Do you like romance? How about romance with aliens? Yes, I'm looking at you, hentai watchers; you know you love that shiz.
With "Buy Your Special Someone Something In Exchange For Sex Day"—I mean Valentines Day coming up, you know love is in the air, so why not review a recent "romance" anime I've recently watched called Waiting To Get Dem Alien Nudes In The Summer, or AnoNatsu for short.
SYNOPSIS
"Movie hipster-nerd abandons his normal life in order to get into the alien-sluts' pants."
PLOT
The story of AnoNotSoGood kicks off the same way any other typical romantic comedy would. Heck, if you took the main characters' glasses and changed his hair color to orange, you'd pretty much be watching the first episode of To Love-Ru. Heck, if you changed the alien's hair to blond and gave her a ribbon, you'd be watching a show that just can't accept the fact that Onodera is the best girl. END THE MANGA ALREADY!
My point is that AnoNatsu follows the same formula that mostly all romance shows are built around:
Boy A meets Girl A
Girl A suddenly becomes friends with Boy A and forever changes his life.
Boy A and Girl A must go through trials of love to make them closer.
Boy A and Girl A supposedly become a couple.
It's a typical formula, but nobody gets on AnoNatsu's back because of the fact that it has the same character designer and director from AnoHana. Shoot, that's what you guys most likely care the most about anyways. I should make sure I put that at the top of this boring review.
DRAMA AF
AnoNatsu has more drama than an average day on Anime Amino. Actually, that's over-exaggerated, not even the Bachelor combined with Downton Abbey has more drama than an average day on AA. However, with AnoNatsu ending each episode with HUGE developmental events combined with basing the entire show around this love-orgy. I call it a love-orgy mainly because it's not a love triangle, but it's not simple enough to be called a love line.
You have an average group of friends, two girls and two boys, in an agricultural area of Japan. Quiet shy girl likes blue haired broski who likes loli tsundere who OBVIOUSLY likes the dense and stupid hipster loser that is the main character when all of a sudden
AYYYY LMAOOOOOO
Alien slut makes the dilemma that much worse. Before, everyone was going to end up with someone (supposedly), but now that there's a fifth character into the fray, someone's gunna end up sad and lonely. Naturally, childhood friend is going to be rejected by nerd faggot for the huge honker alien from outer space which, by the way, we have no idea if they can even reproduce together or not. The real reason that we keep watching AnoNatsu is for broski to decide which girl to love and which girl to shove.
This gives me an idea...
LOVE OR SHOVE
Welcome to the first and last ever episode of LOVE OR SHOVE! In this game, our bachelor must choose which 2D waifu he should keep for laifu. I'm your host, Remon/Lemon. In the anime I'm the mysterious insert character that is there for the main purpose of putting the other characters into situations that will potentially improve their relationship. Before we begin, let's meet our bachelor himself.
Tetsurou is overly-handsome for his age. Because of this, he's often confessed to by many girls. Despite this, he remains true to his love for Kanna. However, what he cherishes more than his relationships with girls is his friendship. That's right, Tetsurou is a true bro through thick and thin.
Kanna is the lovely lady that Tetsurou is trying to make happy. To do so, he'll go so far as to deny his own feelings, causing him more grief.
Out of all the characters, Brightning believes that Kanna is the most developed. Her personality is the most vibrant, resulting in the viewer feeling more empathic towards her in her times of grief and joy.
Now introducing the other contestant, Mio! AnoNatsu starts off with Mio being a quiet, shy and well endowed ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) lady who sees Tetsurou hurting himself over Kanna and grows feelings for him. She begins as a bland and uninteresting, but as the story progresses, we learn more about Mio that makes her certainly... Unique.
Ooohoohoohooh, looks like we have quite the dilemma for Tetsurou. Should he grow the courage to Kanna, or should he give up on the Tsundere childhood friend and put his dick in the girl who cares for him? Let's ask ultra-loser faggot and the female lead of the new upcoming film, Star Whores, space slut.
First of all, my name isn't ultra-loser faggot, it's Kaito. I like directing erotic films and being an overall idiot. As for who Tetsurou should love, I think he should choose neither and join me and Ichika for a super awesome alien tentacle threesome. Right, Ichika?
*loud alien screeching*
Um, alright. Well, it's finally time to choose who Tetsurou will love and who he will shove. DRUMROLL PLEASE!
It appears you'll have to watch the show to find out! Teehee~!
BEACH ARC
Most romance animes pull a generic beach episode halfway through the show. Not AnoNatsu. Sure, they include the expected swimming with swimsuits and beach volleyball, but they do so much more than that, thanks to these characters.
Kaito's childhood friend accompanied by her best friend acted as rivals for the main girls. What they have that the others don't is courage, an outgoing attitude and an aspiration to get what they want which, in this case, is Kaito and Tetsurou. Naturally, the other girls aren't happy. Meanwhile, Lemon is just over there being a troll and slowly watching the world burn.
I consider this as worthy to be mentioned in my review because in my opinion, it's the few episodes where the cast improved most on their personality and overall character. To list a few things that happen, Ichikunt realizes there's more than a feeling of friendship between her and Kaito, Kaito gains confidence with his relationship, Tetsurou realizes the entire romantic dilemma of his friends, and we get some MAJOR information and character development of Mio; and somehow through all of this, the two new characters get a large amount of character development in order for them to seem natural in the anime. In my opinion, these were the best episodes of AnoNatsu and possibly one of the best beach episodes I've seen.
SOUNDTRACK
I have absolutely no complaints about the soundtrack of AnoNatsu. Whenever a song is either done by Kotoko, Ray, Mami Kawada OR nano.RIPE, I always get a sense of warm weather or summer air. The sound director of AnoNatsu certainly knew that when they chose Kotoko to perform the opening. Not only that, but by somehow drugging the soundtrack with euphoric riffs and tones, the music was able to have a sense of space and sci-fi into the mixture.
In case that wasn't enough, knowing that AnoNatsu was going to be a hella dramatic show, they had Nagi Yanagi behind the end theme, which, may I remind you, is utterly captivating.
PERSONAL THOUGHTS
SPOILER ALERT
I saw what was going to happen, but I still continued to watch AnoNatsu because I'm a masochistic pig when it comes to romance anime like this. Like I did with To Love-Ru and Nisekoi and Sakurasou, I rooted for the girl who had feelings for the main character since episode 1 to, as always, get disappointed by the end result and utterly despise the main female lead that comes out of nowhere and wins the main characters' love. Why can't there be an anime where the childhood friend wins his love!?!?!? The perfect ending for me would've been a surprise twist where Kaito ends up with Kanna, Tetsurou ends up with Mio (cute af btw) and Ichika convinces her parents to let her stay on Earth with her new friends, but NO!
Also, can I take a minute to express how pissed I am over the ending of this show? Showing a picture of them in the future may imply that they met again, but IT DOESNT IMPLY THAT THEY HAD A HAPPY ENDING! Well, considering that the director behind AnoHana directed this, I should've saw this coming as well. I guess I'm just an idiot when it comes to romance anime.
OVERALL
AnoNatsu is an anime where you get the most enjoyment out of it when you pair your favorite characters together at the very beginning. As the show progresses, you'll find yourself cheering on your favorite pair and get extremely into the show whenever something extremely dramatic occurs. Just a warning though: 5 characters = a fifth wheel. One of the characters will end up forever alone and you'll end up feeling bad for them. With that in mind, have fun watching your ships go to hell in Ano Not So Kind To It's Viewers
