Renai Flops

In the near future when technology has significantly advanced, a famous AI TV fortune teller seemingly foresees high school student Asahi Kashiwagi's day with pinpoint accuracy. On his way to school, he encounters Aoi Izumisawa, Bai Mongfa, Karin Istel, Amelia Irving, and Ilya Ilyukhin. Despite meeting them for the first time, Asahi suddenly receives love confessions from all of them at the end of the same day, perfectly aligning with the fortune teller's prediction.

As if that was not enough, Asahi soon learns that these five individuals are actually candidates to become his bride, and they have been invited by his father to live at Asahi's home. Left with no other choice, he reluctantly allows them to stay, resulting in a bawdy turn of events that brightens up his average high school life.

However, as Asahi spends more time with them, forgotten memories gradually resurface. While uncovering the hidden truth, Asahi begins to believe that his fate with these potential partners might be more than just mere coincidence.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Bai, Mongfa Main

Kanemoto, Hisako Japanese

Irving, Amelia Main

Taketatsu, Ayana Japanese

Izumisawa, Aoi Main

Itou, Miku Japanese

Ilyukhina, Irina Main

Takahashi, Rie Japanese

Istel, Karin Main

Kouno, Marika Japanese

Kashiwagi, Asahi Main

Oosaka, Ryouta Japanese

Izawa, Ai Supporting

Itou, Miku Japanese

Ijuuin, Yoshio Supporting

Fukuyama, Jun Japanese

Feynman, Yoshino Supporting

Fujii, Yukiyo Japanese

Lovelin Supporting

Izawa, Shiori Japanese

Oowada, Tomoyuki Producer

Tanaka, Shou Producer

Sotokawa, Akihiro Producer

Nishimae, Shuka Producer

Reviews

Feb 11, 2025

hexashadow13

Recommended

Renai Flops is an original harem anime, which is pretty rare actually as they’re usually based on manga or light novels. The only other one I can think of is Tenchi Muyou. As such it’s an anime that tells a complete story from start to finish in one season. However, ultimately this anime is trying to do something pretty different from most harem anime, and thus it ends up getting incredibly messy.

The first episode is essentially the prologue that sets things up. The protagonist Asahi is a high school student that’s living alone as harem protagonists often tend to. On his way to school he ... ends up getting into lucky pervert situations with five girls, all of whom turn out to be bride candidates that begin living with him. This is about as formulaic as you can get for a harem anime. The next five episodes each focus on a single heroine and give each some sort of story that results in relationship development with the protagonist. These stories are wildly different and the one in the sixth episode gets downright absurd to hilarious effect. All in all things are pretty shallow and mostly pretty generic, but the comedy and romantic fluff is good so I’d still say its pretty entertaining as a harem anime.

Throughout the first six episodes, there are clear signs that there’s more going on than what is readily apparent. The seventh episode is where that becomes fully clear, and the eight episode is where the true plot begins. Things get much more serious than in any of the previous episodes and the anime begins to tackle a lot of heavy subject matter, though so as to avoid spoilers I won’t mention what exactly. Still, my point is that concepts of a good substantial story are there.

The problem is that the first half didn’t properly set the foundation for the second part. There are a lot of what are supposed to be strong emotional beats centered around the five heroines. But the first half of the anime didn’t build up enough investment in them and these moments are packed too close together, so they don’t land anywhere near as well as they need to. The final plot is centered around someone other than the five heroines, and though they’re kind of related to her they’re also not her. As such, the final two episodes of the anime are very heavy on the flashbacks building up investment in the new heroine, and it feels really rushed and pretty disconnected from the rest of the anime. I feel that moving these flashbacks into the first half would have worked a lot better. The ending I’m half satisfied with, in that it’s perfectly fine as the ending of a harem anime, but its pretty lacking in terms of the subject matter introduced in the second half. Still, I feel like they probably would have screwed it up if they tried to do something with more depth, and thus I’m happy with what we got.

The art and animation are pretty good. The character designs are also pretty solid. There’s a decent amount of CG use, but it felt like it fit well enough. I will also note that although this is listed as ecchi, there’s less than I expected. It kind of comes and goes in that episode 1, 4, 6, and 7 have a good amount, but outside of that it’s surprisingly rare. The OP was solid in terms of the song and visuals. The first ED was pretty good in terms of the song and visuals, but what I really liked about it was how it changed from episode to episode. The second ED was also decent enough in terms of the song and visuals. The soundtrack was decent too, though nothing too memorable.

tl;dr: A good harem anime that doesn’t quite deliver on trying to be more than that.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Mar 8, 2025

sharfpang

Mixed Feelings

Unhinged beginning, strong middle, drawn out ending, disappointing finale. First episodes, I thought it's as demented as FLCL or the deer girl, except sexually. Nope, it actually has a very strong story with a powerful plot twist, all the early shenanigans completely justified by solid lore. Too bad at the end the showrunners lacked the balls to give us a daring, solid, strong end, and instead went for pointless filler and teary "shouldn't have existed" and "It's better that way" melodrama.

It's much better than I thought it to be (actual solid story!) but not as good as it could be (chickened out about fully utilizing ... the premise).

I hope one day it gets a good remake with last 4 episodes swapped out for the epic they could have been instead.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jan 23, 2025

olddecrepitman

Not Recommended

This anime is capital S Shit and the S stands for statutory this anime actually could be revolutionary my mindset has always been as long as its interesting and fun even if its bad then its decent but this anime breaks all stereotypes by being the singlehandedly most insane and most boring thing I have ever watched, bland forgettable music, bland forgettable characters, its not funny, its not interesting its like 6 hours of my life ill never get back do not watch this anime its not even so fun its bad its just dull and boring and is going to lower my lifespan by ... about 30 years the show seems to not take itself that seriously but sometimes it just full sends and pretends its the deepest shit on the planet and its like bruh? you expect me to take this seriously? there is unironically a scene in the first episode where a femboy gets sexually assaulted by a dog that may make the anime sound really interesting and funny but it isnt even its nothing its the most nothing i have ever seen in my life in short just watch odd taxi same amount of episodes and a way better show

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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