Jun 13, 2024
I've never written a review before but this show has evoked a certain emotion in me that I just had to scream out.
Let me preface this by saying:
I consider myself an easy person to convince when it comes to stories. I do my best to be immersed and put myself in the shoes of the character and the world they're in, what morals are acceptable and try not to include a bias from our current status quo. I'd even approve incest in stories if the world building allows it and the development is just.
I really didn't want to write this until I had at least
...
given the whole show a go but here I am after episode 11 of 12. I'll still watch the last episode, maybe it'll change my mind and I'll give it a Horrible instead of an Appalling.
*Minor spoilers ahead*
The male MC Hananoi is introduced by having water splashed on him by his now ex-girlfriend. It starts off pretty cliché with a notion that Hananoi is a heavily misunderstood person.
Cue female MC Hotaru, she's a person that hasn't experienced love before and is very unaware of it. But she hasn't always been like this, this stems from a childhood trauma and it has subconsciously steered her away from such encounters. She seems like the perfect person to understand Hananoi. I had huge expectations for this story at this point.
What comes after only helps me to empathize with the ex-girlfriend that threw water at Hananoi. Whatever Hananoi does to Hotaru and the people around her only helps to justify the ends of that relationship.
*Major spoilers ahead*
He implants the idea into Hotaru's mind that it's ok for her to take her time since she does not understand love while at the same time he very obviously forces her to make a decision whilst employing the push and pull technique. He verbally threatens the friends and childhood friends around her for being even remotely close to her. He makes Hotaru feel like she's the one at fault for the relationship's lack of progress when she herself has stated before that she does not understand love and needed time to come to terms with those feelings and yet he's made it all about himself for having her make him wait. He shows very visible signs of irritation whenever any friend of hers talk to her when they happen to meet, causing Hotaru to have to walk on eggshells around him and her own friends. He's upset because a childhood friend of Hotaru called her by a nickname they had in middle school.
While all this is happening in the foreground, the show blasts us with slow romantic and uplifting music as if trying to drown out all the toxic traits and elephants in the room(created by none other than our boy Hananoi) with the signature anime blushes, "teehees" and "ehhh? ehhh?"s. While Hananoi is very obviously unhappy with himself, he enters a relationship and attempts to territorialize Hotaru and seek validation for his feelings that he (by his own fault) has no one else to give to.
At the end of the day, Hotaru is being groomed. She is unaware of love. Love isn't about having to walk on egg shells around your loved ones. Love isn't about having to lose friends because your partner is unjustifiably not fond of them. Love is about compromise from both sides and yet I only ever see Hotaru compromising (time with friends and family). The show tries to align everything by having her family be ok with her not being around and friends who are too inexperienced and young to tell what is toxic and what is romantic.
Maybe the Manga has rectified the toxicity with Hananoi, I'm not sure and I'm not about to find out.
If you feel like you're "basically MC" or empathize with his actions, sorry to say this but get help.
The show should really be called Hananoi-kun has a condition.
I'm not sorry. This is appalling. Even more so right after we've had a few top tier romance shows like Yubisaki to Renren, Skip to Loafer and Watashi no Shiawase na Kekkon.
Edit: I'm back again bois! Yea, nah it's still appalling. They tried every cliché in the book to try and plaster over the toxicity. I could drink 50 servings of protein shake a day and still have less protein toxicity than Hananoi's immature and controlling mindset.
He's basically ignored her the whole time after elementary school (in fact, during as well), gotten into multiple relationships along the way. He finds her again and BAM, "I've loved you since we were kids". Nah, he doesn't get to do that.
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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