Kowloon Generic Romance

With its flickering streetlights, moldy back alleys, and noisy populace, the Second Kowloon Walled City, despite the squalor of its already-demolished predecessor, evokes a special kind of nostalgia that its residents find endearing. Amidst the walls of this fading yet beloved landscape lives Reiko Kujirai, a 32-year-old realtor deeply in love with her coworker, Hajime Kudou, who is two years her junior. Though they have their differences, the two get along well enough to experience the joys of the walled city together.

However, everything starts to fall apart when Kudou, half-asleep, suddenly kisses Kujirai—seemingly reciprocating the feelings she has yet to confess. But when Kudou explains that he had mistaken her for someone else, Kujirai finds herself drawn into a series of events that lead her to a past she cannot remember.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kujirai, Reiko Main

Shiraishi, Haruka Japanese

Kudou, Hajime Main

Sugita, Tomokazu Japanese

Lin, Yaomay Supporting

Koga, Aoi Japanese

Xiaohei Supporting

Saitou, Souma Japanese

Hebinuma, Miyuki Supporting

Okiayu, Ryoutarou Japanese

Yulong Supporting

Kawanishi, Kengo Japanese

Kujirai B Supporting

Yamaguchi, Yuriko Japanese

Tao, Gwen Supporting

Ban, Taito Japanese

Xiaohei Supporting

Suzushiro, Sayumi Japanese

Reporter Supporting

Yoshino, Yuna Japanese

Hijikata, Makoto Producer

Sueyoshi, Takamitsu Producer

Karki, Rajeev Producer

Arisawa, Ryouya Producer

Reviews

Nov 12, 2025

B_uns

Recommended

I would recommend it to everyone but I have to acknowledge the criticism I've seen here since I don't completely disagree.

Initially I was drawn in by the 80's art style and the notion this wouldn't be stupid teenagers being corny and annoying for 12 episodes, rather than adults being corny and complicated as adults can be for 13 episodes. Totally different vibe and more to my liking. The art style pulled through and the story kept me invested in the whole mystery surrounding the city they lived in.

This felt like a solid, complete piece of work with attention to detail where it was ... needed. Sure, in the animation I noticed a few poorly done frames and while I really really like the soundtrack, I noticed they were using the same music over and over again which made it noticeable (not ideal) but otherwise everything it had was of quite high quality.

The critique I've read about this here is that the story just happens too fast and there's no time to get emotionally invested in the characters. I half agree with this, since I recognise the fast pace the show keeps up, but honestly it didn't bother me that much. Everything was, in my opinion, timed well and the things that were important had their time and the things that could be looked over a bit didn't have that much time. I feel the length and the pacing was probably a compromise, but they did their best with what they had. The scenes themselves were nicely calm and not rushed, even if the changes happened a bit quickly. I imagine they didn't have resources to do 26 episode series. I'm very sympathetic for this show.

It was very good. And no, I have not read the manga.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Dec 4, 2025

KagomeBasquash

Mixed Feelings

I kinda enjoyed this anime. I don't think it is for everyone, but there is a nice feeling to it.
The characters are refreshing and a lot of psychological topics are refered to (grief, appartenance, existantial crisis,...). Even though, don't expect them to be highly realistics: they face real and interesting issues but their emotions are mostly explored on the surface (especially in the last episodes). Still, it can get you to reflect on it and that's nice in itself.
The art style is correct without too much detail, the chara design is nice.
I didn't really like the ending but it was not that bad either.

To sum ... it up, I think you can like this story if you don't think of it as a life-changing anime or the mystery of your life. You can quite easilly figure out the "plot-twist", unfortunately the developpement of the characters is nonexistant but not so cliché or shallow either, and the ending is not especially realistic. Despite all that, I still think that the subject of this anime is interresting, and 13 episodes is not that long to prevent me from seeing it.
Not the best anime ever made, but a nice journey nonetheless!

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jun 29, 2025

Chuy_diazz

Not Recommended

The biggest sin of this anime is having the word "romance" in the title.

Kowloon is anything but romantic; in fact, it doesn't have a hint of romance, which ends up hurting it quite a bit as the story progresses. The first episode has a balanced dose of a mystery that will develop into a romance. The problem is that they decided to eliminate any displays of affection and focus solely on a single mystery. The story didn't have enough groundwork to develop a mystery and ignore the romantic aspect. The mystery evolves three times throughout the anime, and none of those developments provide any satisfactory ... answers. In fact, halfway through, for three or four episodes, they dedicate themselves to explaining a single mystery in four different ways, leaving the dialogue unchanged but changing the speakers. This makes the story feel redundant because they're going in circles, and when they realize this, they try to make up for lost time by throwing information out there left and right. However, the story doesn't care whether the information is useful or not; it just wants to overload you with information so that in the end you convince yourself that the answers were always there when, in reality, the answers were never written in the first place.

Anime has always focused on the mystery surrounding Kowloon Walled City and the phenomena that occur within it. The type of mystery they want to tell depends entirely on the emotional ties that people have with both the city's inhabitants and the city itself. Concepts like nostalgia, longing, and the search for the future are mentioned. These concepts depend entirely on the emotions of each character, but anime doesn't want to show emotions; it only wants to deepen the mystery. So, since there are no emotions, the mysteries feel empty because you don't feel the characters are emotionally connected to either the city or its inhabitants. Even the protagonists are victims of this poor decision, because their story is a romance, but since the anime decided to eliminate all displays of affection, it had to explore different characters to fill 13 episodes. At some point in the anime, you start to care about the supporting characters, and the protagonists exist; they're there, but they don't generate any kind of emotion. There are many scenes where the lack of romance and delicacy makes the protagonist seem more like a sly old man trying to take advantage of his coworker's vulnerable moments to get her into bed. The male protagonist, the one who's supposed to be the protagonist of a romance, ends up being the villain of a poorly told story.

I think the final episode is a good standalone episode, but the problem is that the narrative of that episode doesn't fit with the rest of the anime. The ending ends up dealing with themes like mourning, grieving, and overcoming loss, but this offers zero answers to the mysteries raised. The anime always treated Kowloon City as just another character to center the mystery around it, but right at the end, the city becomes more of a conceptual representation than a place in itself. The ending leaves you feeling confused and angry because the theme of the ending—if that approach had been taken for the entire anime—would be something else being said today. All the questions raised in 12 episodes are left open in the final episode because the approach was completely different.

The production decisions that were made were terrible for the show's reputation. Instead of promoting it, they buried it 4 meters underground. Kowloon was a story that fell victim to a production that had no idea how to tell it and ended up doing whatever they wanted.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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	Dropping this because it's too boring ( 1 2 ) MyllerPhiem - Apr 23	74 replies	by Driz »» Nov 14, 9:01 AM
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