Araburu Kisetsu no Otomo-dono yo is a show about teenagers and their budding sex lives, so, on a conceptual level, literally my new favorites anime of all time. Anime is criminally averse to sex, and while much of the community may not fully appreciate this reality given the illusion that is fan service in cooperation with the fact they’re not the type to go outside and live normie lives rife with casual sex, any among the rare breed of anime watchers who has made the journey into the real world will’ve surely already noticed just how glaring a void this aversion is in almost all anime made. Granted, most shows are made for teenagers and young adults, which is fine, but while young people may not need a sexual side to their media, there is still a sexual side to their lives whether they’re a bystander or not. My point is, the lack of sex drive within most anime characters is and should be an immersion breaker for any viewer who has even the thinnest shred of maturity or worldliness. And if you’re an older viewer like me? Well, shit, you’re totally out of luck, because it makes ninety nine point nine percent of highschool anime totally unwatchable, seeing as you are well aware of just how maddened people that age are by the idea of sex, especially if they’re not a normie whose having it all the time. This is where this show swoops in like an absolute hero, and just as that one forum poster had posited, Okada’s melodrama fit their puberty riddled angst like a glove, and it would’ve made this show a crowing jewel of the genre if not for the characteristically awkward execution which diluted and undermined the refreshingly hilarious concept and daringly realistic worldview.
But to get the easiest critique out of the way first, this show is not the most well-produced thing in the world. The animation is lacking at best and clunky at worst, and some of the ugliest episodes were littered with off-model artwork—even in the foreground and on principle characters. The voice performances were a mixed bag, and as you’ve probably come to expect, Okada’s autistic scripting made their dialogue sound even more ham-fisted than it already would’ve, and while the golden apples in that mixed bag aren’t spoiled by the rotten ones, they’re spoiled anyway by the utter lack of fluid animation. Mouths will stay open for more frames than necessary, lip syncing is virtually nonexistent, and really any standard issue with anime produced by lower tier studios are present and pressing as expected. However, this isn’t all to say the production wasn’t cared for, and in fact, I’d say it may’ve actually been a little too cared for. The animation staff behind this show clearly had a lot they wanted to do with the visuals which was simply far too ambitious given the clear lack of time, money, and manpower they had on hand. Gradient coloration on a frame-by-frame basis was impossible, so they settled for a horrifically ugly white filter which they laid over the ENTIRE show. A cut of perspective animation from a character running down the densely packed city streets was impossible, so they settled for the camera shaking back and forth across still images of the street as if the character was whipping their sight side to side exclusively. I could go on but you get the picture. Even if the show’s small, inexperienced staff was truly, wholehearted giving it their all, their all was just not enough to deliver a good looking final product.
But I could complain about bad productions all day. What really ended up turning me off to this show was what should’ve made me love it: the character writing. We discussed characters having sex drive. Great, love it, but while realistic on paper, the way the cast is characterized is—like all Okada shows are—so incredibly non-relatable and stunted. Our main character Kazusa is basically the “childhood friend” from any other generic dating sim anime if not for her sex drive, and since her character is mostly handled per that trope, she’s just a reminder why those girls never win, and when Okada actually tries to capitalize on her sex drive to make her at all interesting, her autism gets downright diagnosable—and to no real effect. The object of her affections is her childhood friend Izumi, with whom she shares a completely platonic relationship with, seeing as they’re both as pure as the Holy Virgin, and the inciting incident of the show is her juvenile image of him getting shattered when she walks in on him masturbating…which is awesome, but then she autistically scrambles away like Generic Male MC walking in on his waifu changing and spends half the show avoiding the subject through a series of retarded misunderstandings, so you’re just left wondering what the hell happened to the supposed realism. Izumi himself is even less believable, since the alleged reason for him and Kazusa drifting apart isn’t their budding sexualities and the insecurities associated, but instead the simple fact Izumi became popular whilst she remained a bibliophilic nerd. Now, if Izumi was a normie, you’d think he would’ve already gotten laid, but he hasn’t because he’s actually a closet train otaku, BUT IF HE WAS A TRAIN OTAKU, HE NEVER WOULD’VE BECOME A NORMIE, because no one would’ve EVER accepted him, especially in Japanese schools internationally notorious for their rampant bullying.
And the realism didn't escape to the side characters. I earlier compared Kazusa and Izumi to the Holy Virgin as a joke. Well, Kazusa’s best friend, Sonezaki, takes the comparison to a whole new level. Her skirt goes down to her shins, her glasses are bifocals, her hair is pinned strictly aside her forehead, and her only dialogue amongst classmates outside her bubble is pretentiously delegitimizing them as hedonistic beasts. This was a striking character introduction I loved. However, she’s the first one of the girls to give in, and the guy she gets together with is someone whose only reason to be attracted to her is the fact she gave herself a makeover. This is almost acceptable, because this is a girl who’s been bullied for being ugly for as long as she can remember, so when she changes things up a bit and finally gets a guy’s attention it’s reasonable to assume she simply couldn’t help herself, but while that’s personally the most (and only) relatable character piece in the show, I can say for certain—because it’s so relatable—such a turnaround would just come across as disingenuous and turn me off to whoever’s attention I caught. Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Of course she reacted differently than you would. You’re a bitch, and she’s not, so of course you would take cynically what she took graciously.” But I remind you, this girl’s entire character was just built around her pessimism and judgmental disposition, SO WHAT HAPPENED? The irony of this inconsistent character writing is magnified to an immeasurable degree when it develops parallel to another side character, Momoko, literally having her lesbian awakening because she’s disgusted by the fact guys their age are only after women’s bodies and looks. Then there’s Hongō and Sugawara, but they’re fine. I mean, Hongō goes from a closet fetishist to a public exhibitionist in a matter of episodes and Sugawara explicitly, and in no uncertain terms, endorses the character of a pedophile who expressed sexual interest in her as a grade schooler, but their character writing is never inconsistent or broken, just…yeah.
Where the show finally came through for me, as most Okada shows do, is as a truly fantastic comedy. Okada’s so-called comedy has always been a matter of perspective. Anohana was a schmaltz tearjerker which was so over-the-top with its melodrama as to be hysterical; Red Garden was an inspired take on an anime musical which took its thespian aesthetics so far as to be farcical; Mayoiga was an ambitiously intricate whodunit murder mystery which overcomplicated itself and its bloated cast to the point of being a nonsensical horror-comedy. All Okada’s works are like this in that they take themselves completely seriously, but being so obtuse, no one can relate to them and therefore can’t take them as seriously as she does. This show is the first occasion on which the comedy was not only funny, but funny on purpose, not just us laughing at her toneless writing. The countless visual innuendoes were kind of the funniest thing on the planet, even though they’re not really what the show is about. From Izumi making Kazusa blush by putting his fingers in a bowling ball—one in the bottom hole and two in the top—causing her to stand up with her hands covering her crotch and scurrying away all flustered to Hongō uncontrollably shoving her teacher to the ground and straddling him only to realized what she’d done compulsively and run away embarrassed, only for the scene to close with a shot of the school’s water fountain dripping, every little one of these gems was a comedic treat. Granted, these jokes are ruined just as often when Okada decides to unsubtly spell them out for anyone oblivious and innocent enough not to recognize them, like the time Kazusa is terrified by a train approaching a tunnel, exclaiming how it couldn’t possibly fit inside, only for it to go right in much to her discomfort, but most of the time it’s a joke between you and the director, and it’s usually good for a laugh or two.
At the end of the day, though, I feel compelled to remind you, despite sticking a positive turn on the end of this review, I can only really describe Araburu Kisetsu no Otomo-dono yo as a disappointment seeing as it failed to capitalize on the potentially hyper-realistic characterization which I wanted it to find success with. If there’s one group of people on this planet who need to have the realities of sex shoved in their faces until they accept and embrace them, it's the otaku whom this anime seeks as an audience, but the fact the characters therein are bizarre weirdos at best and backwardly written at worst makes it so the important message these incels desperately need to receive—if there ever was one—ends up totally flaccid and hard to entertain critically at all. Even if they nailed the worldview and attitude, failing to apply it to the characters in a believable or empathetic manner leaves most of the show’s efforts being all for naught, and the fact it had to constantly poke fun at itself in order to illicit any positive response from me at all really speaks volumes about how well it managed itself on really any level. I can’t recommend this show to kids because it would just confuse them or give them very bad ideas; I suppose I can recommend this show to adults who are like me and just dying to see ideas this risqué portrayed in a highschool anime whether it’s done poorly or not; I can’t recommend this show to teenage girls, because they couldn’t relate to it at all unless they are literally Mari Okada and probably shouldn’t be encouraged in their apparent perversions even if they are somehow able to see themselves in the characters; but I can most certainly recommend this show to teenage boys, the majority of the otaku audience, just so they can take notes on everything Okada’s woke author-insert, Sugawara, says.
Have sex, and thank you for reading.
