Aug 25, 2020
This anime so Ggreat. for people say this anime is bad, you should change you brain from child to adult.
You know pretty much what you're getting into when you read a book like this, some fun romantic comedy. It has some light innuendo in it, but it's pretty cheery and fun overall. It stars one straight man, "gloomy" loner named Sakurai and a perky, annoying clingy woman named Uzaki Hana who bump into each other on their way to classes at college, and they slowly develop into something more special along the way.
The nature of their characters means there's some animosity and rough spots
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at times (seen by others as the "bickering" or "teasing" couple archetypes, her frequently cursing out his scowling face or no fun lonely ideals, him calling her stupid). However, this does make those moments where they have fun and open up all the more great. If it didn't have those moments though, this'd maybe go in that slightly mean spirited comedy file, but there's enough joyful stuff here to cancel it out. As an example, at one point, Uzaki is blaming Sakurai for her back injury at the batting range (not his fault, and probably the most annoying she gets), so he takes her to the movies in apology, and rather than Uzaki dragging him to a movie he hates, she picks one that he's actually seen before and enjoyed (iirc, it's what you'd expect, an action / gore movie). Even going to the batting cages and playing video games are nice bonding type moments for them. The final chapter in particular shows how far they come from Uzaki being an annoying presence to being someone Sakurai doesn't mind inviting over on his extra off-day.
Character art is vibrant and fun. They're often in motion and doing stuff in the panels. Despite the story being centered on school, we actually don't see any of their classroom, but we do get to see a lot of after-school locales, such as the restaurant Sakurai works at, the local mall, Sakurai's home, and the baseball range. We also get hints at future locations, such as Uzaki's home with her two cats.
The supporting cast is made up of a father and daughter who run that restaurant Sakurai part-times at. Both give Sakurai and Uzaki their support from the sidelines as lovers of people watching, and don't overstep their boundaries in the slow moving relationship that is bound to develop between the leads. Ami-san, the restaurant owners daughter, is a fellow college student, and I thought for sure they'd do the rivalry thing with her because she digs looking at his bod, but nope, she wants to see Uzaki and Sakurai get together too.
In terms of content warning, it does have that innuendo I mentioned, which is mostly verbal (Uzaki after getting an injury from the batting cages with Sakurai saying he injured her back doing something crazy last night... Which sounds bad). There are some visible gags that are more low brow too, like when Sakurai tries to pull Uzaki out of a shrub she fell into and two girls walking by get the completely wrong idea. Based on how folks were saying the anime was all boob jokes, I was worried, but that's really not the case here at least.
Overall I will definitely be reading more. It might not stick with you in terms of all the other available RomCom out there though. Despite being college based, there's not too much difference from other Highschool based series with similar archetypes (Kohai annoying her Senpai, independent characters who sometimes live in their own apartments). Uzaki and Sakurai also have a history that doesn't really get explored much either, so I assume we'll see more of their highschool days in the future. But overall, I'm always down for more adult characters and romance. Uzaki's clinginess doesn't bother me as we've had other endearing relationships start that way (Golden Time). (less)
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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