Lovely Complex Review:
The story centers around Atsushi Otani and Koizumi Risa, two classmates and good friends who are renowned around the school as 'All-Hanshin Kyojin" (or something like that) due to their constant arguing and bantering, and their circle of friends. Risa is tall for her age, while Otani is rather short for his. The show follows their last two years of high school, and ends with their foray into the world beyond it.
The animation is well, nothing to write home about. It's not bad and I've definitely seen a lot worse, but it's not up to the quality of the likes of Toradora, Death Note, Naruto or other high end anime. It's good, but not amazing. As an aside, it rather reminded me of the early One Piece seasons.
One would think that is a bad thing, but it's really not. I think it works well with the style that lovecom goes for. Speaking of style, lovecom is distinctive for its animation, in that characters are often distorted/animated differently in ways regarding their emotions, conversations, etc for comedic effect. I'm not sure how to describe the technique, but all you need is to watch the first episode and you'll know what I mean. I think this style works well with the light show that is lovecom. However, others might not be of the same mind. If you see the first episode and don't like the style, then know that it doesn't change.
The show is rather light-hearted, in that there is no deeper source of conflict. No one dies, no one loses their house, no one's long lost thought-dead twin reappears to seek vengeance, or anything equally dramatic.
The main plot for majority of the show revolved around Koizumi's attempts to win over Otani in a romantic way(more on this later).
Some might not like this, but to me it's what made the show. It's a romcom, and it does have drama, but nothing eye-rolling like anime tends to do. All drama that pops up is resolved realistically and quickly. All those 'if only he/she got to tell him/her just this one thing' don't happen, because characters on this show do the realistic thing and talk about what's relevant.
As an extension of the above, what really made this show great to me was how smoothly things went. Not in the 'easy' way. I mean that the two protagonists felt like real people, and while anime behavior can't really be avoided, I was pleasantly surprised by how realistically everyone acted. Nothing felt forced. I could see everyone thinking and acting like that.
As for the characters, I liked Otani and Risa. They had real chemistry, and their (eventual) pairing did not feel forced. They had distinctive personalities, different yet similar in many ways and it is obvious how an attraction between them could (and did) develop.
On the other hand, the supporting cast was rather ... not quite bland. Forgettable? Not really given much development? Something along those lines.There is an argument to be made that shows some times take the supporting cast too far, but still, lovecom kind of fell flat there. It didn't bother me, since my interest lay firmly with Otani and Risa, but this could have been better.
Something that I put firmly on the 'Pros' side of the argument, is how the whole plot was handled. To expand on what I mentioned earlier, early on in the show Risa realizes that she has feelings for Atsushi (who is always referred to as Otani by everyone, me included), and for the middle part of it tries to win him over, while the last part is with them as a couple.
The show is interesting because the two of them had been good friends already, and Otani is caught completely off-guard by her feelings. It's classic drama, yes, but I loved how it was handled. Otani just did not see Risa that way. For the longest time he could not transition her from 'best friend' to 'girlfriend' in his mind. It avoided most (if not all) of the cliche drama pitfalls and kept drama to a minimum, while still keeping the situation like that. The show remains positive and uplifting, even when it seems that Risa's efforts are in vain.
For the amount of episodes where it seemed like Otani really could not see her that way, I enjoyed it a lot. Otani tried, he gave it a lot of thought, etc but he just could not see her that way. That's something that I honestly haven't seen before.
Eventually and over the course of a year and a half (or so) Otani does come around to loving her, but the transition is slow and very well handled.
Another good thing was that almost no episode felt filler-ish. The balance of slice-of-life shows is delicate, but lovecom nailed it. Each episode had its own charm, and none were of the 'unique arc that will have no further impact once complete' kind. Each led into the next, and the show progressed at a decent pace.
Having said that, there were some points in the story that just outright did not work. The whole thing with the substitute teacher (whatshisface) comes to mind. That was simply a disaster.
I guess the main negative is that while I enjoyed the show, there wasn't much impact to it. I mentioned previously that the lack of ridiculous drama was a positive. It is. Still, LoveCom never had me on the edge of my seat, never truly inspired strong emotion in me. Its realism, while refreshing, was a double edged sword. We watch the lives of two people over a period of two years, and by the end of it we are smiling, but there wasn't much that stuck out in such a way that I will remember it months/years from now.
tl;dr: LoveCom is a light-hearted, refreshingly realistic romcom with a distinctive style that will probably be hit or miss with most. Very entertaining show, but not groundbreaking. I rate it 7/10.
If you're a fan of slice-of-life and/or romcoms, watch Lovely Complex.
