gupipy's Blog

Anime Relations: Kokoro Connect, Kokoro Connect: Michi Random

After giving Kokoro Cringe another chance after more than one year, I realized that it's not as bad as I thought it was back in 2015 - in fact, it's a thousand times worse.

This show, along with its even more appalling OVA, is the only title that I've rated with a 1 (as of September 15th, 2016). Hell, I was glad to give Mars of Destruction a 2 after watching this for the first time.
Objectively, it doesn't deserve a 1 -- it has its good sides: it was an interesting idea overall, art and soundtrack are fine, it even had two (!) funny moments, it didn't last for too long, it's not too popular so I rarely have to hear anything about it. (Don't tell me about character development, since even Yugioh has better character development than this crap)

Yes, I'm biased. I hated it. I didn't want to drop it just to see whether they can really be that stupid (they were). But I despised it. Never in my life had I been so enraged by a piece of fiction before.
I can't understand why it has such a high rating, I can't understand why everybody on this site seems to like the character of Inaba Himeko so much -- I have read through every single discussion thread and review and everyone is just saying good things about it.
Maybe I'm completely wrong, but I can't change my opinion now. I've read some elaborate arguments about the show being good and I've read some complete nonsense by its hardcore fans, but nothing anyone says will make me like it.

This anime is completely ridiculous. I don't even know where to begin writing about it, so sorry if everything is all over the place. (I assume you've watched this show, so you'll understand it.)
Firstly, I can't not notice how they are just telling stuff all the time instead of showing them.
Secondly, I understand this is a drama show, but I have never seen characters that overreact this much during the whole time. God, you'd think something serious is happening given the way they shout and blush and punch each other, but no, it was just someone mentioning another unnecessary sexual reference for the 750th time.
The characters are supposed to be deep and fucked up, Skins meets Clannad sort of thing.

Inaba Himeko (aka The Worst Girl aka Cringedere) cannot trust anyone and even her friends have to be her enemies. She's just born this way, no real event that led to it.

Even though everyone likes to misspell her name because she annoys them,Iori (not Inori) Nagase's mother remarried a lot of times, so she just wants to please everyone and she knows exactly what to do. As a result she doesn't know what she likes and what's the real her.

Taichi (whatever his name is) wants to help everyone because he cannot stand seeing anyone hurt. Inaba gives him a new nickname, "selfless freak", which is the wittiest thing ever and therefore repeated over 20 times (no, it didn't even sound cool the first time, you can stop). He loved Iori despite talking to her like twice, but he is hit in the head and starts liking Inaba.

Yui Kiriyama is scared of men because she went through a rape attempt. Sounds reasonable, but then Taichi lets her kick him in the balls and she is magically cured.

Aoki Yoshifumi is a laid-back guy who likes Yui and he was in love once before but that issue was solved in 3 minutes of one episode.

They are described as "pretty interesting humans" multiple times by an entity named Heartseed/Balloon Vine, that makes them go through things such as switching bodies, turning to their younger versions, acting on their impulses and reading each other's thoughts. These things (respectively) would stop the moment they do something that would entertain Heartseed -- and he is mostly entertained by love confessions and mental breakdowns.

Okay, so the fans love Inaba. She's so cool and smart and has a dirty mind (but desperately pretending to be embarrassed about it), likes to shout and hit people for no reason at all, loves being bitchy to literally every single character, manipulates other characters and their love lives. She reads other people so well and can always tell what's wrong. Her actions are always the right ones (she said so herself).

Even though they barely even talked in the first few episodes, she knows that Taichi and Iori are in love with each other. She can tell it! She pushes them onto each other in a really uncomfortable way for both of them, then after they decide she's completely right and confess to each other (still just saying that instead of showing it in any way), she realizes she wants to have sex with Taichi. She's SO embarrassed but so quick to tell Taichi she masturbates to him, strip and get on top of him and even make the most unnecessary statement in the history of anime about how she has erotic dreams including him. Was that really called for when her friend, the girl who also liked him, was feeling so terrible? But no, it's sososo embarrassing for her! blushblushblush and this is why everyone likes her - she's both the only source of fanservice and she's not like the other girls!

"Inaba is so awesome with her sexual references!" I don't know whether you have any contact with females in real life, but her behavior has a name and it's "trying too hard" and "going out of her way to talk about sex when nobody asked her to".
"Inaba is so hot!" because she showed some cleavage, yeah ok, make her your waifu and get out.

Then, she always gets what she wants because she's really clever. When Yui doesn't want to open the door, Inaba threatens her with saying her three sizes out loud. Yui is terrified and lets them in, to Inaba's disappointment because 'it would be more fun to actually say that'. What a great friend (I would have punched you in the face).

Even when Taichi kissed Iori, she was in Inaba's body. How convenient!

What about Iori? Somehow her clever friend, Inaba, knows exactly that she has issues, despite Iori never showing any signs except being the most cheerful one. She also discovers she likes Taichi, with Inaba's help. She almost dies, but it turns out it was just a prank. Iori and Taichi don't have time to talk about their future because they are busy.
Iori realizes Inaba likes Taichi and they agree to fight over him. This gives Inaba the right to have jealous attacks every time one of the girls talks to Taichi. No, it's not cute, stop saying it is.

Inaba: "I like you."
Taichi: "I'm happy but I like Iori."
Inaba: "I know but since you are not going out yet I still have a chance to get between you" *evil grin* god someone slap the shit out of her laughing face

Please leave.

Iori becomes insecure about her identity again and rejects Taichi because she's not ready for a relationship. This makes Inaba angry, even though this is really convenient for her. Iori goes emo but realizes it's stupid so she goes back to her cheerful self. We don't know if all this is over, but we hope it is.
A lot of people say Iori has suddenly become annoying in Michi Random. Suddenly? Have you even watched the show? The girl was sick of everything and everyone insisted that she should just go back to her old self when she clearly stated that's not possible multiple times.
And of course the authors made her unlikable so that Inaba x Taichi would be rooted for.

Then, people are saying there is chemistry between Inaba and Taichi so they should be together. OK. While I couldn't even see one moment when Iori and Taichi acted like they were in love, I think it's even more idiotic how Taichi x Inaba started with a masturbation confession. And instead of feeling urge to kiss him or hold his hand, she unleashes her desire to undress in front of him. How shallow can one get? Good luck maintaining your relationship based on that and I'm glad there won't be other seasons for me to see it.

Please let me know if you hate this show / Inaba. I'm losing all hope but I will update this post one day, I'm a bit tired of writing about it now.

(not in a particular order...)