Oct 30, 2025
First of all, it's important to emphasize that I will criticize the anime for what it tries to be, "A Beast x girl shoujo romance," instead of criticizing it for what it isn't.
I needed to point this out because, so far, Kimi to Koete has been quite weak compared to other anime of the genre. The first two episodes are very weak, but the third one gave me hope that this anime might not be so bad after all.
Let's analyze each aspect of the anime to see why I had a negative reaction to it:
Story: The story has interesting points, but so far it's been
...
a mixed bag. The first episode is extremely rushed, speedrunning generic romance plots without giving the viewer time to get to know the characters and see their chemistry work. In the second episode, we have the introduction of a bullying plot and a heat plot. The bullying plot, even though a bit shallow, is quite interesting, but I can't say the same about the heat plot; it's extremely forced. We didn't even have enough time to see them interact, and they already want to pull off a spicy scene. Even though I like this type of romance genre, I felt completely uncomfortable with the execution of this plot. The anime expecting us to feel something about what's happening when we haven't even had time to connect with the characters is quite frustrating. But with episode 3, we had more time for the characters to interact, and the episode's plot was quite fun and wholesome. This episode was really much better, and I finally felt involved with the anime. If the rest of the series is like the direction of this episode, maybe this anime has a chance to redeem itself.
Characters: The main protagonist, Maki, is unfortunately the weakest character in the anime. For such an important protagonist, the anime doesn't even bother to properly introduce her so that we can understand who she is beyond her shyness and kindness. The biggest problem is that 90% of her screen time is spent obsessing over the wolf, which is quite ironic because the wolf character, who is supposed to be the most horny because of his "heat," doesn't even come close to the heroine in that regard lol. Then we have the wolf, Tsunagu, and he's decent, unlike the heroine. The anime actually takes the time to let us get to know him better, his thoughts, personality, and dreams. In terms of secondary characters, the two female friends are quite fun, and the third episode really helped make them more interesting, but so far Yukihiro hasn't won me over. His obsessive curiosity and lack of common sense in certain scenes really left a bitter taste in my mouth regarding the character, but maybe he can redeem himself in the future.
Art and Animation: When I saw the first trailer, I was surprised by how beautiful the art in this anime is, and it continues to be so in all three episodes. However, the animation left much to be desired in the first two episodes, with many scenes that needed attention being completely cut. You can really tell that this anime is trying to give the impression that it's much more well-produced than it actually is. The animation has been such a problem that they overuse the chibi form of the characters as a lazy way to draw the wolf showing his expressions. I don't mind the animation being weak and chibis being used, but in the case of this anime, these problems seriously impacted my connection with the story due to the abrupt cuts and excessive reliance on chibis. Incredibly, episode 3 (again) showed a good improvement in quality, having much more acceptable animation and even some decently animated scenes.
In conclusion: Kimi to Koete had many problems and many questionable decisions in its first two episodes; the pacing was horrible, the characters didn't have time to develop properly, and plots were introduced and finished in the blink of an eye. However, episode 3 seems like a light at the end of the tunnel for what seemed like just a shallow romance. I really hope the anime continues the quality of its third episode.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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