But Horimiya appeared to be very weak...
Minuses:
- Very predictable and boring (this is the main minus)
- Forced, "artificially upscaled" dramas
- Almost zero actually big, actually serious dramas
- Forced humor
- Weak, similar-acting characters. No extraordinary characters at all
- Feels artificial, programmed in general. It's like creators tried to create emotional show using cold logic only. Characters do what they must in order to progress the plot in current dramas (in a direct predictable manner) and nothing ever happens in the background
- Probably, has the worst ending I have seen
Pluses:
...i really struggle to note anything here. Probably, the only plus in this case is that it really could be worse.
_In terms of art: it's base is nice, can't say I am very amazed by it, but really it was nice. HOWEVER joke pattern, which distorted character's faces (cames from Shoujo genre, if I'm not mistaken), almost always felt out of order there. It was so organic in "Lovely complex", but in "Horimiya" - it served like a blunt indicator "you should laugh here". Seriously, felt really cringe most of the time.
Similar could be said about situations, in which background became white and slowly moving colourful shade appeared around the character. Those were blunt drama indicators "you should cry here". I hate blunt indicators...
CHARACTERS
I will immediately point: i disliked how most of the characters had extremely similar traits for biggest part of the time:
polite, supporting, nice, friendly, oblivious, cheerful - those are the qualities that fit probably EVERY character of this show.
Hori (the main girl) - she felt like embodiment of the main author of the show. Smart (in terms of grades), practical girl, who has weird fetishes. She receives a perfect boyfriend who somehow tolerates her every whim (that's while her whims weren't really pleasant for him). It's ironic, that she probably was one of the most interesting characters of the show, because she ACTUALLY had flaws (but never worked towards overcoming any of them...)
Miya (the main boy) - "perfect boy", to the point that he just feels bland. Handsome in both "otaku" and especially "cool guy" form. He is always polite and almost always calm (he was angry few times in a show, unjustifiably in both). He has "tragic past", a lot of flashbacks describe it, yet I never understood why he was actually hated. Seems more like he did everything in order to be hated and deserved it, really. He also can fight pretty effectively and agressively (who knows why). All in all: Jack-of-all trades handsome, yet very boring guy
Yoshikawa (yellow-haired girl) - probably the nicest girl in the show. She is constantly afraid of harming others (I can understand her quite well...). Again, same problem: she never really develops, and all drama happening near her was abrupt or simply felt unfinished. I don't remember that she actually did anything in order to receive what she wanted - she just got lucky
Ishikawa (purple-haired boy) - a nice guy, felt definitely better than Miyamura. It was harder to predict things happening around him, but not because he was such an "unpredictable guy" - he was simply inconsistant in his decisions, in first half especially. He also was the quintessence of "general qualities" in this show (polite, supporting, cheerful, oblivious...)
Yanagi (president) - another polite boring guy. He made idiotic accusement somewhere at the beginning of the show, felt almost as the bad guy at that point, but no. Polite boring cheerful guy and i don't know what else to say.
Ayasaki (red haired girl) - similarly to the president, she felt as a "bad guy" at the start, because of her ignorance and somewhat selfish attitude. She quickly transformed into nice friendly supporting girl a bit later.
...other characters have pretty much same flaws.
They are not distinguished, they aren't really explored, they don't overcome any of their weaknesses (green-haired girl may be a little exception, she moved on after a failure).
Hori's dad may be the proud example of weird character: he has potentially interesting traits, which never get explored. He randomly appears after another episode and than just stays at Hori's home, serves like another friendly decoration and moves outside only to buy something at shop. Why, why is he like that, why he always sits at home, why wasn't he at home in the beginning? Either i missed something, either it really was just ignored.
_And some words about dramas. Creators constantly made mountains out of molehills: something that wasn't worth time was crafted into drama, which could than become quite big. Such artificial dramas weren't exciting to watch at often put me into confusion.
Example may be a situation, where Hori received information that Miya walked with another girl, while holding her hand. Miya explained everything to her properly YET she was angry and in despair for quite a big chunk of time (and that is when they still weren't actually a couple)
Another problem is that there was usually a bunch of dramas in one episode. That sometimes lead to a situation where even if a drama could have been nice - it just hadn't received enough time to end up being actually developed.
I paused this show a lot in order to digest\endure what was happening on screen. Later on i simply started to skip time instead (accurately)
SO, Horimiya is a boring, artificial show that was neither dramatic, neither funny. It has 13 episodes, which isn't actually a big number, but it felt really long anyway. I don't suggest watching this, especially if you are a person who likes to think a lot
