"Let me give you a common scenario: You have a woman crazed with jealousy. She corners the protagonist and forces him to sexually assault her. Doesn't that say that you...that women love r**e? Conversely, the genre women hate the most is the harem love-comedy style (that's) filled with women fawning over the protagonist and softcore fanservice. According to my research, thes shows appeal to very few women. When heroines fawn over the protagonist, I have a feeling that's a deal breaker for most female viewers. But I only realized this after the fact." This self-research really shows that only males will like this show, and a few females who are OK with the harem rom-com style.
This excerpt however, hits home to why this show sucks BALLS (Rui Tsukiyo was mentioning how he got motivated to write Redo of Healer):
"I deliberately wrote something that I thought would sell well. There is a site called Syosetu where users can upload their writing, and many of the top-ranking submissions of the site were revenge stories. Since they were popular and I like them, I thought I'd write my own. But those stories are very weak, they kept talking about revenge...but after like 2 or 3 chapters, the revenge part is over. And then it just turns into the story of an OP protag with a harem." AND GUESS WHAT, Rui Tsukiyo IS DAMN SPOT ON, as such we're seeing with OsaMake, the scapegoat to a common trend.
And folks, even if you like or dislike Rui Tsukiyo for writing the controversial Redo of Healer, you can't deny that he is a very calculative guy who knows how to buck the trend in a wise manner. And his pointers are especially damning to this seemingly "newbie" author that is Shuichi Nimaru, who did 2 short LNs between 2011 and 2014 before assuming a "long hiatus" before creating OsaMake in 2019, and popular it did get in Japan, scoring 5th in Takarajimasha's Kono Light Novel ga Sugoi! (This Light Novel Is Amazing!) list in 2020, and sales of the LN are still soaring in the Top 10 as of the time of this review. Honestly though, this is a surprise given that Japan is lukewarm to the harem rom-com genre's successions of staleness, to which Western anime fans like us have long been complaining that this kind of genre has seen a lot of derivatives and deviations to the point of endless mediocrity. OsaMake though, drives just one point of just bearing the absolute r**e-fest of a cringe show that can be summed up in one word: PATHETIC.
We've been through a hell lot of rom-com stories like these in recent years, heck I'd say that for every legit decent-to-good rom-com show like OreSuki, BokuBen, 5-toubun no Hanayome a.k.a. Quintessential Quintuplets, or even reverse-harem ones like Hamefura a.k.a Otome Game, there are at least a few bad iterations like it, both in anime and source material form. OsaMake truly stands on the opposite spectrum as one of the modern popular works with a shit-load kind of plot that only serves to degrade its overarching story by cramping in as much of the features that even hardcore harem rom-com fans like us DO NOT WANT to see, but yet it did in its shameless subservient form. If this is the standard going forward for new manga or LN harem rom-com series, I'm sorry to say that "new" authors like Shuichi Nimaru have only found a formula to earn them food on their table for a living, while bringing absolutely nothing new nor groundbreaking in the stymied genre that once you saw one, you've seen one many times over.
Prodgies, and very specifcally, revenge. We've seen this kind of plot play so many times over, it doesn't feel like I'm being that type of weeb who likes OP characters, especially "child prodgies" that earn a cult reputation and being chased after fans, only except that in OsaMake's case, they live next to you as a childhood friend! And guess what? As if the lovey-dovey sense of the childhood friend isn't enough, the MC's line of work has also earned him the attention of the girls whom have worked with him since young, that are now trying to take a piece of this weak-ass MC's "virginity". Guys, this male MC called Sueharu Maru, is nothing more than your average generic guy who only has enough "drama" in his life just to be "intertwined in the red thread of fate" of girls that are same age or even younger, to have an admiration for him. To be rejected in love by one of his past female "friends", that is now a prominent figure in the industry, this girl who goes by the name of Shirokusa Kachi, with her lush demeanor and bright presence, she is a "force" to be reckoned with. OK, so what's the solution? Bring in your good ol' childhood frend: Kuroha Shida, to help you out with your so-called revenge, while she still harbours romantic feelings for you since young! Yes, that's right, now you see why this is the rom-com that the childhood friend will not lose! This supposedly love "triangle" (which constantly evolved as the female count goes higher) is in all: one painful experience to watch, let alone experience.
If I have to match the character cast that's similar to a movie, it'd be Snow White and the 7 Dwarves, or in the case of OsaMake: Dumb Black and the 7 Thirsty Sisters. Sueharu's VA Yoshitsugu Matsuoka is a staple in rom-coms, as is Kuroha's VA Inori Minase and Shirokusa's VA Ayane Sakura. With the inclusion of yet another girl in the love "rectangle" mix: VA Saori Oonishi (SaeKano's Eriri Sawamura) voicing Maria Momosaka, no doubt in my mind that the VAs are definitely the best part about this show, and just like every harem rom-com, I can tell that the VAs are definitely having fun while recording their lines for this show. Unsurprisingly, this is about as far as my praise would get, because everything else is tacked-on appalling, and don't even think about trying to defend this dense-less density of a show that's weaker than cooking oil to burn the flames even greater than imagined. I'll admit that if there is one thing that Shuichi Nimaru can get it right, is naming his characters, which are references to characters in Fire Emblem: Sueharu (Marth), Kuroha (Sheeda), Shirokusa (Catria), Tetsuhiko (Cain) and Maria (obviously Maria) respectively. Even Kuroha (black wing), Shirokusa (white dress) and (Maria) Momosaka (pink hill)'s names include colors.
Ready to see who I'll label everyone as such? Here goes:
- Sueharu Maru is the abridged Snow White's Dumb-and-Dumber Black
- Tetsuhiko Kai is the Prince (just because I hate all girls who tries to win Sueharu's heart)
- Kuroha Shida is Grumpy
- Shirokusa Kachi is Bashful
- Maria Momosaka is Happy
- Rena Asagi is Dopey
- Midori Shida is Sneezy
- Aoi Shida is Sleepy
- (Last but not least) Akane Shida is Doc
Maru Sueharu is very apt as I call him Dumb Black because he doesn't know how to read his situations nor give solutions to circumstances. Instead, everything is hell-bent reliant on the best friend chad that is Tetsuhiko Kai, who does the in-between jobs for him like how a personal manager would be accounting to a former child star. It always makes me wonder who's playing the actual MC role here, and at more times than not, Tetsuhiko is like playing the "Prince Charming" or the dwarves' "Doc" role here to literally kiss the MC's butt and suck up to his shortcomings. For the girls, honest-to-God I've tried to have a better comparison for the background girls (especially Kuroha's 4 sisters), but for the 3 central girls Kuroha, Shirokusa and Maria, there's no mistaking their roles for how much screentime they got to eschew the living hell out of this child prodigy that's all talk but no action. This type of harem exists everywhere, but the execution here sucks my balls dry, not hard. One thing's for sure, this is not a Snow White kind of story that is a modernized classic fairy tale in the imitation space.
Doga Kobo's production animation...sure seems wonky for a harem rom-com type of show. It seems to me as if there's a disconnect between the character designs and the visuals, which often come to me as 2 different byproducts that don't seem to mesh well together. Granted, slice-of-life shows is the studio's consistent bread-and-butter (and you can definitely feel a Doga Kobo show that way), but in recent times, going experimental with difference of styles from the magic fantasy that is Maoujou de Oyasumi, to the dark and depressing mystery drama that is Ikebukuro West Gate Park, it seems as though like it's etching its thematics like another studio (Ajia-Do). I'm not saying it's wrong to try out of the comfort zone, but you can definitely feel the difference in production (that's not necessarily a departure).
Even the OST here really is so-so levels of decent. I really admire Riko Azuna's charmly voices when her songs are chosen for either OP or ED, but while OsaMake definitely feels like her normal rhetorical self, I've gotta admit that the peppy OP is kinda boring. Compare that to Spider Isekai and Yagate Kimi ni Naru a.k.a Bloom Into You's OP (which the latter is still by far the best beautiful song she's ever written), and it feels like a step down in quality. Overtime as time passes, character-centric EDs are sounding more mediocre, as much as I can give a thumbs up to the VAs who collaborate together for A+ effort, I can't say as much that it really does get old rather fast and for good reason.
Should I say that I feel disappointed by what OsaMake tries to "be something different"? Apparently not, just find any word that rhymes with the prescriptive words of "bad","cliché", or even "cringe" as hell, and associate it with this bastardized harem rom-com of a show. Mark my words that this excruciating experience of a sleazy showing is absolutely not worth your time, and don't even think of starting this one.
