Otonari no Tenshi-sama ni Itsunomanika Dame Ningen ni Sareteita Ken

Mahiru Shiina is worthy of her nickname "Angel": she is a divine beauty loved by all, and she excels in both academics and athletics. Shiina lives in an entirely different world from Amane Fujimiya, her next-door neighbor. Despite living so close together, they have never spoken once. But their silence is broken when Fujimiya spots Shiina gloomily sitting on a swing amidst a heavy rainstorm and lends her his umbrella.

When Fujimiya catches a cold the next day, Shiina wishes to return the favor for the umbrella by nursing him back to health. Believing that this would be their first and last interaction, he silently appreciates her kindness. However, Shiina—who cannot help but worry about Fujimiya's lack of tidiness and proper nutrition—begins to cook and clean for him. As the unlikely pair spend time together in Fujimiya's apartment, they explore the true nature of their relationship and the gentle emotions that emerge from it.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Shiina, Mahiru Main

Iwami, Manaka Japanese

Fujimiya, Amane Main

Ban, Taito Japanese

Shirakawa, Chitose Supporting

Shiraishi, Haruka Japanese

Akazawa, Itsuki Supporting

Yashiro, Taku Japanese

Fujimiya, Shihoko Supporting

Kanemoto, Hisako Japanese

Kadowaki, Yuuta Supporting

Ono, Kensho Japanese

Fujimiya, Shuuto Supporting

Furukawa, Makoto Japanese

Shiina, Sayo Supporting

Nakahara, Mai Japanese

Kaneko, Hirotaka Producer

Taguchi, Shouichirou Producer

Miura, Fumi Producer

Koutani, Satoshi Producer

Reviews

Jun 17, 2024

CavCave

Recommended

To put it shortly, this anime is an unoriginal but fine idea with good execution.

The premise of a "regular joe" unpopular male protagonist suddenly befriending a pretty female character is nothing new. The tropes here have been seen many times in previous romcom shows.

However, with this idea, they did make a fine quality show. The plot is just right for a slice of life, the characters are visually pleasing, the character development feels natural, and the soundtrack accompanies the foreground well without sticking out much.

If you are looking for something new, you probably won't enjoy this series. If you just want something generically fun and ... entertaining, I can recommend it.

Overall, other than the lack of originality, there isn't much to complain here.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Jun 4, 2024

hexashadow13

Mixed Feelings

tl;dr: An anime with well written relationship development and an amazing female lead, but that significantly stagnates in the second half.

Fujimiya Amane is a loner that most people don’t pay much attention to. Shiina Mahiru is the “Angel” of the school that everyone looks upon with admiration and envy. They are a pair that generally wouldn’t really interact all that much. However, they both live alone and in apartments right next to each other. After Amane does Mahiru a favor, in the process of paying him back she discovers that he has absolutely no home keeping skills. Thus, she starts sharing home cooked food with ... him and helping him tidy up. It starts as a simple give and take relationship, but as they continue to spend more and more time together, they form an intimate bond.

The formation of that bond was really interesting and well written. It genuinely does start out as a platonic relationship that it looks like neither of the two are interested in turning romantic. There is a clear distance between them. However through their interactions that distance closes bit by bit and eventually they’re incredibly close to each other. There’s nothing overtly dramatic that brings them close together. Nor does their relationship feel like something majestic or larger than life. But at the same time it’s still a relationship where you can clearly see that the two of them are truly in love with each other and can see how they got there.

The issue is that they reach this point only about half way through the season, and at that point it feels like things grind to a halt. They’re both incredibly close but, they refuse to take it one step further. They keep having interactions that should make it clear that they’re into each other, but afterwards they always pull back and make sure that they don’t interpret their interaction as such, regardless of how forced that may seem. It’s more frustrating than anything, and it makes it hard to appreciate what is clearly romantic fluff because the people involved are so determined not to have it be seen as such.

A lot of this comes down to Amane. He’s somewhat inconsistent in that he can be incredibly perceptive at times, but also incredibly dense at times. With the denseness essentially being everything surrounding his relationship with Amane. He reminds me a lot of the typical dense harem protagonist in terms of his denseness and that he doesn’t have much personality beyond being really nice. Though in harem stories there’s at least a point to the denseness in that it’s required to keep the story going. Here it felt completely and utterly pointless.

I can’t say I was much of a fan of Amane’s character arc either. The main reason that Amane is so dense about Mahiru is that he has no confidence and thus doesn’t really believe that she could love him. He slowly does make progress on that, but the culmination of his character arc isn’t him coming to love himself. Rather, it’s essentially him coming to the decision that because she loves him he’s going to change himself into someone worthy of her love.

That sort of arc could work well in a story where the protagonist genuinely has major issues he needs to work through, but with Amane it feels unnecessary. There’s obviously nothing wrong with self improvement and trying to be your best self. But it being framed that him feeling that he has to change to be worthy of Mahiru as something romantic and positive felt inconsistent with the themes of the rest of the anime. It kind of rubbed me the wrong way and made me pretty dissatisfied with the ending. Especially with how abrupt it was.

Mahiru’s character arc fares better, though there’s not all that much to it. Due to her background she feels like she needs to be perfect all the time, but she comes to accept that she doesn’t need to be perfect to have a place to belong. And she decides she’s going to be more okay with showing her imperfections to the world. She decides as such, but as far as the anime gets it hasn’t really manifested much, so her character arc is still in the told but not shown stage. Still, even if her character isn’t all that deep, her just being such an amazingly likeably character is enough to hold up her side of the anime.

A core part of each of each of their character arcs, their background, wasn’t handled all that well. Their past’s are both incredibly important in creating the complexes they have to overcome. However, they’re pretty much glossed over. There are light hints here and there, but the majority of their background is revealed and resolved through them simply sitting on a couch and talking to each other about it. That is incredibly realistic and grounded, and I know I praised the anime earlier for not being over dramatic about things, but I still feel there should have been a bit more oomph there.

There are also some pretty great side characters. Amane’s best friend Itsuki and Itsuki’s girlfriend Chitose especially stood out as pretty much a bacouple. However, despite being overtly lovey-dovey, they’re not annoying at all due to how they contrast with Amane and Mahiru’s lack of ability to be honest with each other. They’re also really amusing. Also special mention goes to Amane’s mom who in addition to seeming like a really fun mom, was hilarious in pretty much every scene she was in.

The art and animation were decent enough but nothing too special. Character designs were basic, but fine for the setting. The OP was okay in terms of the song and visuals. The EDs had solid enough visuals. What was more interesting was that they used the same songs as the anime Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san. After some research I think that these songs are famous songs from outside of anime and that Takagi-san had covers as well. It’s still kind of strange that all three of the EP songs in this are also used in Takagi-san though. The soundtrack was decent enough but not particularly memorable.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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May 21, 2024

Yrthwe

Not Recommended

This romance anime falls on the boring side of the spectrum.

The story follows Amane and Mahiru, a boy and a girl who act like a longtime couple, including a lot of staple romantic activities, while pretending there's nothing between them. This charade stretches well beyond the limits of suspension of disbelief. While the firs few episodes hold some promise, the series quickly devolves, offering little tension, even less comedy, and a lot of generic and repetitive dialogue. To make matters worse, the majority of the scenes take place in Amane's one-room apartment, amplifying the sense of repetition, especially in the latter part of the series. ... At some point, you can barely distinguish one episode from another.

You can safely skip this one unless you're a connoisseur of the genre.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Otonari no Tenshi-sama ni Itsunomanika Dame Ningen ni Sareteita Ken Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) _MushiRock11_ - Mar 25, 2023	360 replies	by tuanminh1507 »» Yesterday, 3:21 AM
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	Poll: Otonari no Tenshi-sama ni Itsunomanika Dame Ningen ni Sareteita Ken Episode 9 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - Mar 4, 2023	130 replies	by minnaslay127 »» Apr 22, 5:32 AM
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