This anime is about a anti-social protagonist who's in the center of a dramatic romantic comedy. Unlike your standard light rom-com, this anime discusses philosophies through its characters. The philosophies are then acted upon as the impetus for character decisions. It is interesting to watch these characters attempt to stick to their ideal, or discover new ones. That in itself creates much more character development than you would expect from your average anime. This also might make the anime seem more realistic. It is not. The main character magically finds himself forced into a club with the smartest hottest girl in school. How is that realistic? Most of their problems are also easily solvable in my opinion without breaking character traits or ideals.
The story setup is not realistic. It might appear so because the character are more developed and the problems they face are less superficial. But take a step back and examine the introduction of this anime. The main character is forced to join a club with the smartest and prettiest girl. She turns out to be an ice-queen tsundere. Shortly afterwards a cheerful girl with the opposite personality joins. Thus the anime has setup its love triangle in no time flat. Did I mention the MC's teacher is single, sexy, and smart? None of this is realistic. He just happens to be thrown into the den of two cute girls and the rest is history. Since this is where the anime starts, none of it feels genuinely realistic.
After the setup, the story does feel more realistic with the problems the MC has to solve. These issues are not crazy but rather everyday high school issues that might come up. Its the details that the author goes into that makes it realistic. But the solutions feel forced as there are many ways to approach these problems. The author however, feels that he needs to force the MC and other characters to act on their ideals as a method of solving the issues. There is almost no compromise. There is almost no genuine rational. To this end, the solutions do not feel realistic and the story feels more like fantasy.
The story does steer clear of your standard light romance rom-com drivel. The characters develop over time and communicate in the way you would expect. You also get a diverse amount of emotions ranging from the cheerful and romantic to the bitter and hateful. Too often average pump and dump rom-com animes focus on one spectrum or the other. All this is told from the perspective of the three main characters. As one of the characters puts it: "You must change the world rather than change yourself to win."
The characters themselves are more complex than your average anime cliche. They all show change incrementally which is good. There are some character flaws however. The MC unfortunately contradicts himself early on, something I believe the editors miss. This isn't important in the long run for most anime viewers since they will forget. But it leads to a less convincing MC who may not be the person he claims to be due to unfortunate events. As I said earlier, his solutions are also forced and appear contrived rather than intelligent. I believe the author wanted Hachiman to appeal to viewers by being both smart and anti-social but largely fails in the former department. The other girls also have design flaws. Both are given plenty of screen time but little of it is used to plug the holes in their character design.
Yukino Yukinoshita's problems are never really explained to the audience. This might be OK in real life and OK from the MC's perspective, but its bad for viewers. You never really get to know the why's and the hows. It is a constant mystery why she acts a certain way and none of the relevant parts address the issue. It is almost as if her character was designed with the traits without the backstory that the author would address later on. My point here is that it makes for a weak justification for how her character behaves. Its OK to hide this from the MC for romance story purposes but its not OK to hide it from the viewers. The entire point of this story is to understand the characters. The hook is the romance so you don't need to worry about the mystique. You don't need to solve this issue during the season but it needs to be explained in a way that makes sense for her.
Yui is similar in that she doesn't feel complete as a character. While she doesn't have a meta problem like Yukino, her issue is that she has no real problem aside from the romantic one. Her reasons for being in the club are entirely circumstantial. Perhaps its that she is looking for something real but the author doesn't even go there. Instead the author hamfists through their teacher advisor that she's the glue that holds the club together. I just don't buy it. Instead of letting Yui develop something more she's entirely there for the relationship aspect. That's OK at a certain level but it makes her superficial. Her character is there to strike a balance between Yukino but she cannot do it. Her personality is the only thing that shines but her character isn't fulfilling enough. The author attempts to do something with the dog but later on the dog is completely missing from the story. Of the three main characters, she is the weakest.
Aside from plot and characters, there is also the philosophical side of this anime. The monologues from Hachiman serve to explain why he does what he does. His anti-social views however are weak compared to the real thing. He also likes to egotistically assume he approaches problems from a rational viewpoint. So why does he always take a flawed approach? The reason is simple, hes not nearly as intelligent as he is supposed to be and this I would say is not a character flaw but a design issue. I believe the author designed Hachiman to be smart enough to solve these issues in in a way viewers can relate to. But because his solutions are not even close to the best ones, he fails. This seems to be purely the fault of the author. The character itself is supposed to showcase the anti-social ideals that he holds by making good rational choices at the expense of his personal relationships. Instead however he choose poorly multiple times though this is camouflaged by the ingenuity of his solutions. Since we are dealing with people this is not a good thing. Nobody wants to make a situation more complex than it needs to be just because its a solution. So in this sense the Hachiman ideals are actually quite weak. If we factor in the issue where he questions himself, it becomes even weaker. Furthermore the author interjects to soap-box his ideas through Hachiman. These musings are a different view than what Hachiman's philosophies are. I suspect the author is presenting personal views rather than Hachiman's views because of this. The anime however refrains from preaching to the audience in most cases.
The social aspect of this anime doesn't really do it justice. While it examines the social structures of society well enough (compared to other anime), its still falls short. Many situations are not throughly thought out, many reactions are either overdone or ignored. Some of the drama even seems to be manufactured. My point here is that this anime has potential to extrapolate on the social aspects even more than it does. Instead of digging deeper however it waltzes around so that it does not damage some of the stereotypes it establishes.
The humor in this anime is subtle and good if you like deadpan writing. It pokes fun at every character's cliches and their developments. While it stops short of parody, it does ask many questions and does so through comedy. The comedy also serves as a nice break inbetween the dramatic sequences. One of the key features of this anime compared to others is how comedy is used by the characters as well. In that aspect I would say its more realistic than most animes which elevates the comedic factor.
At the end of the day this is an anime that you should watch if you like rom-coms as it will expand your understanding of the genre. It is not like your typical rom-coms and like many decent ones, it can stand on its own. It however, has a lot less romance than you might expect. If you're looking for something like that, I would pass on this anime as its more about trust than love. But on that note, the romance develops at pace that is much more believable than many other animes. Just don't expect to believe that this anime is that much more relatable than other rom coms.
