Truthfully, this Anime was a disaster. The art was done poorly. You can tell that characters and background are not matching in both color and style for so many cuts. Then there are cuts where background felt like it wasn't finished in time and had to throw something in to cover it up. Over all color tried to pain it in a pink like color of romance, but actually manage to make the whole contrast with what went on with the plot even harder to overlook. Not to mention the animation was jagged. I'm not saying I want it to be smooth like some great Anime out there, but come on! You have to be kidding with that kind of animation. Sometime the action when so fast, sometime it went to slow. Cuts with repeating actions didn't quite match with sound effect either. Then, I don't know if it's just my internet, but there are even times when the audio actually cracked or jump up compared to the animation it was supposed to be with. And, best thing saved for the last, voice acting was so bad I can say with confidence that I can do a better job than what the original voice acting staff did.
Yet, somehow, the bad acting and by that, I mean, monotonous voicing actually fits with what type the characters are, surprisingly. One is a shitty coward archetype of a normal Otaku, one is the kind of can-not-say-no bullied kid, one is I'm-so-pretty-everyone-can-only-see my-look-and-talk-about-it lonely girl. These 3 were monotonous for the most part. But what amazing is, they are supposed to be monotonous like that. Given their background as revealed in this Anime, they really should be monotonous. The 2 Otaku with being bullied by classmate, and I'm just saying, this is pretty clear since they are archetype of what went on with Otaku in Japan. The girl is told to have gone out with so many people that I bet she would be so tired of it. They are right to be monotonous. It's surprising to me what should feel like a disaster of production miss actually turned out to be just fine with how the setting for characters are "supposed" to be to fit their own archetypes.
Yes, as I said, the characters are pretty much all but archetypes. From protagonist, heroine, protagonist best friend, romance adviser, pitiful rival, good-girl-yet-had-to-be-dumped third wheel, even mob characters are at most, archetypes of people in society. Having so many characters coming from some mold thrown into one series, it's no wonder to see that story line was at best mediocre. Shut in (by that I mean no more normal-human interaction) gets in trouble to meet a pretty girl and romance happen even if the guy was against it at first. And it was so fast for development to go from "no way" to "yeah way" in almost no time, like, 1 episode. After that, what went on was all misunderstanding except for, well, the third wheel characters. But heck, if you have experience with shoujo manga or anime, you'll see they are but old tropes and cliches. To be honest, it was painful to get through all 12 episodes.
Indeed it was painful. But not only because of low production value or cliched plot line. But because I actually feel for well, most characters. I mean I have been most of them. Exactly because they are archetypes that they are relatable. I can see how the 2 Otaku are afraid of their desires for a romantic relationships. I can see how the heroine started to take interest in that good for nothing protagonist and how all other characters play their roles. Even if I say all of that up there about production value, I actually enjoyed it. I enjoyed how the characters felt so real, to a level of it being hilariously true that it's hurt.
Summing it up:
Art: 3.
Poorly done and barely pass.
Sound: 3.
Bad, but somehow fits where it need to. However, it doesn't change the fact it was bad.
Even the opening and ending songs were hard to listen to.
Character: 4.
Decent;y done archetypes. But actually relatable.
Story: 5.
Cliched. But because it's cliched, it can not go down any further.
Enjoyment: 10.
It's out of my own experience that I'm giving this disaster a 10 on enjoyment. So I don't think this is going to be of help.
Overall: 7.
Not something I would recommend to people, but if you find it and has been in this culture long enough while having almost the same problems, I bet you would want to watch it to see how the characters reach their happy ending, even if you can see they are going to from the very beginning.
