans, and definitely grown adult, can control, are our actions.
So Male lead falls in love, confessed, got rejected harshly, but still decided to pursue a 16 year old kid openly. Obtains her address without her consent, and consistently ignoring her "NOs" (this part is infuriating actually. regardless of what culture there is or which part of the world this story takes place. When a 16 year old repeatedly rejects you, respect it! Don't tell me is fiction, so NO can be seen as a YES, or she has a tsundere character or she's shy. What world do we live in if we can't understand CONSISTENT "NO" means NO even from a fictional character?).
Male lead tries his best to win the heart of the female lead even when FL is uncomfortable. Then every other side character that knows about this aggressive courtship is accepting of it, enabling a full grown adult with a good number of romantic and sexual experiences, and exposure to mature interactions to pursue a 16 year old child who has zero experiences with Romance, and limited interpersonal interactions, AND obviously much less exposure to the world and its complex dynamics, AND also not fully in touch with her emotional and psychological state yet.
The first 3 episodes are disgusting. Middle 6 episodes are fine if we can ignore how it all started. Last 3 episodes is a pathetic attempt to "correct" the show's logic (or just some sort of subpar redemption arc).
If the story had started with ML and FL having normal interactions that grew closer and their feelings for each other developed independently, the age thing would not have bothered me this much.
I do enjoy a plot with aggressive courtship like what male lead is doing here, but not when the other party is lacking so much in experiences and emotional and psychological development. If the female lead was a regular 20 year old university student, this wouldn't be as disturbing. She would have went through university meeting all sorts of people, and have much more experience as well as more maturity to assess her emotions and mental state.
10 years age gap is not a problem here. Is the age itself that is a problem.
Middle 6 episodes are just normal cliché rom com scenes where ML not so aggressively courts FL, and both the ML and FL have alternate love interests popping into the story.
Last 3 episodes are FL's 16 year old feelings developed romantically while ML realizes that he might be hurting/treating FL badly, because of their 10 years age gap that would be a cause for concern in society's standard... No is really not the age gap. No one really cares if a 45 YO and 35 YO falls in love. Not sure why they think making the 10 year age gap as the biggest problem actually makes sense. Even if japan culture generally raises sensible children, and consent is younger, doesn't change the fact that FL was not able to make an informed decision as well as ML due to their experiences. Is not fair game when FL was robbed off of growing up herself without all that calculated and targeted gaslighting.
So is a happy ending as ML will brave through criticisms of the 10 years age gap and is determine to protect FL from the less understanding society's judgment, while FL with all her 16-17 years experience on Earth (more than half spent on studying and novels and anime) makes the determination to trust her feelings of LOVE and reciprocate ML's advances.

I honestly don't know how anyone can think pedophile/ manipulation/ grooming elements is okay in a regular anime show because is a fiction.
If mutual sex scenes between adults in shows require R21 rating. We should at least have rating for pedophilic story lines, maybe like rated C-reep? At least porn/hentai will rate them R21 and tell you the genre outright. This is not RomCom, is RomCriminalOffence. 5/10 (Story is okay, premise is bad).

Total: 6.1/10 (6)

TL;DR
Definitely has pedophilic undertone no matter how fictional this story is (even if you add in talking clouds and flowers). Uncomfortable premise if you have awareness on how pedophilic crimes are the absolute worst. If you imagine FL to be at least 18 years old or have the maturity of a 20 years old, the story gets a little better lol. Cute songs and art style. Cute storylines in the middle 6 episodes lol.
Mixed feelings because FL is not TOO young and there's no sexualization in here, If she's any younger, this would be a "Not recommended" sentiment. Basically a "vanilla Pedophilic" plot.

- coming from someone who is not saintly or overly reserved (Eye for an eye plot, SA, cruel gangster plots, torture, murderers, anything with blood I do enjoy, even if it was 2 16 YOs falling in love and maybe get a little sexually curious, I am also fine), but when you exploit children, then is a no-go for me.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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May 19, 2024

brightdeadthings

Not Recommended

I still wonder why I watched it. I usually drop stuff I don’t like and this was quite bad. I suppose I had two unconscious reasons. The first one was that I hoped it would get better (though that was naive of me) and the second one was pure curiosity. I wanted to see how bad it could get. There were some things I enjoyed about it, and I liked some characters occasionally. However, I have a problem with the entire scope of the show. Some viewers might see grooming here and they won’t be wrong. Though love happens at all ages, it was creepy ... to watch an almost 30 year old falling in love with a 17 year old high school girl only because she told him he’s creepy. The entire plot was flawed and creepy, even for an anime. But it wasn’t just that. After all, it’s fiction, you take it or leave it, but it was also quite poorly executed. The characters were insufficiently portrayed and their motives were often under-explained (or shabbily done so, their credibility was close to zero). I didn’t enjoy watching it, I don’t think it gives a good example in many ways and it’s also rather unskillfully produced.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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