Murai no Koi

Murai is a second-year student at Takebe Gakuen High School enrolled in the college preparatory course. His homeroom teacher, Tanaka, summons him to her office after he declares that his post-high school plans are to marry her. Tanaka rejects Murai, telling him that she would never be interested in a boy with long, black hair. Secretly an otaku, she has eyes only for Hitotose, a character from an otome video game. The next day, Murai appears before Tanaka a changed man. Having cut his hair short and dyed it blond, Murai looks exactly like her beloved Hitotose. Tanaka is unable to hide her shock at this sudden development and tries to distance herself from Murai, while Murai presses on in his attempts to romance his teacher.

(Source: Disney+)

Murai Main

Takanashi, Kengo Japanese

Tanaka, Ayano Main

Hikasa, Youko Japanese

Kiriyama, Akifumi Supporting

Amasaki, Kouhei Japanese

Yamakado, Yoshiki Supporting

Matsukaze, Masaya Japanese

Hirai, Shinri Supporting

Ishiya, Haruki Japanese

Fukunaga, Yayoi Supporting

Hirose, Yuuki Japanese

Nishifuji, Hitomi Supporting

Sasaki, Mikoi Japanese

Nishifuji, Yuka Supporting

Gotou, Saori Japanese

Vice Principal Supporting

Aoyama, Yutaka Japanese

Principal Supporting

Sonozaki, Mie Japanese

Kikuchi, Ruriko Producer

Matsuo, Kousuke Producer

Yamakawa, Yoshiki Director

Aketagawa, Jin Sound Director

Reviews

Nov 20, 2024

Kudo_Endo

Recommended

I know why you are here. You probably heard some imbecile call this anime atrocious, or maybe the art style gave you the impression that this is a “so bad it’s good” hidden gem. A good candidate for that drunken watch on a Friday night, right? It couldn’t be further from the truth.

The plot is nothing unusual for a romcom: high school boy falls in love with his teacher but she has a dark secret (is addicted to the 2D world), so he tries to emulate her favourite character. As with any comedy, the quality relies on whether the author is able to deliver fresh ... scenarios and jokes before the audience is able to predict the outcome in advance. As this is the case here, highlighted by a bright cast, this paragraph could end right here with a succinct positive recommendation.

But this is not the slightly above average romcom of the season. This is one of the best litmus tests for appreciation of artistry in the anime medium. Bear with me.

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In any artistic medium, it’s easy to correlate a display of technical competence with overall quality. Bernini is rightfully known as a genius for transforming blocks of marble into seraphic representations of myths and legends. If you take “Apollo and Daphne” and compare it to that amorphous clay piece your nephew gave you after school, it’s easy to conclude the former is a superior form of art in technical terms (even though you may cherish your nephew’s present more than a free pass to the Galleria Borghese).

Nonetheless, such correlation is not perfect. Art has a strong subjective component. If that was not the case, one of those thousands of “perfectly drawn portraits” we see on social media would be more valued than Picasso’s whole career, since they are a 1:1 copy of a real-life image, while Guernica looks like the aftermath of an ugly accident between Lego trains. Still, one can easily spend dozens of minutes staring at Guernica, appreciating every small detail in awe. The carnage represented by that one painting is arguably more effective in representing the horror of war than a carbon copy painting of a scene from a gore film. While browsing Instagram, you may find m@ndy009’s charcoal drawing of a horse impressive, but it lacks expressiveness if it's only a display of technical prowess. It’s nothing a good photograph couldn’t capture as well. Why is Guernica’s deformed horse more noteworthy? If you take a look at Picasso’s early works, you can see he had the capacity to paint however he wanted. So why choose simple geometric forms? There is a special component that separates good art from sublime art: artistry, or the creative vision to express oneself.

My former examples were restricted to sculpture and painting, but we can make parallels to any other medium. Nowadays videogames can look as “realistic” as live action films, yet it’s hard to find any new decent game to play. The film industry is capable of using top notch special effects to make magic seem real; the only problem is how boring they make those magical worlds. The best music is not necessarily the most difficult to reproduce. The best book does not necessarily contain the widest vocabulary. In animation, a crisp art style with fluid movements may be good to look at, but I’d rather rewatch Texhnolyze than to follow the new seasons of a “sakuga porn”.

Any piece of art is a collection of components assembled together to reach the finished product. Animation, script writing and soundtrack all can individually stand out or singlehandedly ruin an anime. You don’t need each and every one of them to be state-of-the-art displays of technical prowess to make an anime good. In fact, working within constrains or even choosing an alternative “subpar” style to better express their vision will arrive at a more meaningful result. Each part must serve the overall work. They can be compared to organs in a body. While your pancreas is not aesthetically pleasing to look at, it still serves a pivotal function. When you admire the beauty of Monica Bellucci, keep in mind her ugly pancreas is working just fine.

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Now, let’s make sense of all my rambling.

Murai no Koi, to put it gently, has a minimalistic animation and art style. My middle school stop motion flicks had more frames than some scenes from this anime. However, this is not a problem at all. The direction was able to use those sudden movements and “camera angles” to maximize the comic delivery. Absurd inner monologues were perfectly matched by even more absurd facial and body expressions. Because actions sequences were in jest, not having that fluid movement was no detriment at all. The plot follows an appropriately erratic pace, which is only achievable if the production team is competent and not burdened by three sleepless nights in a row. You can see they were having as much fun as the spectator.

Overall, it’s a breath of fresh air. Here you have an anime that escapes from the vicious convergence in art style and animation standards most series conform to (or fail trying to). The director understood the heart of the (already good) original manga. He then worked within his budget to deliver its full potential. Jokes and references land; all characters have their time to shine; the plot is paced properly. Everything works as a highly functioning organism.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Nov 8, 2024

rvcvb

Mixed Feelings

Preliminary (10/12 eps)

This is the first time ever I make a review. I hope it's useful for someone out there looking for a short - somewhere in the middle of subjectivity and objectivity - review:

I think it's the most absurd anime I've ever seen, and I loved it. It's very funny, it leaves you with an extremely simple story, without complicating life too much, and you really think “I don't need more than this”. All the characters involved have their simple raison d'être, no deux ex machina, no complicated plot and pulled out of the cloth. In 10 episodes it tells you what it is and what ... it isn't, and that's it. They take a random cliché and make it comedy with a photographic animation.

Of course, its biggest disadvantage I dare say is both the animation itself (which understandably is intentional) and the writing of Tanaka's character which lacks of drive I think it collides with Murai. Th character of Murai lacks background and I sincerly hope that for the next season they give it to us so we can understand better his intentions and motivations.

Overall, an anime to watch when you have nothing to do and need some real quick dopamine discharge.

7.8/10

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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May 14, 2025

PheasantTaste

Not Recommended

It's surprisingly bland for how popular and recommended it is. In fairness, I'm not much of a romcom slop enjoyer to begin with, so I'm probably somewhat biased against the genre. Very little occurs, and the stuff that does occur doesn't feel earned. The substance of the show is also further diluted by the numerous detours to follow various other characters, some of which were more interesting than the main pair. I also found Murai to be somewhat unappealing (both visually and as a character), which I thought would resolve itself as the character is developed through the show, but nothing ever happened to change ... my initial impression. The show would probably have been more enjoyable had I been or became more attached to the main characters. Once again, I'm somewhat shocked at how well-received this show is: at the time of writing, this is the only negative (non-prelim) review on MAL. Nobody else is willing to say it, perhaps. Maybe the audience is very well-curated. Also, for what its worth, the show did pick up a bit in the latter half, and I think some people who had dropped the show in the first half would've enjoyed the show overall had they finished it. It might even be better to simply skip the first half entirely.

Another thing that some people might have issues with is the animation. The art is fairly expressive and the animators work very well with what they have (voice acting is also very good), but I know that some people find "cheap" styles of animation to be very distracting (see: Inferno Cop). It wasn't a big issue for me, but sometimes you can really tell they're stretching their budget. I think it was a good production decision. Animation certainly isn't what's holding this show back. I think what a lot of people are also put off by without realizing is how much this show is structured like a live-action drama (to the extent the show feels more like a beat-for-beat adaptation of a 3D release instead of a manga).

Overall, it's watchable, and you might get a few laughs out of it. Definitely not deserving of an 8 though (probably from people dropping the show early), and I can't say I'd recommend it, at least in its entirety. The show is probably best enjoyed in the form of 30-second clips of funny one-liners, or maybe as a pretty decent audio drama to half-listen to while you do something else. That said, the anime does serve as an important 2D alternative to the live-action release, although I think the manga might be a better medium for this story.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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The official website of the Murai no Koi television anime revealed additional cast, ending theme, the first promo, and a key visual (pictured) on Wednesday. The anim...read more

Apr 30, 2024 8:55 PM by Hyperion_PS | Discuss (3 comments)

	Poll: Murai no Koi Episode 10 Discussion Zaxphred - Nov 6, 2024	11 replies	by Sora_samy »» Mar 21, 4:05 AM
	Poll: Murai no Koi Episode 12 Discussion KANLen09 - Nov 20, 2024	28 replies	by Emmah41 »» Mar 19, 8:27 AM
	Poll: Murai no Koi Episode 2 Discussion Rumpel1408 - Sep 11, 2024	14 replies	by Camoboi1 »» Mar 18, 12:25 AM
	Poll: Murai no Koi Episode 1 Discussion KANLen09 - Sep 4, 2024	40 replies	by Camoboi1 »» Mar 16, 9:32 PM
	Cover whole Manga ? xnub - Dec 1, 2024	3 replies	by xnub »» Dec 2, 2024 11:34 PM