Jul 21, 2021
I want to preface this by saying that I did not finish this anime but I’m writing this because I’ve got plenty to say about what I did see. This review is pretty subjective and if the points I make don’t personally bother you then you might Like Tokimeki Tonight and I recommend heading over to YouTube where the whole series has been uploaded in pretty good quality.
At first glance the premise is really cool. The protagonist Ranze is an average 15 year old girl except for the fact that her mother is a werewolf and her father is a vampire
...
(It's sort of like the Munsters if it was a shojo). Ranze’s parents are by far the best part of the show, and if the show was just about vampire dad and wolf-mom I probably wouldn’t have had a problem finishing the series. The problem is I think that's where it stops being interesting (at least for me.)
For the most part Tokimeki Tonight is your typical 80's shojo/gag anime. The main focus of the story is the bland protagonist girl, and her infatuation was a slightly less bland boy who won’t even give her the time of day. But this is the early 80’s and this type of plot is a shojo mainstay, especially in the early days so I won’t be too harsh on that aspect. I figured that this was just the type of mind numbing fluff my brain needed at the end of the day so I kept going. The real problem for me (and the reason why I didn’t finish it) is more complicated.
Ranze, as I've said, is a 15 year old girl. She’s in love with her classmate Shun. This would be totally fine if that weren’t her only concrete characteristic. The only other female character her age (who gets screen time) is Ranze’s classmate Yoko. It is the dynamic between these three characters that made the series unbearable for me. Ranze doesn’t do anything besides try to win the affections of Shun. She has no hobbies of interest or even any friends. Yoko’s only purpose is to serve as a rival for Shun’s affections. If Ranze had at least one female friend then maybe I could have gotten past her flaws but that's just it. The only interactions between female characters involve petty jealousy fighting over a guy who doesn’t even notice them half the time. Maybe it’s my modern sensibilities but I can’t watch a whole series where girls do nothing but fight each other like that. All i’m saying is girls shout support girls and this series made me want to watch legally blond to scrub it from my memory. You want a good old Shojo then look to the works of Ryoko Ikeda because this just isn’t it.
Because I hate to end this on a down note I will say that the opening and ending theme songs are absolute bangers and they are the whole reason why I even knew about this series to begin with. Seriously look them up; the ending in particular is way better than it has any right to be.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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