(The review has a tl;dr section as well.)
Once in a while you come across an anime which actually has a nice premise: a boy called Masamune seeking revenge against his former childhood friend Aki Adagaki. So far so good. Then you take a careful look at the genres shown on the MAL page - harem, comedy, romance and school - the absolute worst combination of genres, which usually indicate a mediocre story. Thus the first doubts appear. In the first minutes you are presented a “narcissistic” personality of the MC and think that he could be interesting despite of expecting a generic harem protagonist. Unfortunately, when his mother and Aki appeared for the first time, the death flag for this anime was set and the potential was wasted.
I will try to hold back cursing words and talk about the characters first. As I have already said, up to 2 minutes it actually looked decent with the promising trait. But then the clichés started to be used left and right. First his mother, who looks like a kid, not even able to give birth him and his sister with her physique , is used to draw out laughter with the viewer, which it doesn't. Because of the poor timing and bad execution of the joke, she is reduced to a generic one-dimensional character and has no further use in the story later on. Great!!!
Besides having a sister, who isn't explored and stays an irrelevant character as well, he meets his fated arch enemy (or not), Aki, when he transfers into the new school. We are shown his pretty delicate past with her and why he “hates” her as well. Thus he swears to retaliate by doing the same. But as it couldn't be made even more predictable, the writer decides to throw in the tsundere archetype besides making her a gluttony just to have a moe trait as well, in order to distract from the bigger problems, her personality. It's not enough to make her a tsundere, but an asshole as well (the way she rejects people). And the other students in the school become even more interested in her because of that. It makes no sense, especially because you would have at least a balance of haters and followers, if not only having haters. Just to make her a “greater existence” and live in her nice fantasy bubble even more. I'll come back to her later. Great!!!
Then the next girl, Tae Futaba, who just pops out of nowhere and confesses to him, is another character who makes an appearance for a short time and just serves the purpose of showing, how “popular” Masamune is. Why or how did she fall in love with him? No idea, it just happened. She has a severe case of “falling in love with transfer students” syndrome, which can be found in multiple run-of-the-mill harem stories. Masamune, “determined” to have revenge, rejects her and then she follows him for the whole anime while staying in the background. So what is the point of her character? Probably just to establish a harem and pander to viewers who like girls like her. Great!!
But fear not, for there is a guy, yes, you read correctly, a guy, in this show. How could he possibly fit in? There is only one correct answer, as the trap archetype. He receives no development or exploration whatsoever either because his main objective is to pander to fujoshis and he has no deeper reason to be there. You can blank him out and move on, but he actually appears a few times, so you still remember that there was someone like him in the show. If you were to recall one of his traits (not only superficial ones), congratulations, you seem to have more information than me about him, because he is only presented as a bland character in the series. If you want his name, look it up, I've forgotten it. Great!!
Just when you think it can't become any worse, a “ninja”, Yoshino Koiwai, joins the scene. While serving as fanservice in the first two episodes, she becomes the supporting pillar for Masamune's revenge because he can't manage it on his own. Unfortunately, the motive for her support is insufficient and doesn't dive any deeper like for the other characters. So she ends up resembling the “kuudere” archetype and who would've guessed, she receives no further development of her motivations either. She is just there like the trap, and while she has a few good moment (her schemes), in the end she is another shallow character. No point in introducing her as a character either other than showing another “cute” girl. Great!
Furthermore, the author expands the harem even more by introducing another childhood friend, Neko Fujinomiya. Her convenient introduction looks more of a plot convenience rather than a natural one though. Of course she has to “love” him from the beginning of her introduction. Even she is used to pander again as she is commonly referred to as the “panty-less girl”. Problematic are Masamune's interactions with her. He is distracted by her to the point that he thought about stopping his initial plan against Aki even though this event apparently deeply “scarred” him. Furthermore, he's so dense to the point that he doesn't even notice Neko's issues or her intentions. I'll elaborate later why that is a problem. While her past and issues are a bit explored, they're swept under the rug and forgotten again. In the end she doesn't play a bigger role than just serving as a side lover. Compared to the other characters, she actually seems to be quite decent in terms of writing, although overall (compared to other stories), it's still mediocre. Great.
If you thought that they reached the tip of the iceberg, you're wrong though. By a very convenient chance, another boy, Kanetsugu Gasou, with a same build as Masamune in the past appears and attempts to steal Aki. What a way to accelerate the relationship between them. Besides dragging the story out even more and annoying the hell out of the viewer by including more tropes, he has just as generic motivations to act like he does. The studio/writer probably assumed that it would be enough to just show a short flashback, but that makes it come off as weak motivation and feels like an unnatural twist again. Not to mention Aki's affection to him, being deceived so easily. It starts off a series of events which are rather cliché and ends up conveniently advancing the relationship with Masamune with the play and the kiss at the end. After that he seems to become unimportant again. With his introduction also followed a few annoying girls who messed with Masamune (borderline kidnapping) and got out of the whole mess without even a scolding, pointless characters again for the sake of advancing the plot and creating drama without actual essence. Great...
After talking shortly about the characters, I want to further elaborate on Aki and Masamune and their relationship, as they are making up the main cast of the anime and represent the biggest weakness of the anime. As the story progresses, Masamune seems to lose sight of his initial target to crush Aki's heart as well. That is especially bad because 1. it's the premise that Masamune is out for revenge and 2. he was so much scarred by it that he changed his complete appearance and behavior. That isn't just simple resentment, it's way more realistic that he'd hate her to the point, where they can't go back. And yet, he almost falls in love with her. Another example of the convenient way how the story works. The motivations tend to be weak and they change from one scene to another. Not to forget how dumb he behaves at times even though he is the best student in the grade. Although grades aren't everything, they're a general indicator how smart and diligent someone is and when you see scenes where he acts like he can't even calculate with basic operators, I feel slightly hoaxed by the writer. The same applies for Aki at times. Not great.
As for the story itself, it's very bad because neither does it have a general direction, proven by the amount of generic events (beach scene etc.) and other ones to draw out the plot, nor is it original because of the amount of clichés thrown into the plot. The series doesn't even flesh them out so that the viewer wouldn't mind the initial use of clichés. Thus the story doesn't really feel like it has any worth or wants to leave a lasting impression. Definitely not great.
Another aspect hindering the series is the comedy because it feels out of place. When the anime is actually featuring a serious development, they drop a weak joke (generic joke like it's taken from another anime) and completely destroy the atmosphere. So did it actually make me laugh even once? Maybe once or twice in the whole series, but not more because the transitions were weak and the gestures weren't supporting the joke. Generic empty eyes don't make it funny, if that's what I want, I could watch any other run-of-the-mill comedy. The effort put into the comedy is so low, that it drags the drama and series down. What's left of the drama is, just like I described in the previous paragraphs, pretty bad as well and leaves the anime with a weak balance of drama/comedy. If the series attempted to be more serious about the whole revenge theme, it could have actually been pretty decent. Or if they made fun of the whole revenge affair. But working with the middle ground damaged the quality a lot especially because of its poor execution. Bad.
The other genres (harem, romance, school) are dragging its quality down as well. On one hand, the harem is poorly executed because the girls keep popping up left and right just to disappear completely from the plot or losing all relevance as well. It's unoriginal and generic and doesn't contribute at all to the series. Even if it's meant for pandering, the characters feel so lifeless and unappealing that the pandering itself is actually poor as well. On the other hand, the school genre is just there to make it relatable for students, but even the school aspect is poorly executed, evidenced by Aki's standing (acting like a scumbag → being treated like a goddess) and the lack of real life school themes. Very bad.
The only aspect I want to talk about before coming to my conclusion is the final episode. With the final episode always comes the responsibility of a series to either make a satisfying conclusion in the best case or leave it off at a cliffhanger at an ideal moment. Unfortunately, the final episode provides neither. After the kiss in the play, they only go to the karaoke (yes, another typical cliché) and draws out the conclusion even more. By the time you've finally survived the pointless subplot, it ends without answering important questions and using a pretty bad cliffhanger, not hyping up the viewer for more. As a final episode, that's unforgivable. Furthermore, it also looks like Masamune is even torn between revenge and real love. So what was the point of making his past like that? Not to mention that his thoughts are still way too pure. The ending was basically a slap into the face. Atrocious.
Overall Masamune-kun no Revenge tries to aim for a pretty interesting idea, just to fall down from a cliff with its execution. Its countless clichés and plot conveniences feel out of place and make the story very unnatural, especially the school setting and Aki's behavior. The characters themselves are also consisting more of stereotypes than being fleshed out during the episodes. Even the main characters flip from one moment to another and stay bland until the very end. Thus most characters feel like they were copy-pasted into the anime and just there because of either pandering or because the writer had no idea how to write characters. Either way, the story and characters have a bad synergy and drag down each other. Even the comedy was, just like I mentioned, more of a hindrance than increasing my enjoyment. It didn't succeed with anything in any of the categories and will stay in my memory as a bad anime, which I couldn't even laugh at. If the writer perhaps excluded the harem, put more emphasis on the school setting and using it to his advantage for a battle between Aki and Masamune or just using better comedy or relying solely on drama, I could have enjoyed the series at least a bit. Neither did the art or animation change my thoughts significantly because neither is the art pretty original, nor was the music memorable or improving the atmosphere. Especially the OP and ED were very average.
The final words from each paragraph of this review have more development than the whole cast of the series.
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tl;dr:
- very cliché and bland characters with next to no character development
- main characters flip personalities and their motivations are forgotten at times
- out of place comedy and unfunny jokes + weak transitions with drama
- plot conveniences at times just to advance their relationship (especially into the direction of Masamune actually loving Aki and not into the direction of revenge)
- harem and romance contribute nothing to the story
- weird school with a mentality to worship Aki
- drawn out plot
- no general direction
- weak final episode (especially with the karaoke scenes)
- average to mediocre art
- not memorable soundtrack and weak OP + ED
scores:
story: 1/10
characters: 1/10
setting: 2.5/10
art/animation: 4/10
music: 4/10
overall: 2/10
