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Tragedy for the sake of tragedy. If there is a phrase to perfectly encapsulate what this series is, this would be it. The anime community at large once again desperately tries to make something out of nothing. Everything in this series is completely fabricated in such as blatant manner, and it's obviously done so to promote this fake idealized vision that people seem to make out of this series: the "subversion of romance." From character motivations, to certain choices made by characters—all of it is very out-of-touch with little to no substance.

Characters are completely non-sensical and pathetic. No one has basic morals. No one ... has boundaries or standards. And most important of all, no one has any common sense. Practically every character interaction is conveniently shaped to be this emotionless melodrama-archetype and it's taking away any sense of immersion for this series (whatever little it had to begin with given how exaggerated the circumstances are in this series). It doesn't work—no character is organic or natural. What makes it worse is that everyone is blatantly put into this "bubble" in the setting, meaning all the characters who are clearly not in an emotionally healthy state of mind will constantly interact with others who are also not in an emotionally healthy state of mind. It’s exaggerated and cheap.

Choices and reasons for their motivation is dry and lacking. Several instances there will be monologues from a character about what they are feeling, but it's surface level or predictable... and again, their motivations are lacking, so it’s not convincing at all, except for maybe one of the side girls. The reality is that it's not some thought-provoking psychological analyses no matter how much other people try to think it is. Most of the time, it's just people who just think with their bodies like apes and are stupid. Not convincing given the circumstances of these characters (none of them grew up with a traumatic background by the way). Simply put, there’s far too much suspension of disbelief required to justify any action in this series. So forced… When are people going to learn that just because characters aren't all happy-go lucky, it doesn't mean it's well written. Different doesn't always mean good.

The series is presented to be this supposed "opposite" for a lighthearted romance story. This means that while a typical lighthearted romance story would be about the joy of finding your loved one, this story would be about the misery of not having one. That would have worked if the story didn't overly desensitize the themes it wants to show. Unfortunately, it does and does not know when to stop. All of it comes off as just simple shock value. "B-But it's meant to be relatable to people!" Wrong. Nothing is relatable in this series. Last I checked, the VAST MAJORITY of people would NOT find it to be relatable towards:

•A girl engaging in a sexual relationship with a boy (who is a stranger to said girl) to "pretend" that it's their real love.

•A grown man initiating a relationship—up towards the goal of marriage—with a grown woman, who openly admitted to the grown man that she is a slut and likes going out with other men all the time, which in turn means she would see the grown man as merely another play thing. (The grown man also says she can continue being a slut, even after they are already dating, because why not.)

•A girl who was raped by a best friend (also girl) who also happens to have a distinct possessive nature. Then, the girl reconciles with the best friend... but not really because they still keep the sexual stuff going (with it mostly being more rape as the best friend just takes advantage of the shaken state-of-mind from the girl).

•A boy who will have sex with practically any girl who would open their arms to him. No standards; no emotions.

Did I forget to mention that this is basically all you are going to see for roughly 11 episodes? Oh yeah, "ecchi" tag is there, so you know where this leads.

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So after taking everything mentioned into account, what does the audience take away as a lesson from this series? What's the deeper meaning behind it all? Nothing. There is none. I'll reiterate the phrase up top: tragedy for the sake of tragedy. That's all there is to this series. "N-No, the message is that one cannot always be with their love!" Wake up. You do not need to make a story with sexual relationships amongst strangers, a girl getting raped by her best friend, and a man willingly putting himself into a typical NTR status with a slut adult woman—all to make this point come across. It's desensitization; nothing more than a spectacle just to show how "not sunshine and rainbows" this series is. This is a story about some girl and boy who have unrequited love towards their respective crushes. Remind me again how the points above fit into a scenario like this? They don't.

I was going to give this a 1 initially, but I raised it to a 2, only because of the ED song: "Parallel Line" by Sayuri. There’s nothing inherently wrong about a non-lighthearted story, but if it’s made just to be a showcase of despair/suffering, then it’s just shock value spam and misery porn (i.e., trash with no meaning). This is why I said at the beginning that the anime community at large tries to make something (this series) out of nothing. Ultimately speaking, if the message that the author is trying to make is that "people who don't get with their true love will find a way to pretend it by having sexual relationships with strangers," “sometimes we just get raped by our best friends and still stay best friends because we don’t know any better,” and that "there will always be whores in the world, even after they are in a committed relationship," then this is just a sign that this should never have been made.

What a fucking mess. That's what this series is. I'm going to advise anyone who is reading this that to not put your expectations anywhere near subpar... actually, don't bother with this series at all, and here’s why:

This series is a visual novel based adaption that has various elements of other genres. The problem is that these genres are not incorporated in any logical form whatsoever. Many times you will be left wondering what it is that you are even watching. To some that might be a good thing as it can be an element of surprise, but I assure you, you won't feel any ... emotion other than frustration. Nothing makes any coherent sense and that's the biggest problem with this. The themes the series shows at its audience do not feel natural at all. It's as if the author just picked randomly whatever elements of genres they thought was cool or "dark" and just threw them into this... corspe.

The main protagonist is dreadful. There is only one quality about him that one might consider a strength, and that is his unique personality... make no mistake however, his personality does NOT make up for his sheer stupidity and lack of common sense. There are many times where the stakes are dire and he (without spoiling) has the means to change things around with ease, but instead decides to keep going with brute force like it's so effective (it's not at all). It's just irritating to no end and it's so obviously done because the story demands that there must be conflict.

Characters apart from the protagonist are, more often than not, horrible proxies just to excuse the author's "dark" (practically fetish) forced genre elements—all of which, most of them being female. I mentioned before that this was based on a visual novel. Well the thing is, it's not just some ordinary visual novel, but an eroge (or hentai) one. No, there is no straight up hentai content, but I don't think I need to explain where I'm going with this as I'm sure you can see why I mentioned female characters and the author's "dark" elements. It's tiresome, plain and simple.

Lastly, the story is just a try hard sci-fi flick where it wants to be this awesome "woah, what a twist" type of story. It just doesn't work and there is a lot of material—more so towards the latter portion of the series—where the author really just did not think the story all the way through. Lots of unanswered questions, half-assed exposition for important plot events, bad characterization which coupled with a bad MC makes an unpleasant experience, and a nonsense of an ending. Yeah, the ending wasn't even like a "wow, that was great." No, it was unrewarding.

Please consider yourself warned for this mess.

I went in with this with an open mind. Really, I did. This series can be summed as such: forced. Yes, forced is the right word to describe this series.

“Kawaii dake ja Nai Shikimori-san” is a series with a premise of there being an "ultimate waifu,” similar to “My Dress Up Darling,” only this time the main heroine (Shikimori) is not an otaku, but an athletic prodigy. Here in lies the flaw. You see, Shikimori is really good at just about anything physically demanding—in particular, sports related stuff. The problem is that nothing about what she's good at per say, is natural. Anytime there ... is a scenario that involves something like running or whatever, she will instantly activate Super Saiyan (metaphorically) and do said scenario far beyond pro-level. You might think that this is no big deal and that it's reasonable. Well, not quite because that's just Shikimori ON HER OWN.

Of course, it wouldn't be a romance story with another lead, and in this case, it's Izumi. I'll get back to what I said about Shikimori because I will elaborate about Izumi first. Izumi is the typical super nice guy, but gets shy about anything actually romantic. This is not the bad part about him. What is the bad part is that the forced plot device of him being unlucky. When I say unlucky, I mean REALLY UNLUCKY. That is emphasized from beginning to end in this series. That is his defining trait. This is just unnecessary on so many levels because there is no reason why he needs to be unlucky. The author just used this to promote the "cool waifu" and this is what I'm getting at.

Shikimori in the story acts as the absolute flawless girlfriend, to which Izumi's unluckiness is rendered a non-issue when she's around him. Izumi can have his unluckiness so unnatural that there is a scenario where something like a tennis ball is going to hit his head, but if Shikimori is there, she will, using Super Saiyian reflexes, catch the ball without even turning her head. I kid you not, (without delving into specific details) there is a segment where a signpost is going to fall down onto Izumi's head without him noticing, but immediately Shikmori jumps, flip kicks the sign post, and falls down effortlessly—all before the signpost touched his head. This is episode 1. This isn't like a "Holy Shit, is she an inhuman?" thing or whatever, no it's meant to be taken as a given, like it's no big deal a typical highschool anime girl just kicked a signpost before falling onto someone...

It is by this reason that I said that this series can be summed up by the word forced. There is not a single possible way the unluckiness (which is already stupid levels of forced for Izumi in this series) can be a problem if Shikimori is there to protect. Like Izumi's trait being unluckiness, Shikimori's trait is being "cool." I used cool in quotations because it's forced throughout the series and it takes the immersion out of the story. This isn't cool.

Oh and just for good measure, did I forget to mention that Shikimori is also the class idol? Yeah, just like Marin in “My Dress Up Darling,” everyone LOVES Shikimori. It's like no, you can't be an ultra beast in secret, everyone in the school needs to emphasize how perfect Shikimori is. It's tiring and gets in the way of the romance focus of Izumi and Shikimori... which admittedly does exist.

And yeah that's really it. Shikimori is so over the top in "coolness" that it takes your engagement out of it. Izumi is the result of the author's crapped out plot device to further force Shikimori's "coolness". And lastly, there is no explanation for either how Shikimori is even physically capable of being so good at all of these things, or why Izumi has the unluckiness that he has.

Even apart from all of that, barely anything happens. Yes, it has “Slice of Life” as a genre tag, but it's the typical stuff like sports festival or going to study together. That in it of itself isn't bad, but when coupled with what I stated about our two faces of the series? That just doesn't make up for it.

Overall, it's a letdown. I advise you reading this, whoever you are, to please don't buy into the "OMG best waifu" hype. This will just make it worse.

I will make this review as clear and concise as possible (NO spoilers in this review).

Well, here we have it, an anime that delves into the topic of cosplaying... or at least, that's what it was supposed to be. The reason I say that is because while yes, the characters interact with cosplaying and they talk about how they like to dress up as them, act as them, etc., all these start to take a back seat later on in the episodes. This point is further emphasized when you compare this anime to another otaku-based one: “Saekano.” “Saekano” was an anime that brought a perfect ... balance between the harem/romcom aspect and the otaku/game aspect. If one were to watch it just for the otaku/game aspect and not care about the harem/romcom, they would be satisfied. If it was reversed, they would also be satisfied. This cannot be said for “My Dress-Up Darling.” This is because after roughly 4-5 episodes, the whole cosplaying charm starts to feel more like an afterthought, and the only reason you would really want to keep investing in this series is for Marin... which I guarantee you, is the only reason why this anime got as popular as it did. "What do you mean by that?" you might be wondering. Well, that all resolves around the topic of one character; that character being... well, Marin.

Marin is the only reason why this anime became as successful as it did. Whether or not that is a good thing is up to you, but regardless of such, this does not bode well for the other main character of the story: Gojo. Marin completely overshadows Gojo and doesn't really give him time to breathe throughout the show. This creates an imbalance between the two as one is constantly being the star of the show (Marin) who is plastered onto everything that coincides with what defines a wish-fulfillment "waifu," while the other (Gojo) takes pretty much a back seat. As such, this results in the story being more of a fluff "how much can we make Marin cock-tease Gojo?" because, this is an ecchi rom/com after all. As one might expect, this starts to make the "comedy" too same-y or too repetitive because the audience always knows that Gojo isn't going to be the one to insinuate anything, it's Marin. Speaking of teasing, this is where Marin, as a character, starts to show how contrived and desperate she is to appeal to the audiences.

While many see her as "Aw, that's so adorable!" or "OMG! This is best girl!" this is where she falls apart. Marin appears to be too try-hard to appeal to the male otaku audience. Yes, it's as if the author sculpted this character to desperately check off every box on a list of what makes a male otaku teen horny in the most blatant way possible. Why don't we go through every quality she has to show you what I mean:

She is popular in school, likes to watch anime and cosplay, isn't afraid to show off her body (which goes back to how she cock-teases Gojo), likes to play porn/eroge games, and to top it all off, is extremely attractive both design wise and in the anime's canon.

In other words, there is nothing really natural about this character (yes, even by anime standards), which makes this series—depending on how you look at it—come off as very try-hard or, as I stated before, contrived. Marin just fills these criteria in such an over the top way that it makes it seem like the author was saying, "People of the otaku audience, please watch/read this! There is a character that will make you horny *wink* *wink*." Basically, the author rode the "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" trope way too hard that it becomes monotonous. What makes it worse is that the series is extremely reliant on making Marin attractive that yes, there is fan-service. No not the occasional "oh ha ha, he fell and saw her panties." This is more like almost an entire episode having Gojo look at Marin's tits or legs or whatever and getting turned on—all with obscure camera angles to emphasize Marin's attractiveness.

So yeah, those are the flaws of this anime. Now, you might be wondering if there is any good, and yes there is. The animation is really nice and consistent, the OST is good, the art is really good, and... yeah, that's about it. Everything else (e.g. comedy, characters, etc.) I already stated, so that's all there is to say about this anime. I forgot to mention that there really is no story. It's a slice-of-life type of anime, so if your looking for some really deep romance story for instance, look elsewhere.

This is probably the best example of: different doesn't mean it's good. I don't see what people praise so highly about this anime. For every step forward the series takes, it takes 2 steps backwards. Let me explain:

Firstly, the elephant in the room: Rudeus. Rudeus is a scumbag by every sense of the word. The author has made that very clearly from the moment the story begins... and yet, why does he constantly shove it in our faces like we don't already know that? We already know he is not the most good willed person. The problem here is that the author just makes it ... seem like the audience needs a constant reminder every single second, practically to the point where it conveys itself as just plain monotonous. Let me give you some examples: "Oh look, we are having a nice training session with Roxy." Boom! Rudeus wants to sniff her panties when she is taking a bath. "Cool, these characters are going to go explore outside the main town and start their journey as adventurers." Boom! Rudeus finds a girl (Eris) and wants to raise her to be his ideal wife... and also wants to groom her. You see what I mean? These messages aren't presented in a natural way and in doing so, the "hate" you are supposed to feel for Rudeus isn't natural either.

If you are going to make a ill-natured person, you should naturally come to hate him, not be forced to hate him.

Yes, THIS is the problem with Rudeus. To put this into perspective, this would be like if I'm going to make a movie about war starring a deranged main character, and to prove he is deranged, I will make him purposely shoot random civilians every minute on screen. This theme would lose meaning and you would start to think it's monotonous right? Exactly. Here, the story shoves these... "acts" into our faces only for shock value, NOT to help develop the story in any way. And before you say, "Oh it's a redemption story," stop. This series is everything but a redemption story. If it truly is a redemption story, then that just comes to show why I said this series takes 1 step forward for every 2 steps backwards as it doesn't portray itself as a redemption arc in a natural fashion.

Second, the overabundance of sexual themes. These are everywhere and my god are they tiring. No, these aren't the cliche "guy falls and gropes a girl's chest accidentally" type of sexual themes. Yeah, the ones where you can kind of just shrug off or maybe just filter out from your view—no, these are the ones that just make you facepalm in utter disappointment and embarrassment. With that being said however, if you were to take these themes away, would the story change in any way? Basically, no and that is a problem. Again, this just comes back to the point where these themes are presented for mere shock value. It's as if the story wants to display these things just because they can, but not because they should. It can basically be said that these themes only present themselves so frequently, because it seems like the author does not know of any other methods to make his world seem "dark" or "messed up." He can't seem to come up with a creative way to make Rudeus an ill-natured person, so he results to just making him perverted. Over and over. He also can't seem to come up with creative ways to make the world setting seem more mature than other isekai stories, so he resorts to sexual/perverted themes over and over. That wasn't exaggerating. I really cannot recall there being an episode where there wasn't something extremely perverted in thought or action (even just a little).

I mentioned before that sex is littered everywhere in this series, but apart from desensitizing these "dark" themes to the point of monotony, it also falls apart in another aspect: the setting. “Mushoku” falsely presents itself as a supposed "realistic" story set in a fantasy/isekai world. This would be true if it weren't for the story's main proxy, that being Rudeus. Throughout the series, the sexual themes are presented in ways where it stems away from this supposed realism. Yes, it's written in a way where all of these are catered to an audience in which Rudeus is supposed to appeal towards... which is the male otaku audience, and no, it is not subtle about it. This turns away the "realism," because there is nothing realistic about themes in a fantasy world being catered towards a man's wet dream. How can it be "realistic" if all the themes present themselves through the lens of a male wish-fulfillment fantasy? Yes, people can deny it all they want, but Mushoku is indeed a wish fulfillment story about a male that serves as a self-insert to appeal to the male otaku audience. A fantasy story can't be "realistic" if the story is blatantly written in a way where it would make people say, "don't you wish you were in his shoes? You want to be right?" If it truly was a "realistic" portrayal of this, then Rudeus wouldn't be able to get off scotch free from being immensely perverted to anything with breasts and the story wouldn't be filtered in such a way... which comes to another problem; Rudeus's so-called "redemption" story.

“Mushoku” is a story that is made to be deemed as a redemption story—a way to see how a fallen individual can steer away from the bad and become something better. Sounds good right? If only they followed through with it so that it was true. Like I said before, Rudeus serves as a proxy to satisfy the wish-fulfillment of the male otaku audience. This poses a problem here because every instance where we, the audience, are supposed to see how corrupt he is, the story doesn't seem to do anything about it. Take his extreme perversion for instance. Among the entire story so far, there has yet to be a single instance where Rudeus's actions are demonstrated to be immoral with repercussions... hell, the story laughs at it! This is more of a problem when Rudeus himself doesn't seem to feel anything about the bad he does. He can call himself a scumbag all he wants, but how are we supposed to feel the sentiment in that when the story cuts back to laughing it off? A redemption story cannot be a redemption story if the main character doesn't even follow through with it or the issue in question doesn't seem to be an issue to anyone in the story. Basically, Rudeus has no consequences for his corrupted actions. The most we ever get is a kick to the face... but even then, if the story doesn't take it as a serious issue, then why should the audience?

All in all, there is some good though to keep it from falling even further. The animation is solid and the soundtrack works wonders to help build the setting of the world. Art style is represented well and there is no "bad cgi" type of indication anywhere.

TL;DR: The series falsely presents itself as a realistic immersion story about redemption (supposedly), but falls apart due to the portrayal of Rudeus with his actions and consequences stemming away from realism to satisfy that wish-fulfillment itch. Additionally, this series is severely oversaturated with themes presented as just trying to shock the viewer into thinking the author is somehow genius at making a not-so-good world and characters, when, in reality, it's just an excuse to say, "Hey look what this series can show that's explicit! It's so different from any other isekai. It also will make you men horny. That makes it good right?"

While this is a step up from season 1, practically all the issues season 1 has comes into play here as well. No these aren't ones you can ignore, but it has (sort of) been toned down somewhat since season 1. Oh, but the issues are still there make no mistake about it.

- The author continues to only resort to perversion/ecchi to create a "dark" world setting when they not only are sometimes irrelevant to the story, but are shoved in at the most random of times giving a sense of monotony. It is a fantasy world but we never see actual elements of such ... apart from the monster looking people, magic, and landscape. Where are the rest of the parties that travel? How come we don't really see any real world aspects be put here such as a group of mercenaries trying to stir up trouble?

- The author also, for some, reason made Rudeus in some portions of this season a complete idiot because he falls for the most obvious of traps, whilst still having the mind of a 40 year old? How does that happen?

- Lack of variety in soundtrack. This wasn't that big of a problem in season 1, but for some reason, it's pretty apparent here.

- The constant "Rudeus is perverted" message continuously shoved in our faces; even though we clearly already know that. There is no need to constantly remind us of something we already know. Stop. People always say it's to show that he is "not a perfect human being," but that logic is stupid. Like I said in my first season review, this would be like making a war movie and out every 5 minutes or so, the main character will just shoot a civilian for no reason to try to portray the main character as deranged. Does that make it okay to convey the message? No, it gets tiresome.

All in all, this is better than season 1, but if you absolutely despised season 1, don't think this season will change your view that much.