Introduction
This review contains Heavy spoilers
The romance genre is one of the most famous and beloved genres in the anime community because almost everyone has had the stage that they longed for romance. While I don’t dislike the wholesome and diabetes-inducing series in the genre some of the best titles that I enjoyed the most are the likes of Aishiteru Game or a similar series like Tonikaku Kawaii.
The Angels Next Door Spoiled Me Rotten, hasn’t spoiled me rotten, and it's more akin to that of expired, spoiled milk found in a milk carton inside Amane’s dumpster of a flat.
If you like or hate the series, agree or disagree with the points made about the series. I hope you would enjoy my review even if it’s a word vomit of my raw feelings about this series. I am not the greatest articulator but hopefully my thoughts could come across. While at first I slightly enjoyed this series, somewhere along the way something was wrong, and felt that there was this frustration looming in my heart, and decided to brood on it.
Major flaws showed up in the viewing and reading of this series of its characters, plot, exposition, and production on the side of the anime there are dedicated chapters called “Frustrations” throughout my review to articulate how unreasonably contrived this series is, it is in an unchronological order and covers every volume instead of the specific volume. This review will mainly focus on the novels for its storytelling and overall thoughts for this series.
Volume 1
With a simple and trope-like premise of a Beautiful and diligent girl who is keeping up appearances because of something bothering her on that day, Amane lends her an umbrella. And as we all know the rain can immediately make you sick the next day. Discovering that she lives next door by our MC we have our premise starting from there. The story's direction seems to be going for Amane improving his lifestyle with the influence and push of Mahiru.
The art was pretty nice with a caramel-like style and colors that express cuteness. Gives a warm and milky vibe that compliments Mahiru's doll-like expressions.
Honestly, I haven’t felt as much feelings of happiness or a scene that made me grin with this volume except for Amane's Mother's surprise visit and Christmas Eve/day. It's almost like flavorless ice cream, doesn’t have a tinge of sweetness for now it doesn’t live up to the hype for an introductory volume.
Overall, the very slight change of attitude of them both warming up is alright, to say the least.
Score: 5/10
My Impression of Mahiru
She has a rich upbringing with her mannerisms and the diligent, disciplined girl act implied that she was forced upon by herself or her parents since childhood. This could have a connection with why she’s helping Amane out maybe not.
For a Diligent and Hardworking girl, she is very sensitive when she is called an “Angel” nearly crying with a cliché comment/compliment. She tries to disassociate herself from that title as much as possible
In the end, she started to be more expressive than before, and with her warming up to Amane giving her an experience she never had before with a friend.
My Impression of Amane
He's the very embodiment of a burden, while he has a bit of decency it doesn't stand as appealing if you combine it with his attitude. He's almost hopeless in his state without getting pushed by Mahiru to do it or help him get his life in check. He's nothing more than cardboard in the rain, very heavy and flat.
Frustrations: Exposition
Does the author really think that any high school girl would suddenly cook and clean for you just because you just gave them an umbrella? How does that activate the idea and desire inside Mahiru that someone lending her an umbrella is enough to allow her butting into someone's life by cooking his every meal and cleaning his home? The disparity between the kind/nice action and the payback are blown out of proportion and over the top. I really can’t find any rationale for anyone can make such a decision when it's just presented as is, it's like some wish-fulfillment fantasy by some incel, and it’s that simple and the only thing you would do to have a woman flocking at your door is to give one small act of kindness to be enough to be a pseudo household wife for your everyday needs.
I also have doubts about them being coincidentally neighbors as well, when they've been living in the same apartment complex for many months before that fated first scene but you’re telling me not once they have bumped into each other on the way to school, on the streets or in nearby local supermarket? And you're going to tell me now it’s a coincidence they met in the convenience store in the early episodes of the anime for the first time? It's hard to believe that you can not notice someone who stands out and with someone beautiful as Mahiru to not notice her in public.
.
Volume 2
It's the start of the New Year, their daily routine is the same as before. On Amane's Parents planning to visit, they start the year going to the Shrine with Mahiru. With the follow-up events of Valentine’s Day and White Day. We also get to know Mahiru's Past on why she acts the way she is.
While wholesome, it still doesn’t give me enough of a reaction. There's also a recurring theme that is very repetitive and already lost its charm in the 1st vol. It just goes “I like your cooking” She blushes and/or thanks him rinse and repeat as well as “Thank you for taking some of the burden.”. It would be bad if they're gonna repeat scenes over and over again.
5/10
My Impression of Amane
With this volume, Amane starts off having a slight change in his ways like fixing up his looks to be more presentable and more conscious about Mahiru but not to the point of wanting to romance her.
With this relationship deepened with Mahiru opening up, it came to a point that Amane is one of Mahiru's supporting emotional pillar in the series.
My Impression of Mahiru
The angel persona was a mechanism for receiving affection from her parents who neglected her. The only parent figure she had was the maid who took care of her and She ended up having this mask around her in public showing her angelic features.
In retelling her past to Amane she has finally released 16 years of her anguish to anyone and starting to rely on Amane as a way for her to gain affection she never received from her parents.
Frustration: The Angel, The Persona and The Status Quo
Why does Mahiru need to keep up the Angel appearance and keep her popularity? At the same time when she hates being called an angel, then why doesn’t she do anything about it like opening up to people to show more of her true personality or dropping the act entirely? Even if hypothetically her true personality comes out and her popularity dwindles. She has friends that she can trust and has her back that supports her. There is no good reason anymore in the now to keep up appearances, even a hint of change is fine and probably more appreciated by something like “Hey Mahiru you seem happy and more… Open recently, did something happen recently?” is a good way to improve the story forward both in Mahiru's opening up her angel persona to the public and not only in private when she’s alone with Amane and his friends.
Yes, I know that she gets there eventually where she completely removes her angel persona. But instead of a more incremental way of doing it, what they did was deliberately open her up immediately once they started going out by being flirty in class and didn’t give any hints on her changing ever slightly but inching on how much they flirt in public instead.
The history dump of Mahiru’s past to Amane makes it hard to believe that he is the only one she could confide with. This Operates on a scenario that Mahiru has never thought of opening up in the past to anyone. Has she never really considered that if she opened up gradually that her angel persona would disappear over time at any point in time like in middle school or way before that? We don’t get an answer to get a deeper look into Mahiru's past. The lack of clarity and intent from both the parties that abandoned her as well as her elementary to middle school life is shrouded in mystery.
This makes her relationships with Amane feel forced and mechanically weaved with her sad past. The story plays the kick the puppy to kick start their relationship. It makes it more in your face just to get a forceful reaction for the reader/viewers to pity her.
Volume 3
We start the new school year with luckily a lot of familiar faces being assigned in the same class. With this volume, they are starting to open their relationship bit by bit to the public as Mahiru felt left out of the loop at school so they decided to talk at school gradually to not give suspicions.
Continuing with the cooking class with Mahiru and with Chitose's antics makes it more enjoyable with fun side characters. With the remaining days of their Golden Week, they go on a date that is decently wholesome to a degree with Mahiru's daily reactions.
Score: 5.5/10
My Impression of Amane
Quite the chivalrous man when he is needed in the situation and gentlemanly. Seems like there are some past wounds that Amane has suffered that could be connected to divert expectations with his initial introduction.
My Impression of Mahiru
The becoming more cheeky Mahiru with her wanting to also keep in touch with Amane at school at the request of Amane talking to her more at school gradually. She essentially became more pouty and wanted to spend more time with him.
Frustration: Amane's Self-Destructing Behavior
I think that the premise failed to capture how it incentivizes a wish fulfillment fantasy with the most beautiful girl that does everything to cleaning and cooking while you do absolutely nothing to repay them back. Amane is a lazy ass who can’t and won’t do anything on his own or for his own sake. To the point that he took 6 months for him to learn to clean his own home, it's hard to justify someone this bad at doing something and their reasoning is his Trauma? I'll talk about it later in this chapter.
If Amane states that he wants to improve himself so no one would talk behind his back. Why is he so heavily reliant on Mahiru for his improvement? Like he can't even decide on his own. If you are that indecisive about your resolutions of change that you need someone to feed and pamper and pull you on the neck to make you move is an unsubstantial excuse for characterization. Its always Mahiru doing the carrying and prying into his matters herself by cleaning and cooking every day for him? The very disparity of the receive and the return aspect is so far in between that even for 3 volumes he hasn’t done Mahiru as much good except for her emotional well-being.
Speaking of emotional well-being, how can Amane be emotional support for her if he himself can't even support his own problems, and much more for taking care of another person's problems? Immaturity and being a spoiled brat shouldn't be the foundation for his growth. It sets up a bad characterization that I truly hate. A person who does nothing.
If the case for Mahiru is for her emotional well-being and wanting a relationship or affection she never received what does Amane get in return for his growth? While he did little things like Fixing up his get-up from time to time, tidying up the place even just a little, and started exercising. He hasn’t grown as incrementally close to what Mahiru has to offer which is such a bad characterization of how shallow he is, even in his perspective that he hasn’t done or thought about doing more things of his own volition, except for the minimal task mentioned above.
Yes, they point out he's not self-aware and not confident in himself and doesn’t want to fail but what does that have to do with him not cleaning himself up in his apartment and having such a shitty lifestyle at the start? Is His Trauma that bad when he thought his friends were his actual friends but were only there just to exploit him for money? With the quote comical quote in the anime “The only thing you're good for is exploitation”. Actually, only a cartoon villain would actually say this. Does anyone you know actually say these kind of things? It's comical. Coming back on track, is his “Trauma” really that bad that he has to socially close himself off to potential friendships and look unapproachable, one example with Kadowaki who wants to have a genuine friendship with Amane but he was so skeptical that Kadowaki has a secret motive. When Amane admits not everyone is like that in monologue. You also expect me to believe that He also left his family to live on his own flat while his parents having fully acknowledged his bad lifestyle and that he can't even sustain himself to the point of living in a dumpster, and even with that knowledge, his Parents still wholeheartedly agree to his wishes? That is such an extreme reaction to something trivial. It runs on the mindset that his view of friendships is shallow and horribly black and white. Friends come and go, if they were shit friends don’t talk to them anymore. I understand distrust can grow from this but to say he has to leave home with no sustenance skills is reasonable? It’s a flimsy justification of a premise of his past that it's contrived, divorced from any semblance of realism when the novel tries so hard to portray its ''realistic”.
For the sake of argument let's say you actually believe that Amane’s Trauma and reaction to be believable and realistic. How about the Parent's reaction? I don't believe that the Parents are actually supporting Amane in any way that is helpful, when they just allow to leave their son alone instead of actually parenting and teaching him how to live on his own and rehabilitate. But one argues that His Parents are wonderful and they are supporting his one and only wish to live alone because of his trauma to get as far away from his old friends, meaning that they are understanding. But if you probably ask your parents or anyone who has a son and has some issues or traumas and they don’t know how to survive on their own, you DON’T let them live by themselves as immature as they are. Especially when the Parents know that his health is deteriorating with the supplement jellies he's been consuming. But in order to be sooo understanding they have to ignore his health for his mental rehabilitation, which he isn't recovering from alone, and fixed nothing in the past few months prior to meeting Mahiru, not with his bad lifestyle. They should’ve realized that him being in another apartment didn’t fix his problems nor eases it when his health started deteriorating. To the point, they have to negotiate with him to have good grades in order to keep his bad lifestyle, crappy health and trash dump of an apartment? And you call yourself a Parent who wants and prioritized Grades than the Health and well-being of your son? I call Bullshit.
Volume 4
The volume starts off with Mahiru’s thoughts about Amane after their date and meeting Kadowaki. Further development happened between the two with Mahiru offered that she would do anything if Amane reached the top 10. With another daily interactions in Amane’s apartment, we see the Angel is being more and more selfish with her request. This is also the chapter where the confession happens
Score: 4/10
My Impression of Amane
Weirdly starts with him and his erotic dream about Mahiru and avoids the questioning until only Mahiru prods him to confess that he had an erotic dream about her. How are they not in a relationship when he confessed he has sexual attraction to her? Is there even a person or anybody you know that has not confessed but is in a relationship, and has a sexual dream about them, and asking about it for “Reference”? There's actually no close friends that act like that. (Not referring to friends with benefits or sex buddies)
To be honest this chapter was such a perfect time to put a punch line like “Yeah it's pretty embarrassing, We shouldn't do that” or actually progressing by “So you think about me like that? Then…(let's do it)” which progress them in their relationship. But no they tiptoed around it and ended the chapter with the same thing again all over. Hug and cue blushing.
My Impression of Mahiru
She has finally started to let go of her angel persona as more lax at school. Finally took her this long. While I think this is great I am still unconvinced why she is attracted to Amane in any way. I can't think of any flashback I could go back to and say “Amane looks cool” in any moment in this volume or series for Mahiru to say anything complimentary about Amane is a joke that she can’t say anything to prove what he did was cool. Can Mahiru tell something in recent memory about what cool thing Amane did? It seems like Mahiru doesn’t know nor does the author. It fails to give the intent and the actual thing happening to attest to the thing she describes Amane as.
The Confession
This is sadly and painfully the worst romantic confession. Really no kissing? But anyways jokes aside and I’m not really forewarning that it took them longer to kiss each other even if they did foreplay one time in the future in volume 5...
Seeing how this unfolds, It was hilarious to start the confession mentioning Amane’s past especially with the knowledge in the ‘Frustrations: Amane’s self-destructive behavior”. I don't have much any expectations for Amane, especially with his own mental immaturity. He is less than capable of taking care of Mahiru in any way mature in the relationship to the point that Mahiru is mostly carrying this series. He has never made a move to help forward the series. Like actually, I can’t name a single chapter that you could call actual development in the past 4 volumes that I've read.
That’s why it's hard to see him in any way as a love interest or an emotional outlet for Mahiru. They both act like therapist rather than a love interest, and aren’t qualified to be one because of their own emotional immaturity.
Frustration: The View on Romance
“We're not in a relationship, but we do what couples do”
Emotional suppression or being Artificially dense shouldn’t be the virtue and driving force of the story. Its holding back a confession when it is plainly obvious that everything they did like sleeping in his room, laying on her lap, hugging, touching each other casually(Even if she hates boys touching her and only Amane could do this thing) all of these signs are blatantly obvious that it should be the point where they are in a relationship but no, they tried to take as long as possible, is it because they're scared of rejection? While I don’t deny the possibility that rejection is truly a hard hurdle to overcome but if they are living essentially playing husband and wife every day and every flag has been waved that it starts to be in tethers with all the waving, why have the doubts of rejection when it's written on the walls that the paint smells across the neighborhood. It is blatantly obvious to the reader to the point that the side characters are also ranting and hinting about it. The fear of rejection shouldn’t be looming in their heads at this point in time. They have been doing this for a year! Even as the reader everyone knows that they act like a couple just without the defining relationship of being an actual couple that makes all the actions meaningful.
What difference did or will it make when they're both a couple in the future and still doing the same thing every single day? Nothing, there was no romantic development that was meaningful in the span of this series, It’s all repetitive fluff. If they had confessed early on with these signs that have been going on for the past year it would’ve made the relationship more meaningful in contrast with their actions. I have never seen close friends of the opposite sex doing things like these and don’t label themselves a couple at that point.
If the argument is that the difference is that it's more embarrassing because they are conscious of their actions after the confession. To make that point is absurd because it drives on the notion that both of them have to be so dense artificially until the confession that they don’t know what actual couples do. Then they admitted in the 1st chapter of volume 5 that that is the case that the things they did were couple-like things before being an actual couple. It rides on the style of character writing that they have no idea what “x” thing is unless it's convenient for the story. Being artificially dense for the sake of the things they did before mentioned above and after the confession, and then saying that there's a difference now because they are consciously embarrassed by their actions is an unbelievable premise both in writing and in argument that they are this oblivious to define their relationship when they’re so used to touching and cuddling beforehand and did couple like things. The side characters had already complained in several instances that it's obvious as well to the reader that that is the case. In short, The plot and romance of this series is bad that it exceeds the suspension of disbelief and any resemblance of realism in fiction that it attempts and fails to portray.
Frustration: Repetition
If I'll be honest, this series shouldn’t be as long as it should, we could cut half of the padding and it would make no difference with the character development or the storyline. The repetitive vernacular, and redundant phrasing, that the Author heavily utilized is just there to pad out the novel between conversations. It lingers on with the conversation and scenes for several beats longer than it needed to be. The author felt like the readers probably couldn’t grasp the simplicity of the scene and its integrity and tends to over-explain the most simple actions that the reader would pick up if they knew how to read the room. So it has to repeat and emphasize this and that in every context describing a feeling, cuteness, thought, or action when it is unnecessary and already understood by the reader.
To give a few examples to quote
“Can you cook?”
“…I won’t say I can’t, but I’m not good at it either.”
It wasn’t like Amane couldn’t cook, but he couldn’t make something high-quality enough to offer in exchange for money.
--
Notes: It's already said in dialogue why repeat it in monologue? I know Amane can cook but not as well as he said it. Why add another explanation saying the same thing in monologue?
“The cultural festival was a very important event and this was shown by the fire in everyone’s eyes. It was a massive event and all the students were looking forward to it.”
--
Notes: These two sentences just mean the same thing... Why just repeat the point that everyone is excited back to back and how big and important the event is?
“You little rascal,” Amane slapped him on the back but held back as he wasn’t being serious.
--
Notes: Man I find the novel's stupidity to not trust the reader's mental faculties to understand the scene is so incredibly idiotic. It's obvious in the context that they’re bantering, why the need to explain to me he did it softly or held back. It's not like by default he slapped him so hard in anger. Even then it would be obvious from the context.
Mahiru lightly bumped her fist into his upper arm, apparently dissatisfied with the notion of being unable to swim, so he smiled wryly and looked back at the stage
--
Notes: I'm a person who could read the room and know that it's banter. No need to explain if she punched him lightly and with dissatisfaction.
“Why didn’t you tell me about the concert? If you’d told me, I would’ve changed my shift beforehand. You heartless bastard.”
Seemingly, Itsuki had complaints about the fact that Yuuta had secretly held a concert at the cultural festival, and slapped the table just hard enough to not spill any drinks. Bothered by the shaking table, Makoto softly muttered, “He probably didn’t invite you because you would have made a fuss.”
--
Notes: I don’t know why there is the need to over-explain this action. "not hard enough to spill any drinks" like come on. It's already understood unless he actually spilled drinks. Then you should emphasize that. It's already on default that he slammed the table without the drinks spilling.
Moving on, with a story that is set in mundane everyday life, it’s not bad to repeat some things at times. But to repeat the same conversations over and over again seems like you have nothing to give for the development of the characters. The usual formula goes like this “Your cooking is so good” *Mahiru blushes* or “You’re the only person that I feel comfortable touching me and being close to me and not with other boys” *While Mahiru blushes* or “I will spoil you as much as I want” *Mahiru Blushing or… You get the point. These dialogue points are repeated throughout this series and it's all fluff and there's no development behind any of the dialogue between the two. It's all stagnant up until the confession.
This is basically what the order is most of the time.
1. You look cute/nice
2. She blushes
3. Teases Amane
4. Gets teased back
5. She pouts
6. Tries to reconcile
7. Blush and Hugging
To give credit to the Translators and Editors they did a great job with the translation in making it like a King James Bible type poetry and wording in the monologues.
Volume 5
After confessing in the last volume they started going out as a couple and did a few things that of course supposed to happen in the romance genre set in high school. A pool party in summer vacation, as well as the major development for Amane in confronting his past while visiting his parents to introduce his new girlfriend.
Overall things were still the same but more flirty and the same interactions happened again with the same “no you” shenanigans.
Score: 4/10
My Impression of Mahiru
Very recently being open and the whole school realized she’s just any normal girl and not some holy saint that is untouchable. She has been begging more often but somehow his boyfriend is really dense that he doesn’t realize she wants to go forward. Either way she hasn’t changed much with her cheekiness and devilish tendencies.
My Impression of Amane
Finally! Finally he did it, His first step. He finally took the initiative for one scene and was the first kiss. While I honestly couldn’t understand why they haven’t done it when they were making out and marking each other's necks, might as well put the important thing at the end of the volume right?
Now for his growth, even if it’s inching ever so forward he finally confronted his past. While good for him to have that heroic speech, but the build-up for it was lacks exposition and flashbacks on how his past developed, and as well as on how Toujo is like a comical cliché cartoon villain that’s enough for him to have such a traumatic experience 'ooh emotional bullying and exploitation makes me want to run away to the point I don’t wanna clean my room and be healthy', goodness grow a spine will he. With the reasons before, I see his trauma as trivial and the foundation for it is flimsy which makes this confrontation contrived and its essentially the same lines and progression when they were confronted by their classmates barraging them with questions when they openly announced they’re a couple in the first few chapters of this volume.
1. “He looks uncool and uninteresting, what's so good about him”
2. “I don’t care about looks or social standing I just care about the inside”
3. Mahiru’s speech reprimanding them/him.
And there we have it with another formula for Repetition.
Frustrations: The Wuss and The Beggar
Now that they’re going to play this game where whenever Mahiru ever wants and begs to further the relationship Amane would just say no over and over again that “The relationship is going too fast” or “We’re skipping too many steps” and then contradicts himself early on by saying “He would leave it to Mahiru” when she wants to push forward the relationship. If you actually want to advance actually do it. Your girlfriend gave you the go signal that she wants to do it. Itsuki has already complained that he's a wuss and Mahiru kept telling him not to hold back anymore. Why be this dense now but in other times you aren't?
Volume 5.5
This volume is somewhat enjoyable with since more scenes are more varied rather than again the couch and plain wall. The volume is filled with side stories behind the scenes in the past 4 volumes from Mahiru's perspective. It makes me scratch my head why did the author not do these scenes in the normal volumes?
The volume also shows Itsuki and Chitose are essentially a better character dynamic and have more interesting pasts and conflicts while not perfect, it's better than what we have now. It’s sad we don’t get as much peek at their everyday lives except a small sneak peek in some chapters with a general outline of the situation of their past.
There are some live comments while reading the volume that makes me want to pull my hair out when the series hypocrisy on scenes where Amane is just suddenly oblivious and dense or the series admitting that it's frustrating from an outsider that it's blatantly obvious they act like a couple. Like Quote
“He thought such things should only be done by people who like each other, so he didn’t have the slightest intention of making a move.”
--
Haven't he thought about everything beforehand that it is a thing that people who like each other or in a relationship do like cuddling, holding hands, and being intimate etc? No, he didn't. It's so dumb and it's just convenient to say it in the moment that he doesn’t know but in any of the other occurrences he can understand and isn’t dense. Which is it Author? Are they aware on what they did or not?
----
And another set of quotes
“It was frustrating that they were not making any progress even though they both seemed to be in love with each other from the outside.”
--
... Did the novel just admit its own stupidity?.. It admits that it is frustrating to see these two people dance around the problem. Who knew that it would be a great idea to make your readers frustrated as a premise? Just… Stupid that is the case. Even if it’s a trope in the romance genre. You don’t have to bend the suspension of disbelief to its utmost limits in idiotically dense fasion.
I heavily doubt that it's trying to be meta here and it's really taken as face value. Why is it that the most sane people in this series are Chitose and Izuki? They are a far better set of characters and dynamic than the one we have now.
----
“Mahiru has done whatever she can do.” (In a sense of trying to seduce Amane)
--
No, you haven't. Confess. There's no reason for him to reject you or for you to hold back the confession when he's head over heels.
----
And quote.
This series just embraces the major flaws I was frustrated at, and pours gas on itself, lights a match and sets itself on fire on its own characters and plot and then telling me this is good characterization, storytelling and its realistic? Nope.
5/10
My Impression of Amane and Mahiru
There's not much of note since it’s mostly their daily lives and just hugging.
Volume 6
It is another volume of development for Amane meeting his other friend and setting aside his past once and for all which is a bit of flirting on the side with a home date which lets be real about this. Every day in their apartment is a date to begin with. Another Festival outing with Mahiru and finally the encounter with Mahiru's Father and should've been a very important chapter for this volume. But instead, they gave no info at all.
2/10
My Impression of Amane
While this is the most that Amane developed as a character if the development is the size of a small bump on the road with most of his past he has faced and solved. Really there's nothing much to say about it except he is more pouty and being a wuss as usual.
My Impression of Mahiru
Mahiru begging for the affection that Amane somehow refuses to give in to deeper the relationship and the confusion and emotional backlash about her father and thinking why she's neglected and him not approaching her.
Frustration: The Shit Show of a Last Chapter
This final chapter in volume 6 was probably the most disgusting and disappointing things I've read ever since I started reading the novels. Nothing made me punch the wall and groan so hard as I just did reading the sheer stupidity of how the conversation with Mahiru’s Father unfolded. To say it simply, it's an insult to the reader to have a final chapter that should be a major reveal about something important and ended up with a nothing burger.
My expectations for this very chapter were simple. Amane talks with Mahiru's father and talking about
1. How bad of a father he is. Which he accomplished and;
2. The most important thing, ask about why he had neglected Mahiru. Which the chapter absolutely fails and dodges the question.
The conversation starts with Mahiru’s father saying he wants to talk to Amane and he complies. Proceeding to enter the Café Amane just barraged him with essentially insults just saying He's a Bad father and Asahi accepted the insults as true and regretted neglecting Mahiru. This happened twice in the same chapter back to back. It repeated itself, like why repeat the same points back to back? Padding the page count or something?
Now with the important substance of this chapter is why Asahi neglected Mahiru and why he wants to meet her. He just says “I regret it but I can’t articulate it why I want to meet her and you will know sooner or later” and then leaves after asking if Mahiru is happy, the conversation over. This answers NOTHING about Mahiru’s past and danced around another issue. Does the author even know what Asahi's intentions are on why he had done it? We didn’t even get the chance to get an answer WHY he neglected her and just avoided it completely.
Whenever an important thing is asked, why is it always the case that the characters will say “I can’t articulate it” and then proceed to say something vague or something that the average person possesses. This is no different from Mahiru's questioning about her love for Amane by her classmates. It just proves the mediocrity that is Amane. From the words she described Amane as. What difference does it make to apply those same words to Kadowaki? Kadowaki possesses all of what Mahiru described and has beyond what Amane doesn’t have. The amount of over-explaining with the very obvious stuff that the reader can understand but with the important things the author seems to cant elaborate or explain the intent of these characters that are clear to the reader. This is very self-evident here and the very first volume Mahiru can’t even articulate why she wants to take care of Amane in the first place and just a vague answer of self-satisfaction. There was not a single time that she elaborate on her intent and what brain cell made her do it in the first place to be the catalyst of all of this. Except for the umbrella giving which is just contrived on how weak it was.
To sum it up, the lackluster explanation or to be more blunt there's no explanation that occurred of the more important points of the series introduces either vague answers and adjectives to describe intent or someone or just outright avoid it in the process is just fucking stupid writing.
Going back to Asahi. He didn’t answer anything about his intentions which was supposed to be the whole point of this chapter revealing why dunnit. He asked it himself why he wants to meet Mahiru and just says “I wonder why”? You came here wanting to meet Mahiru but you don’t know why? This is bullshit. How can you do something and don’t even have the reasoning as to why you did the action? If the foreshadowing was he wants to reconcile with her or to have a change of heart. How hard is it to say that? But even then he still didn’t answer why he neglected her in the first place. Then the conversation came full circle and changed nothing. The flow was essentially this
Asahi: I want to meet you and talk
Amane: You’re a bad father
Asahi: I know
Amane: You’re a bad father and why you neglect her?
Asahi: I know I regret it, no comment and I don’t know why I want to meet her. *Ask about Mahiru’s happy and leaves*
What was the major reveal? Nothing. It repeated the same talking points on how bad a father he is twice and said he regrets it twice and resolved nothing and answered nothing. I have no hope that this would get resolved in the next final two volumes that have been out as of now.
Frustrations: Believe and Don’t Question
I want to get into more deeply how the series portrays everything as gospel and there shouldn’t be any questions to be asked and be a blind sheep and just believe everything, even its own premise is already dubious as it is but the author seems like it intends for the readers to just believe the things in the novel with no doubt or any demonstration to actually emphasize and give development of certain actions and characters or to demonstrate to prove ones actions as true as being described or if its logically sound.
This is why Amane's friendships felt forced and just very forgettable. While the novel goes on about how “great and not shallow” his new friendships are, but in action what was written is nonexistent. He only had one or two conversations that I could recall that you can somewhat call a friendly conversation or banter. Most of it is from Itsuki that’s granted but for Kadowaki and the two boys he made friends with in the sports festival, it essentially boils down to one conversation and it's only with Kadowaki in the cafeteria with the boys that I could consider as one, while I’m being very generous about it since they only talked about love about Mahiru which isn’t much substance about the two boys since the topic revolves only around Amane and I didn’t really get to know them better as characters like what their interest are or their personality. After that, they haven’t talked much or show up in the story as often which makes them just feel bland, shallow, and empty husks with the very few conversations Amane had with them.
Another major flaw in the series that they kept repeating is Amane exercising. This so-called integral part of Amane improving himself felt lackluster and more like it's an offhand comment that the novel throws out every once in a while, which is in my opinion lazy writing. I probably noticed the pattern that also applies to various scenes and conversations throughout the show. Like how well-raised Amane is, or how they know their teacher's habits on how they make tests, etc. Do we even get to see the scenes that they’re referring to? Nope, it's just artificial explanations with no basis to back it up that they did it or talk about it in detail. You are expected to just believe what is said and never question it.
Why did I point this out? Because with the case of him exercising throughout the span of this novel, we never get to see Amane exercising in his daily routine in his point of view. The only time we kinda see him exercising is when Chitose running into him on the streets. But that’s not enough to convince me that this aspect of him exercising is as substantially important to him to “grow”. If the novel is trying to make its case that Amane's development stemmed from him exercising in order to gain self-esteem why don't we get a perspective and narrative that emphasizes it? Is it really compelling development just for me to tell you that a lazy person suddenly just cleaned his own home without telling the specifics of why he was motivated to convince you? Unless you consider him cleaning up as character development which is really not major development or something you can really consider as character development but just a change of habits. It’s not convincing development just to say he exercised because there's really no substance that the author added to give it more depth. We never get to see something like a dedicated chapter for his thoughts about going for a jog to at least get out of that bloody couch and room by himself in one of these chapters.
The final example of this issue is this one example quote in this volume specifically and I quote.
“Amane, your strength is being able to move on and forget. If our agreement gave you any unneeded stress… I would have felt guilty for asking you to come visit.”
And quote
In context, they are specifically talking about his past and he doesn’t want to come home because of his “trauma”. Why do I point this out? If you just deconstruct Amane's past before he met Mahiru, is it really Amane's Strength to move on and forget? He was at his breaking point before he met Mahiru. To say his strength is to move in and forget when his “friends” back home bother him so much. The words said by his Parents doesn’t prove Amane being able to move on and forget as his strength if you compare it to his actions prior to meeting Mahiru unless you don’t question the statement and believe it as gospel word for word. His strengths are not moving on and forgetting when for months or probably years on end you are bothered to go home because of your friends. Its hypocrisy. Strength in this context should mean that you had an experience and overcome it by yourself and be able to recover quickly from it. But no he dwelled on it for months.
It's like saying to someone from a drug addiction for 10 years and recently he came out of that addiction and you say “Your strength is not having addictions”. If it is his strength how come he didn’t overcome it before if he had the strength? Strength should be inherently there before the problem not the other way around. It would make more sense if you said “You’re strong overcoming your depression”. That’s why the value of the words that are being said in this novel gives me doubts about how much integrity the actions and intent of the characters have.
Another Farewell
A continuation for a specific chapter of volume 6.
This chapter in the novel is another one of Amane’s development chapters to move on with his past. The tone somewhat shifted which made Amane sound more edgy.
It's the same outline with Toujo where he confronts his old friend Hanada and talks, but here we see them reconcile. I would start with how the conversation reeks of artificiality and lacks the context of Amane’s past with little to no info at all with all the history dumping he did in the past volumes. Essentially the things that consist of Amane's Trauma are exploitation for money and isolation by his classmates. But is it really that bad to the point he had to leave and have a bad lifestyle? The only closest thing we had as a scenario was Amane getting bullied for liking cats in Vol 5.5 and bantering about his appearance in this volume. This isn't really a lot of info in the first place and isn’t a strong case for me to believe it to the point we started at in volume one. This goes back to the points I mentioned before. The lack of demonstration of actions like a flashback or explanation of what occurred is either nonexistent or very weak to be convincing. It's building a skyscraper without a foundation. The story is just as sturdy as Chinese tofu projects were built.
Volume 7
We are finally in the final stretch and to be honest, I'm at the point where I want to get this over with. This volume has been nothing much but full of fluff and nothing to add in terms of development in the story and just introduces a new character that I really don’t care with the lack of an actual introduction. This volume revolves around the school festival where they chose to have a maid and butler café. It is all the usual banter and just again the repetitiveness of the dialogue is so evident in this volume that at this point I’m just mindlessly reading the same text over and over again. Just another set dialogue that has been talked about since like Vol 5 with this once conversation that is just basically “Hey Amane you really do cherish Mahiru a lot huh? “ and gets repeated like 10 times in the volume which got annoying so.
4/10
My Impression of Amane
Getting the most praise in this volume by his classmates on how easy it was to get along with him and even some girls eyeing on him. But he refuses and just looks at Mahiru and Mahiru alone. Which was a point in the novel that was repeated many times. He also saved Mahiru from a molester. Good on him.
My Impression of Mahiru
We get more and more begging from the Angel herself and she got to wear a maid outfit which Amane got jealous and anxious with a lot of people looking at Mahiru. Societal pressure does wonders to make a person do something. She also got pampered by Amanes parents and got some familial bonding time.
Volume 8
Finally, the last and final volume that is out as of now. One of the main focus of this volume is Amane getting a job and earning for an engagement ring… and again the same routine they did with all the touching and hugging which is nothing new. It also touches on a few topics like marriage though not too deeply but it was a driving force for Amane to get a job to earn for a ring at 17 which is somewhat weird.
I also find it very weird that your parents would out of nowhere just talks about marriage without their son bringing the topic up or even in dialogue with Mahiru or a monologue about it, since most of the newlywed dialogue is just banter from Itsuki. I don’t know if this is just about cultural differences or what, but I would think the son should bring the topic of marriage to their parents rather than the other way around, as to ask for the blessings of the parents from both sides. This makes it seem like the plot is ushered to Amane’s favor without him working up the courage to ask his parents for the blessing himself, and instead just presents him an easy getaway and let all the side characters do the work to progress the story. This is the aspect that Amane has nearly done nothing of his own volition unless told or ushered to do by influence.
It is also weird to suddenly get the urge to earn for an engagement ring, at 17 years of age, when he didn’t even started the conversation about marriage and just suddenly wants a ring. He will still end up in college and spending 4 more years and another few years before he would reach his goal of taking responsibility. And for a part-time job more or less than a year is enough to buy you one unless it's an extravagant ring. Even then he has an allowance which if you combine that it is more than enough. So I don’t know why now is the time of need for an engagement ring? He wouldn’t even get married yet for a year minimum after getting out of college, which is still somewhat weird to be engaged while in college but it is debatable if they are mature enough to get engaged which I find it unlikely.
3/10
My Impression on Amane
Got a part-time job and a goal to work for, while weird of a premise to go on to, good for him I guess. There's really not much to say about it really since there are not much changes.
My Impression on Mahiru
Nothing changed.
Final Verdict
This series is just pure misery to read once you reach at a certain point and essentially rereading the same scenes all over again and the same dialogue. The lack of diversity between scenes and characters is just a major letdown on how much the word count on each volume has and the very existence of Amane as a character and in growth with his relationships is one of the most boring progressions I’ve read and something that’s infuriating that nothing ever happens. I'm just happy that I'm done with this series and never touching it again.
Final/Overall score: 3/10
