Your mileage may vary, but I'll just try to stay away from subjective moral values as an assessment tool for this review, as I have a fairly neutral opinion on the moral context in which this takes place admittedly, do note that it is indeed controversial.
So this work apparently starts as a LN, making this anime an adaptation, a 1-cour adaptation, this already spells trouble, add the genre being slice of life, with the possibility of devolving into harem, and to top it off, a potential romance tag for a relationship with a considerable age gap, this was obviously going straight to hell from the get-go and I'm assuming the author was fully aware of this fact and the dark territory he was treading into, so this series of unfortunate events are probably intended, this being done in hopes of achieving some ephemeral recognition, if only because of how much controversy it would stir in the media.
Controversy ensues. [REDACTED]
We also need to consider that this work in particular, even as a work of fiction has decided to include sources of moral conflict which derive from real life circumstances and as such, it establishes a frame in which the viewer will need to look at the plot from a realistic perspective, using their own personal values and moral conscience in order to understand what is going on, there's no other way around it, this is not a world with magical demi-human beings, this story takes place in our world, and the only way to understand the motives and resulting actions of the characters therein is to employ value judgements which are determined on the basis of what we believe is right or wrong.
Bias ensues. [REDACTED]
Another very important point regarding the story and setting in HigeHiro is that it will be endowed with a fairly large psycho-social subtext, Japanese society and its specific roles as determined by the individual will be a most relevant item in the introspective analysis of the characters, once again, there is absolutely no way to rationalize actions without at least a vague understanding on the perceived roles of Japanese family prototypes, you will be looking at each character and they will need to be passed through this filter, in which a role has to be assigned to them, family being the core concept and also crucial to understand specific character development, and besides that of course, you also have the definition of a girlfriend, significant other, life partner, concubine, you name it.
All that is also needed in order to understand the different iterations of characters and their instances for specific interactions.
This will make people misjudge characters as well as the author's intent as this is already going too far into the uncharted territory that is individual mindset on familial roles and family dynamics, as well as ethics, personal philosophy of life, since there are no predefined rules with regards to that, and cultural idiosyncratic factors that may pose a bias may also play a huge role in here.
Inter-observer variance ensues. [REDACTED]
Not to say, that things are impossible to look in a way that is not subjective, because in this work, each character exhibits at least some behavioural pattern that correlates with universal perceived social constructs which do not have an open interpretation, moreover, a lot of them are common patterns found in different personalities that have a very straightforward and typical presentation, this is the same no matter where or what you are in the world, just off the top of my head, lack of affection in early childhood leading to poorly understood displays of social conduct which are interpreted by the subject as a form of affection, this is a common problem since forever, and it is one of the possible outcomes for adults who grew up in broken and/or not very emotionally supportive families.
Bottom line being, these characters can be understood, but only if you know what you're looking for, in that sense, you could say the anime does a great job on characterization but for the average person, talking about these things in-depth is probably too much and it will just fly over their heads.
Idealization ensues. [REDACTED]
Now this might also be a judgement of value on my part, but I would say most of the interactions that take place, and the consequences resulting from said events do not necessarily lead towards an "ideal" or "standard" outcome, as a matter of fact the conclusion in the anime is conveniently open-ended; in this anime, characters are not portrayed in a didactic manner in order to learn and/or teach life lessons, they stand and react based on their expected characterization but development is not even close to be a guarantee, pretty much like real life, these people might just not learn absolutely anything from their own experiences, the main focus is on the interaction itself and what each character can exhibit from their assortment of psychological defense mechanisms as defined by their role, as well as how emotionally intelligent they might be, in order to fulfill their personal goal and or selfish desires.
Realism kicks in. [REDACTED]
The resulting mess is what we have in HigeHiro, in which we sit here and watch all these convoluted, intertwined, set of seemingly undecipherable misguided actions, which at the end of the day actually can be either justified and or decoded on the basis of either characterization and/or transition that leads into some form of development.
WARNING JUDGEMENT OF VALUE
Everythingexceptforwhathappenedinepisode9, causethatwasjusthorse****andhaszeroexplanation.
/WARNING JUDGEMENT OF VALUE
Now onto character development, one would think Sayu is the winner in this regard, but actually, upon doing some research on the LN, it might just be that Yoshida himself is the center of actual conflict here, an introspective conflict taking place behind the scenes, worth noting that this is not possible to infer if you only watch the anime, as the actual changes taking place here are related to a certain narrative which is only present in the original work, as expected it's a tie between MC and the titular heroine on who gets the most out of this, and of course there are some parts in which there is gratuitious erotic content which seems to serve no purpouse other than being scandalous, and/or pleasing the fans who are getting what they came here for, honestly speaking, in a couple of such scenes, I can't say I found any real added value to the story or the events taking place, and if I had to be specific, I didn't get why they would show Sayu fingering herself, that one scene didn't really add anything of value to the character or the story, that scene being added was almost as if they were saying "we didn't know what to put in here so here's Sayu fapping lel" to me, it was already a known fact Sayu was engaging in hypersexual behaviour, this doesn't really tell me anything I didn't already know, it's redundant, but in some other cases it might seems like they're adding fanservice but it actually tells you something about the character, if I had to be specific, Sayu asking Yoshida to have sex at the end for one, was a sad confirmation about her relapse, just thinking that, even at that point in the story she still hadn't abandoned the thought of seducing this man who had been so obstinate on trying to teach her that there's much more to love other than just sex, it changes your perception of the character.
That of course, or maybe the author thought it's just a turn on when a cute teenager just walks up to you asking for goodbye sex upfront. -justsaying-
But back to the reasons why this anime might not be regarded as "good" I have to bring up what I call the "Misaki Effect" and by that, I mean, this phenomenon taking place when idealization is inevitable, this one comes from way back, when Welcome to the NHK was airing, I guess some of us remember how more than half of the viewers were expressing their most heartfelt desire to have a "Misaki" in their lives, incidentally this anime has a lot to do with that, because on both sides, there are people suffering from this bias, delusion, whatever you want to call it, you see, in here we observe a character who is portrayed as an ideal, unreacheable concept which personifies all of the main character's (and possibly also the audience's) desires condensed into a walking, human utopia, for Welcome to the NHK, it was Misaki, and for Higehiro, it was Sayu.
These characters have the unwanted, side effect, of arousing in the audience a yearning sense of longing, they feel that these characters are the solution to the conflict but actually what the story is showing you is the whole opposite of that notion, not going into spoilers here, but it's obvious, that many people saw this hypersexual kawaii teenager female student and thought that it's just what they needed in their lives, it was the solution all along like -- how did I even manage to survive this long without a hypersexual kawaii teenager female student in my life? but actually the ending to HigeHiro challenges that notion, and rather goes onto giving the main character a rather sad reality check, in the sense that, maybe something was already wrong before you met Sayu, and you just came to realize it now, had you two not met you'd probably gone carrying this problem the rest of your life without realizing, but now you know it's there, so what are you going to do?
And this is not only on the field of the sad otaku virgin living in their basement, because some other people were also complaining about Sayu becoming a cute little wallflower, being a goody-goody pleaser wife, cooking dinner and having great sex everyday, just living her life by the book now that she met Yoshida, because that's also the same delusion, what the story tells you is that even after meeting Yoshida her problems hadn't really disappeared, she keeps failing to realize that the abyss is within herself and Yoshida is not going to be the magic spell to seal away that voice that keeps calling her name, this is just what she believes but the reality is different, and the audience can see it clearly, this conflict is not solved and what you have been doing until now is just a subterfuge that leads you nowhere.
We know how it ended in Welcome to the NHK -- bit more on the pragmatic pessimistic side, but in HigeHiro, things are somewhat different and that's what makes it unique, a little bit too feelgood-y for my taste? maybe, but that's also a judgement of value.
In short, it's obvious people will have to like or dislike this, and in that sense, the author has achieved his goal, he managed to stir a reaction from people, which is probably the one thing that can be considered "success" in terms of artistic expression, not necessarily objective, but that's my takeaway from all this, I feel these are the main obstacles that prevent and/or make it difficult for people to enjoy HigeHiro for what it is, those obstacles are also a charm point in and by themselves, so I challenge you to try and look past the barriers, and try to understand, beyond the fact you like it or not, WHY or WHY not.
The result might surprise you and give you some quality introspective self-criticism, I know I did, and found it amusing and refreshing.
