[Spoiler Warning]
This is also my first, and only, review I will ever write on MAL, so apologies if the format or the content reads a bit messy.
"Ore wo Suki nano wa Omae dake ka yo" (or "Are you the only one who loves me?") was an anime hailing from Fall 2019's season, but I only got around to watch it during these dreadful times, and oh boy, it only aggravated whatever misery I was trying to block out in me.
We are given the typical introduction to the main character in these high school animes, alongside the childhood friend who, of course, is a girl. As
...
more minutes go by we find out he is also a member of the student council and he has a second childhood friend, the ace player of the school's baseball team. Neat. It is a decent introduction and there's nothing that really stands out, either negatively or positively. The plot, as we are led to believe, will involve these colorful, flower-inspired girls and the two childhood friends who are the Sun and the Moon, quite literally (due to their nicknames) in harmless, rom-com banter, as Joro, the main character, states right at the beginning.
But things take a turn when he's invited to what he assumes is a date by both his female childhood friend Hinata and student council president Sakura.
You see, the only segment on the four episodes I have watched in this show that could pass as the comedy portion of "rom-com" stem from both girls, on separate dates, asking for his help in hooking up with his friend Oga (or Sun-chan). The misunderstanding Joro made when on his "date" with both girls is what cranks the engine for the plot during the next three episodes.
And this is where Oresuki rears its ugly head and the one-hour crucifixion of my soul began.
The anime never was a rom-com. It was, at best, a commentary on the duality of Chad v Incel. I say that because the second half of the first episode our main character reveals that we, in fact, live in a society, where girls use their childhood friend status and maturity as a pretext to toy with a poor guy's heart strings, as if it was an harp playing a requiem for the fallen at a funeral for love. At every opportunity Joro can't help himself but to insult under his breath the two girls he felt that used him, calling them "bitches" at times. But, of course, the first episode's trainwreck could not stop there, because there was one more course, apparently. And that lies in the third girl, the one that loves Joro but Joro doesn't love her, since she is that weird, ugly girl that everyone avoids like they're at the peak of the Black Plague and she had just grown a small lump on her cheek. She appears holding a "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", in what I assume is a comparison of the man/beast with Joro's "obtuse", kind boy with the incel inside. To be honest, she could had been holding a copy of Shrek 1 and I'd still get the idea that like onions, Joro is multilayered.
And from here, it only got worse. At this point, any expectations I had sunk faster than the stock market in 1929 and I kept going through the see-through, predictable, mess of a story to realize that while Joro was helping both girls hooking up with Sun-chan, no character was likeable. Both girls are completely braindead. The plot here is that Sun-chan must never find out that they like him or that Joro is helping them, but... that doesn't make sense to me. Maybe I'm also braindead, but if Sun-chan knew about Joro's endeavors regarding the girls wouldn't it facilitate Joro's work since Sun-chan could just take over? But alas, for the sake of a plot point I could see on the other side of the world just like a mushroom cloud in the night sky, Sun-chan likes the weird girl (who is, by the way, extremely hot and not ugly as she appears). The anime picked up the love-triangle and decided it wasn't enough, we needed a love-pentagon (or a square if you bundle up the two girls that want Sun-chan together).
The third episode was, to no one's surprise, any better.
The plot goes out the window because Sun-chan, hurt by Joro's refusal in helping him with his love affairs, takes revenge on him, turning both girls against our infant Joker behind the scenes, resulting in a clash in the empty library (where our weird girl works as an aide) that hurts beyond repair Joro's image in everyone's eyes. Ostracized by his peers, left without any friends but the weird library girl, he lives a week used to his outcast status.
But, lo-and-behold, this was a master plan of the library girl, because Sun-chan was unmasked as a despicable villain by having betrayed Joro all because he got butthurt over a girl TWICE (the first one was in middle school) And that, for those who are keeping count, makes the total of unlikable characters to four. At least, the library girl wasn't bad in the three and a half episodes I watched before I decided I wasn't into this kind of torture. There was also a bit of dialogue that suggests Joro is in fact multilayered: apparently, he has the outer façade, the incel within and then underneath that lies the kindhearted friend. Adding more layers to a character doesn't help him when all of them are paper-thin.
The fourth episode (at least, the 10 minutes I spent on it before dropping this show altogether) opened up with the Meta-Commentary™, truly, the symbol of a show who doesn't know what to do next. This is followed by the addition of a new girl, who is also based after a flower (who could have guessed?) and works as a reporter. This conversation only got me until they mentioned an event called the Flower Festival (which already doesn't feel very original since all of the girls are based after flowers) where the crux of it is when a guy dances with three other girls in succession, and what do you know? We have EXACTLY three girls that will probably dance with him because the plot demands it!
I say "will probably dance" because this was when I said "aight, I'm boutta head out" and dropped it.
In terms of technical parts, the art and the sound are serviceable. The art looks good and the sound works. The OP and ED aren't really that memorable but I'm not docking points for that. The animations are what you would expect from an anime from this generation and look alright too. It's just the characters that are beyond salvation that even Jesus himself wouldn't die for their sins.
Seriously, if you want to watch a rom-com that is actually good, go see "Toradora". For the Flower Festival bit that also says that one of those three girls will marry the guy, "We Never Learn" is another rom-com with a similar festival but better, since the manga is taking full advantage of having five girls to do different routes for them starting at that event and its superstition. I wouldn't recommend Oresuki to anyone unless they would like to know if there's an anime version of Agent Orange or they are into BDSM, because this kind of torture is astounding. Hell, I watched Ishuzoku Reviewers, alone, in daylight and the sheer embarrasment I felt wasn't nowhere near as painful as having to sit through the first episode of this anime, I never got why they called Rising of The Shield Hero an "incel fantasy" when this anime features one as its main character.
There are great rom-coms out there, but this isn't one.
Jul 27, 2020
[Spoiler Warning]
This is also my first, and only, review I will ever write on MAL, so apologies if the format or the content reads a bit messy. "Ore wo Suki nano wa Omae dake ka yo" (or "Are you the only one who loves me?") was an anime hailing from Fall 2019's season, but I only got around to watch it during these dreadful times, and oh boy, it only aggravated whatever misery I was trying to block out in me. We are given the typical introduction to the main character in these high school animes, alongside the childhood friend who, of course, is a girl. As ... |
