First of all if you would rather watch the video version of this you can click this link --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yltDivxYEd0
To answer the question if Chuunibyou is good we'll have to look at the story of this anime and the character of course. Just stating the obvious here but when we're talking about slice of life anime we're pretty much talking about the characters too when we talk about the story because the story can only be interesting if the characters in it are engaging because we're looking at the daily lives of these people instead of having them transport to an interesting parallel universe or fictional world or the past or future or whatever kids these days are doing. So to state the story of a slice of life anime is good almost automatically means stating the characters are interesting ones to follow that leave you wanting to know more about them. So does Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai succeed storywise and character wise?
The beginning.
We start off following Yuuta, a boy who used to suffer from something called chuunibyou also known as eight graders syndrome. This means he was living in his own delusional world referring to himself as Dark Flame Master. He had a bandage on his arm to protect the world because if it'd come off it'd perish everything and he wears weird clothes and make his own swords. When he's finally done with middle school and gets a new chance at a new school he's determined to get rid of his chuunibyou and have a normal school life fitting in with the rest of the class. Just thinking back on his own chuunibyou makes him cringe now. Because he's now getting one step closer to being an adult and that means cringing over our past mistakes and leaving them behind never looking back. He walks into this cute girl named Nibutani and he crushes on her. When he gets to class he finds out she's in his class too. So for him this feels like a fresh start and things couldn't be looking any better right now especially when he immediately makes a new friend, Isshiki, who sits behind him and they have a completely normal conversation. Everything seem to be going well so far until Rikka starts talking to him in class saying her Tyrant's Eye is reacting to his presence. He recognizes her behaviour in a blink. The dramatic way she talks, the way she describes herself, the way she's wearing an eyepatch just because, the way she's obviously lives in her own little world… it has to be chuunibyou.
He wants to make sure he doesn't have to put up with her in order to have his normal school life the way he pictured it. The one thing he doesn't want is for people to associate him with the crazy girl in class. But of course after getting invited to a party and getting an opportunity to get popular he ends up walking Rikka home because they live in the same building and she doesn't know how to get there being new there and all. I think this was an important event because maybe if this didn't happen this whole anime could not have existed. This one event determined the rest of the course of this anime like a butterfly effect. Maybe if he would've gone to the party people would have liked him and he would've gotten cocky and shunned Rikka to keep his status or build on his image for the other people. Because people have a tendency to try to keep their status no matter how nice of a person they used to be. He would've probably avoided her altogether by focusing on his new friends. Then again if he would not have been liked by people he might have been the one to be shunned and then he would have lost his confidence in himself and there would've never been a club that they start later in the show because that would have just been plain awkward. Yuuta keeps treating Rikka like a child telling her she's a dummy and playfully hitting her on the head. Which makes it obvious to us just how innocent Rikka is if even the main character sees her as a child pretty much. By the end of the first episode he helps her move her stuff into the apartment and we see the start of a bond forming between Rikka and Yuuta even if it's just a little at this point. Near the end of the episode Rikka tells him the powers of Dark Flame Master is real and gets emotional when Yuuta keeps telling her it's not real and it's all made up as if he's denying his true self. For her he does his signature chant one more time which proves to us Rikka doesn't leave him cold even though he tries to hard to project it that way. The first time you watch this scene it's sad but the second time you watch the anime and you realize why Rikka has chuunibyou in the first place it's so sad how she's trying to hold on to this idea, this delusion. And how he's just shoving the fact that it's all not real all up in her face.
Story.
Rikka and Yuuta share a weird connection from the start. Even though they've only known each other for a day Yuuta understands Rikka in a weird way because he has gone through the same phase as her. Like this example where Rikka finds a cat and wants to keep him but she can't and he asks her why and she replies with: The priestess of the Unseen Horizon Overseers displays immune hypperreaction to chimeras. And Yuuta replies with: Oh so your sister is allergic to cats? So even though he doesn't want to give in to the chuunibyou he still thinks in a way it's easy for him to understand the language of it. Sometimes he even slips up doing his old routines without thinking it through. Rikka clings to Yuuta nonstop not giving Yuuta room to develop distance and steady his place as a normal guy. She follows him around even when he's trying to make the moves on Nibutani. When Nibutani is told about the cat Rikka found she directs them towards Kumin who might be the cats owner. She's not the owner of the cat but it does make them befriend Kumin who'll turn out to be the sweet and sleepy one of the bunch. When she finds out Yuuta used to have chuunibyou she doesn't get weirded out or act mean about it even more she acts like it's actually a really cool thing. At school Rikka is always being the loner being true to her own world so when other people try to approach her she just stays herself and starts talking about her delusions and scare people off. She pretty much has this huge wall around her for almost everyone. Even to her closest friend, Dekomori. In the third episode Dekomori gets introduced which will be the last important character that's introduced in this season. She plays as Rikka's servant seeing her as her big example and master. She also has a severe case of chuunibyou. She ends all of her sentences with desu. But she pronounces it like the english word death at least that's how japanese people will hear it. She's pretty "special" as well. Dekomori is obsessed with this book written by Forrest Summer which is basically a guide for chuunibyou sufferers and their world building pretty much. Truth is Nibutani wrote this book way back when and is also desperately trying to cover up her chuunibyou and hopes they never find out it was her who wrote it. She joins their club to make sure no one finds out.
Characters.
So now we know all of the main characters. We have Rikka, who has chuunibyou and clings to our main protagonist Yuuta. We have Yuuta who used to have chuunibyou and tries to be a normal guy at his school and fit in. We have Nibutani who is popular and one of the prettiest girls in class but also secretly used to have chuunibyou. We have Kumin who we don't know that much about other than she's really sweet and not judgemental and very very sleepy all of the time and is pretty much there for the convenience of some of the jokes. I think she's really cute but doesn't add much to the anime and could've been left out completely. I really wish the anime had either focused a little more on her so I'd be able to tell you more about her than just those really obvious traits even if they would've showed it in a subtle way or just left her out because it's a waste of screen time like this. Then have Dekomori who worships Rikka and is coo coo bananas and also has chuunibyou. They all join in a club. Then there's also Isshiki who's friends with Yuuta but never seems to be a real important character at one point even forgotten about by not only the viewers but also the main cast. He wants to be a cool guy but he fails by trying a little too hard and all in all he's not very memorable even though he does become a member of the club later on for a bit and has this ne heroic act where he shaves his head in order to save the others in class which was kind of dumb and I don't know why they added that part.
Usually Dekomori and Rikka mess around and make the delusions as real as possible, Kumin sleeps on the ground or wherever she can and Yuuta is the one keeping them all in line. Meantime Nibutani is worming and sliming her way in to getting her magic book back before anyone finds out she wrote it but gets found out soon anyways. Dekomori is the only one who doesn't believe she was the one who wrote it because she'd been admiring this person for so long. Thus Dekomori and Nibutani constantly get into fights from this point onward. And they get this running gag going. Which I think is also a nice touch. Even if you don't like the joke itself which most of the times isn't even funny just having something return again and again makes it feel like something familiar. It's like what they say about being lonely. Once you're so used to being lonely even when you do feel better you have a tendency to look up that loneliness in order to get back to a state you're familiar with because that has become something comfortable for you whether it feels good or not. And I feel like this also applies with bad jokes. When someone in your family always makes the same joke and you get tired of it at on point it just becomes a part of the family's image and when that person dies that'll be one of the stupid little things you'll miss about them. When you watch an anime with running gags that make you roll your eyes all the way back in your head and never even laugh about it and then you go back and watch the anime again after a year and you see the same jokes you get into it right away because that has become a weirdly cosy place all of a sudden. Maybe that's just me though. Or maybe that is one of the reason character tropes keep reappearing even when everyone has grown tired of it.
Nibutani and Yuuta are struggling to get out of that phase while Rikka and Dekomori are having the time of their life with their chuunibyou and Kumin is just asking them questions like why Nibutani and Yuuta are not just giving into it and having fun so again Kumin is just there for the convenience of asking the questions we want answers to. The thing is that we can relate to these characters. It's tough growing up and letting go of your fantasies and innocence. For some people it's harder than others and some people choose to always be true to themselves even if a little childish. All of these characters have different ways of coping with growing up or stubborn feelings for something that has happened to them. Yuuta and Rikka are developing their friendship into something more than just friendships as they make each other better people because Rikka is always anti-social and doesn't really know how to talk to people normally but Yuuta helps her overcome it by being somewhat harsh on her but talking to her in a way she understand by using his chuunibyou experiences. She makes him a better person to by having him be himself more. Even if he tries to be different or tries to grow up he should stay true to himself and Rikka kinda forcibly makes him do that. Nibutani's charactr could have been more fleshed out in my opinion as to why exactly she had chuunibyou and decided to give up on it after being as passionate about it as she was even writing a whole book about it. Dekomori's character could've been better if there was more depth to her than just her being obsessed with Rikka. Because apart from that we don't really know what she likes or what she was like before she had chuunibyou or even why she likes Rikka as much as she does. She's an enjoyable uplifting character but sometimes it feels a little artificial. So as far as characters go I'd say Isshiki and Kumin were not necessary and it's kind of aggravating to have them in there anyways and the other side characters could've maybe used more background but the main focus of the show, Rikka and Yuuta were done really well in my opinion.
Reasons.
Later in the anime we find out Rikka's reasons for acting the way she does. I'll be spoiling some of the show now so if you haven't seen the anime I highly recommend skipping to the "Art." section in this review. Bleep Bloop Blob. Oh you're still here? Rikka's father suddenly died two years ago and because it was so sudden for her she was never able to accept it. Ever since the beginning of the anime she kept talking about wanting to see the unseen horizon in her chuunibyou talk and we never really know what it means until we find out the whole reason she has chuunibyou in the first place. Unable to accept the fact that her father died she build up this imaginary world around her. She saw Yuuta doing his dark flame master impression on the day she lost her father and it inspired her to create her own delusional world. Being in her own world protects her from the reality that she's pretty much all alone except for her sister and her grandparents she never goes to see. Unable to cope with her feelings, the unseen horizon, to Rikka, is the place she thought to see her dad after he died. She said that she was one day watching the horizon and she was sure her dad was there beyond the horizon. Her sister wants what's best for Rikka and keeps trying to pull her into reality but it's just too hard. I think a scene that most beautifully displays Rikka's thinking is when she goes back to where her old house was and in her mind it is still there but her sister keeps talking her into reality and we can see the house slowly vanish from around her. As the house is slowly crumbling so are Rikka's delusions and it keeps getting harder not to face the truth.
Falling in love.
The way Rikka falls in love with Yuuta is really pure. She doesn't understand what exactly it is what she's feeling and it's overwhelming for her. It's hard for her to face these emotions and she shows that by literally running away from it in episode 9 making me ball my eyes out. She deals with it in her own childish ways not owning up to it even when Nibutani suggests she might have a crush on Yuuta. Nibutani then makes it her job to act like Rikka's wingman. Rikka's clumsy attempt to follow up on Nibutani's from shoujo manga extracted advice is very comedic to see and was in my opinion one of the funniest things in the show. Because we already got to see how clumsy Rikka is on a daily basis which caused for some laughs this was only to be expected but doesn't make it less entertaining. When Rikka faces the fact that she likes Yuuta she is determined to confess her feelings to him. Being a fairly shy person myself I can relate to the slow build up to the actual confession. It doesn't just come out like that. She goes places with him not really telling him what she has to say until they're outside and she doesn't have to look at his face while confessing to him. The satisfaction of seeing that scene it indescribable. When you're shy or have to say something that makes you very vulnerable it's so hard to put it into words but when you're able to do it it feels all the more satisfying you were able to. Giving you some sort of adrenaline. If you can connect to Rikka and you can place yourself in her shoes this scene is so much more than just pleasant to watch even if she hides behind her umbrella and behind her chuunibyou. Instead of declaring each other boyfriend and girlfriend they make a contract which basically means the same thing but it's their own special thing. In real life relationships are kind of like contracts as well. When you're with someone you have this unspoken contract consisting of deals you're okay with and what things you're not comfortable with. Like some people are comfortable with having their boyfriend or girlfriend spending a lot of time with friends of the opposite gender and other couples refrain from doing so because that doesn't make them happy as a couple. Every couple has their own reasons for feeling the way they do and if you can't understand and respect each others values and feelings there's not much of a relationship to speak of. I think chuunibyou does a great job at portraying the importance of understanding in a relationship and how much that adds to how well a relationship really works.
Normality.
Near the end of the anime Rikka gets confronted with her mother who she's been avoiding because she's still angry at her for not telling her that her dad was going to die. Rikka's sister asks Yuuta to make Rikka stop hiding behind her chuunibyou and running away from her issues. Yuuta then convinces Rikka to stop wearing her eyepatch and to just behave normally. It's hard to like this part because we get to see how sad it makes Rikka to refrain from behaving the way she wants to. It is important for her to face up to these feelings because if she doesn't she may never get rid of these feelings inside. She will never be able to see her father again and that is something she'll just have to deal with. This of course initially make Dekomori angry and then sad because now she's the only one left living in her fantasy world as if she is being left behind which is heartbreaking in itself. You don't want to be that person left behind and the one that takes the longest to grow up. It's okay to take your time to grow up but society makes you feel like you can't and when all your friends are moving on it hurts deeply to be the one unchanged. Rikka starts blossoming and becomes friends with other girls in class. Although it is a good thing she's trying to be more social in my opinion it happened a little too fast. I don't believe in change overnight for someone so socially awkward as Rikka. You can't just take off your eyepatch and BAM you're a social bee. If this would've taken a longer time to develop it would've been heart-warming but it missed the mark for me because it didn't feel real. The thing about Rikka's change that bothers me the most is that she's not allowing herself to like the things she's passionate about. She's trying to be more mature and fit in more to what other people see as normal but she's turning into a whole different person letting go of all that she holds dear and makes her unique. She's not just focusing on overcoming her knack to hide er feelings but she's getting rid of her personality as a whole. Yuuta loves Rikka and he thinks it's better for Rikka to face reality so she can overcome her traumas but even for him it's a little heartbreaking to see.
The End.
Rikka goes to her father's grave together with her mother coming to terms with the facts. I think this development was very important for her so she can finally move on. The problem is that she's moving there altogether so she's not only abandoned her true self but also all of her friends and Yuuta. Yuuta then takes his bike and decides to get Rikka back. I loved this scene because it reminds me of old movies where the guy always ends up making a big gesture towards the girl near the end. Kumin is waiting for him with a message telling him that Rikka had known Yuuta way before he knew her and had always thought of Yuuta and the chuunibyou as her savior. This gives their bond so much more meaning from her side and it explains why she was so fond of Yuuta from the beginning. It's refreshing because most of the times in anime we just get to see characters who like each other for nothing other than the convenience of it and the fact that people like to see romance rather than the characters actually having a reason for liking each other as much as they do having them grow towards each other naturally. Especially in harem anime this is a re accruing thing where girls falls in love with the mc for the sole reason that he is the mc. Sometimes even in ridiculous amounts like in to love ru where every girl who comes into contact with the main character falls for him like he had some sort of love potion. The ending scene is both visually as story-wise a beautiful and big ending.
Art.
Oh the beauty of this anime. The character designs and the animation is just superb as expected of kyoto animation. The character design is very smooth the blushing of their cheeks is blended out so nicely it doesn't look like something's just been splashed on and the rounding of the eyes and face makes the characters look so much sweeter and more innocent which fits this show so well. The colour pallet was also very beautiful and fitting so much it doesn't even stand out in any way. It's just pleasuring and relaxing for the eyes. Even if it didn't have a story at all and it was just this animation with some music slapped on I'd probably still be enjoying it. I particularly enjoyed seeing the bouncy hair going all over the place. It wasn't too overly done so it wouldn't be anywhere near realistic anymore but it wasn't stiff like the hair was glued together. It felt like if you were too close to the screen you might get slapped in your face with the hair. Tiny bit exaggerated but everything in this anime moves so realisticly well even though the characters designs don't look very realistic at all. I also like how a lot of times in the anime we see reflections of the faces whether it is in windows or tablespoons. I don't know if it has anything to do with their inner self not always being what's being reflected on the outside but if it isn't symbolic I still found this a very nice touch. Also I like drawing and even though I'm not very good at it I enjoy it quite a bit and there is always this one thing I can't ever seem to get right and those are the hands. In this anime there are so many scenes emphasizing on the hands and feet it's amazing to see. Once I started noticing it I was in awe every time I looked at it. And the fact they made them move so easily was simply brilliant. The chuunibyou battles are fun to watch because you both get to see what's really happening as well as what's happing in their heads. Seeing this contrast drags us more into the story and into the minds of the characters as well.
Cliches.
There's some obvious cliche's in this anime. I'll briefly mention a few because I do think it makes the show stand out a little less. You have the highschool where they form a club which is okay because it was fun to see this club and the activities I just wish they would've chosen another setting that was more refreshing because this just seems the easy way to go about it. There's also this milk joke I get really sick of seeing. And I know I said I like running gags but come on having a character dislike milk to get some moe moments out of it doesn't do anything for me anymore.
Conclusion.
I don't think Chuunibyou is mindless moe but I also don't think the story is overwhelmingly good. The development of Rikka and her character as a whole is in my opinion the best thing about this show and is really well done. I myself found this anime to be very appealing and liked it very much. But if nothing I said in this video made you slightly interested in the show I wouldn't recommend it from a perspective of how good the overall anime is counting every aspect of it.
