Otonari at its heart is a story about Amane and Mahiru awkwardly getting together and reconciling how broken they are by opening up to one another – it’s a series that understands on a fundamental level how being wounded can irreversibly change you, but that life is about reconciling that sense of injury with, well, leaning on other people instead of limping off on your own. The opening scene to their relationship is indicative of exactly that – Amane doesn’t let Mahiru suffer alone and drench herself, instead offering her an umbrella, and she reconciles by refusing to let him suffer alone, cleaning his cluttered, dirty apartment and helping him clean it.
A lot of Otonari’s best early moments are specifically in seeing how both characters want to get closer to one another, but are unable to without pushes from Itsuki and Chitose (and later on, Yuuta) – this extends to both characters (especially Amane) coming off at times as if they’re outright terrified of physical intimacy, and is an incredibly accurate depiction of what happens to people who had suffered emotional abuse – the climax to episode 7 (volume 2 in the light novels) is a rewarding moment where things irreversibly change, as Mahiru is forced to accept that her mask is a coping mechanism for something she can’t obtain and change for the better by discarding it slowly for the rest of the series.
Mahiru and Amane’s relationship is a joy from start to finish – his apathy is contrasted with her increased perseverance in breaking him out of his shell, but Amane’s also observant, cool-headed and natural when it comes to others and this helps with helping her open up; the dynamic is reversed as Mahiru grows increasingly confident and assertive in what she wants out of her relationship with him, while Amane also improves as a person the more he interacts with her – he gains more friends, becomes cleaner, occasionally cooks himself instead of leaving everything to her and is less prickly about other people coming close to him. It’s a healthy back and forth that feels natural and heartwarming to follow, and this is amplified by the things the anime does well that can’t quite be replicated in written format.
Otonari does all of this wonderfully in both mediums, but there needs to be credit to the adaptation where it’s due – a lot of effort is taken to emphasize subtle body psychology or movements and slow shifts in the dialogue and the direction does a good job reflecting this. Credit must also be given to the sound design choices – the soundtrack does a good job reflecting the general comfy mood of the series (even if there’s nothing in the show proper I’d listen to on its own) and especially the two EDs I absolutely adore (both being classic love J-Pop songs with Mahiru’s voice actress singing both for additional cuteness points). The OP, however, is an abomination that is neither a good song nor does it fit the series as a whole, being terribly edited, horribly sung and the song itself is annoying and not reflective of what, well, the series is – I listened to it exactly once and promptly never listened to it again from how absolutely annoying it was. The voice acting is consistently excellent from start to finish, with Mahiru’s Manaka Iwami doing an exceptional job that doesn’t come off as overacted at any point (in sharp contrast to another role she’s doing this very season, which while really good had its fair share of forced lines).
Otonari, however, has issues as an adaptation – the first two volumes happen over the course of around six months, and while many an anime-only will whine about how the existing anime already feels too slow, it skims through much of the small interactions that necessitate communicating how Amane and Mahiru get together – all the major story beats are there, but the feeling of watching the two come together over a long period of time is gone, which is one of the best things about the first four volumes of the light novels. Speaking of that, the adaptation is incredibly compressed – the first seven episodes are paced pretty well, but the issues start piling up once we get to volumes 3 and 4, which is the arc where Mahiru opens up and the dynamic shifts from “two awkward teenagers inching closer” to “two teenagers who are in love, one of them knows it and the other is avoiding it”. The shift in the anime is sudden, and the side characters’ roles in opening up the main duo aren’t emphasized nearly as much as the novels. There are scenes that are incredibly important in the novels that are more or less skipped entirely or exist in slide shows…which bring me to another issue with the adaptation.
The production is rough, and this is a tough pill to swallow – Project No.9 are a studio I associate with good but not outstanding LN adaptations and Otonari is just another case of that. Hanekoto’s illustrations in the LNs are a tough act to follow in terms of expressiveness and colorfulness, but Otonari’s oversimplification of the character designs gets to a point where aside from Mahiru, none of the designs really stick in the viewer’s head – there’s a lot of off-model facial expressions and if I didn’t know better, I’d never assume Yuuta was a major character in the story from the way the visuals present him as looking only slightly more noteworthy than the average nobody. This kind of detracts from a lot of things in Otonari, and while this was never a story that I thought needed amazing production, something closer to how the latter two seasons of Oregairu by studio feel look would’ve been infinitely more fitting than what the series went for. Project No.9 themselves aren’t above better character designs either – Jaku-Chara is a good example of how despite the absurd standard that are Fly’s designs for that series, Project No.9 still managed to convert the designs into looking distinct and expressive.
There’s details that I think the adaptation doesn’t harp on enough – there’s a lot of emphasis on what Amane went through before the story started and how he basically turned into a shut-in from the bullying he endured – instead, this is kind of glossed over in the adaptation. The friendship Amane shares with Itsuki in particular but also Chitose and Yuuta isn’t quite as convincing or fleshed out. The choice to somehow cram two volumes’ worth of content into 5 episodes was a poor one and despite it still digesting well, it isn’t nearly as good as it could’ve been.
Otonari is a good show, a really good one even – but it’s a decent adaptation of an outstanding source material, not something that takes the source of the story it is based on and enhance it. It’s a shame that Otonari will fall to the mold as being “that seasonal romance anime” instead of the powerful story the novels tell – there’s shades of that in the anime (especially in the middle of the show), but I don’t think it’s nearly as memorable. And, well, that’s my biggest issue with it – novels choose to go all the way when most romance series don’t and continue telling the story after Amane and Mahiru are together, while focusing increasingly on the side cast – the anime by comparison chooses to limit its scope, which while understandable for an adaptation makes it impossible for anime-only viewers to see what makes Otonari distinct past a certain point. Compression be damned, this also means that should we ever get a season 2 (albeit highly unlikely considering Project No.9’s track record), the show’ll run into an issue of how exactly to shift gears once we get there when it wasn’t built up in the first season.
So yeah, Otonari is good – really good even as a stand-alone anime – but as an adaptation, it’s just OK. Can I recommend the novels if you want an idea of what I’m talking about? Yen Press has done a marvelous job translating them, and the fanbase are no slouches themselves either when it comes to quality fan-translations if you want to be up to date. I don’t think I can recommend the anime, by comparison, unless you’re an already existing fan of the source material.
Thank you for reading my review, any and all feedback would be appreciated.
