‘As punishment for your half-assed report, you’ll be joining this club.’
Synopsis: This romantic comedy revolves around an antisocial high school student named Hikigaya Hachiman with a distorted view on life and no friends or girlfriend. When he see his classmates talking excitedly about living their adolescent lives, he mutters, They’re a bunch of liars. When he is asked about his future dreams, he responds, Not working. A teacher gets Hachiman to join the volunteer service club, which happens to have the school’s prettiest girl, Yukinoshita Yukino.
Chris’ First Impression:
So basically… Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru. is a combination of Oreshura, Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai, The Melancholy of Hauruhi Suzumiya, NHK ni Youkoso! and Bleach. Allow me to elaborate:
Firstly, the characters. In this first episode we’re presented with Hachiman, basially a combination of Bleach’s early days Ichigo and Haruhi’s Kyon, Yukino, a weaker version of Haganai’s Yozora and Sena combined, and Yui, a weaker version or Oreshura’s Chiwa mixed in with every other overenthusiastic romantic comedy love interest and a bit of cliche bad cooking to go with the whole package. So yeah, the characters aren’t too great. That doesn’t mean they suck though. I mean, let’s look at Hachiman for a moment. Actually before I say anymore, I’d like to get one thing out of my system – I hate his hairstyle. Seriously. I’m fed up with the tellytubby (if you don’t know who the tellytubbies are, Google them, you’ll know what I mean) look in anime! I just want to take a pair of scissors to this guys head and snip off the one annoying long piece of hair that distracts me from the episode because it’s so damn obnoxious! No wonder nobody wants to date him… Okay, rant over. With it being on the first episode I can’t really tell if I like Hachiman or not, he has an inner monologue (inner monologues are awesome), he doesn’t seem like the oblivious type (if you’ve ever watched a romantic comedy before you’ll know exactly what the ‘oblivious type’ is), he’s actually quite a nice guy (being a douche may seem cool, but it’s not) and he’s not whining 24/7. That being said, I think he should really get over being rejected by that girl. It happens. If everyone became dejected/a recluse every time they got rejected, the world would be A. silent, because nobody wants to talk to anyone and B. boring because everyone is keeping their distance and nothing is happening. I dunno, it just annoys me when the main characters drive in an anime is some half-assed plot point shoved in their to make him more interesting/explain why he is the way he is. The one girl has supposedly ruined his life! I mean, if he’d been rejected multiple times I might understand but still… Yukino. I don’t like her. Yet. She has no personality, she’s a flat out bitch, she’s an introvert because she’s pretty (Sena (Haganai) is in the exact same position but she’s a much better character than this!) and it annoys me that Hachiman will probably end up with her because A. she’s the first girl to be introduced and B. because I’m sure she has some dramatic back story that will make me seem like a douche for ‘judging a book by it’s cover’. I can tell she’s going to be the character that supposedly dislikes everyone whilst the other girls fawn over her… Ew. Yui! Not much to say really… she’s just one big cliche. Can’t cook, is overly cute, is probably going to get friend zoned and will probably cry about it, later recovering her composure, putting on a happy face and saying something stupid like ‘I’m okay’ or ‘I just want you to be happy’… that is all.
The plot!… leaves something to be desired. It’s hard to judge romantic comedies on the worthiness of their plot because there tend to be no plot.
Usually episodes consist of [insert name here] club going off and doing something random and ridiculous, this something then usually forces the main character to partner up with a girl for an episode and we get to watch and laugh as they mess around and offer optimistic hints of an impending never going to happen romance. That’s how it generally goes… Anyway, Episode 1 was… mediocre. Nothing happened that made me think ‘Wow, this is the best romantic comedy ever!’ and that in itself is a bad sign. ‘But it’s only the first episode’, I hear you crying out. No. With romantic comedies you need to get going straight away, you need to immerse the viewer in either A. romance or B. comedy. This did neither. The comedic aspects were so so an the romance was none existent. It just didn’t feel like a romantic comedy. I’d almost go as far as to say that it felt like a slice of life show… When I watched the very first episode of Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai, I was immediately enthralled. Firstly, the opening was amazing. Yahari’s opening is good but it’s nothing amazing, y’know? The romantic tension is immediately made obvious in other shows, but here… even Oreshura did a better job of displaying romance in it’s first episode! When I watch a romantic comedy, I want just that, in your face comedy and heart wrenching romance… I felt neither of those things and it’s a real shame. That’s not to say the episode didn’t have it’s merits though, for some reason I always find people struggling to eat other people crappy food hilarious, I dunno, maybe it’s the child within me? When the teacher (Shizuka Hiratsuka) feigns punching Hachiman in the face was I the only one that thought it looked like some shounen battle manga action was about to go down? I dunno, I guess the most menial of things amuse me… Speaking of Shizuka, I like her! She has that ‘friendly’/’demonic’ ‘I’m going to help everyone’ (but in a non-intrusive way) teacher aura about her and I can see her adding many comedic moments in later episodes.
So, let’s wrap this up shall we? The characters aren’t bad and the future of the plot is somewhat unclear as it stands. The romance and comedy aspects of the show are weak and I wish Hachiman would change his hairstyle. Yeah, I think that about covers it. I’m hoping that in next weeks episode the future of the show is made clearer so that I can A. see if I want to keep watching (I probably will) and B. see if I want to blog it. I definitely don’t want to blog it if nothing interesting is going to happen!
Possibility of Blogging: Sure! Totally depends on the next episode though…
Eva’s First Impression:
As of today, ten minutes into this show and I have come to realize that I am getting quite sick and tired of this “I’m going to help you change” or “Assistance” club storylines. I started to hope that there would be something that would make this show distinctively different. Luckily, seven minutes later it grew on me.
The first highlight of this show is that Yukino not a stuck up brat like what we see in many other similar storylines like this one. Instead she genuinely wants to give people a hand with no ulterior motives, thus runs Public Service Club. Yukino seems to be a bit wary of boys, but I think the bigger conflict that she faces is becoming friends with others. When she asked Haichiman to define the definition of “friends” it gave me the impression that she never had a true friend. Either they back-stabbed her, or were only hanging around her because she is ‘popular’ or ‘smart’. This would also back up her reason for being a bit taken aback when Yui showed up to the club again to give her cookies and get to know her more. She had also revealed that she was bullied in the past by the girls because she was/is popular with the guys.
The second is that Haichiman is an interesting character. He doesn’t enjoy his youth and purposely puts on his imitation mask so that he doesn’t have to deal with people. He has a share of bitter experiences with girls, both through confessions or even trying to have a conversation. One wrong word slip and his reputation amongst the girl’ just spirals down to the pit of hell. I was pleasantly surprised to see Haichiman voluntarily step in to help with the cookies. He made a sweet point to help Yui out have a bit more courage to give the guy she wants give cookies to even if they turn out bad. His ideal gentleman response is to appreciate the effort of the cookies made for them- regardless of what they taste like. Unfortunately not all guys are like that. I also loved that he kept followed through with his word, and ate the entire cookie despite how bad it was.
Yui is pretty cute. She came to the club to get help making cookies since she isn’t good at it (at all). And seriously, all the awards to Yui for acknowledging that her cookies could be poisonous! It was actually cool to see that Yui loved the fact that Yukino doesn’t typically sugarcoat her remarks, and remains true and blunt.
Overall, it was a slow start but I absolutely love how low key it was. It wasn’t full of dramatics and theatrics reactions we see almost all the time now days. It was a breath of fresh air. While I am definitely going to watch this show, I am not too sure whether this is something I will have fun blogging. I will follow my three-episode rule, and we will see. Who knows, perhaps Chris and I will share it.
Possibility of Blogging: To Be Determined
Possibility Watching: Guaranteed
What brought down the atmosphere for me wasn’t the anime’s pacing and mood but the unpleasant, cold MC female lead’s talking. Especially when she called the MC male lead disgusting and creepy, she comes off very much kuudere and annoying which bored me.
Hikki’s a more interesting, likable character and while he has a despondent persona, I like that he’s willingly to bulls**t on things but act nice too. When he ate the big breast girl’s cookies, I couldn’t help but smiled that Hikki was still a boy just happy to get something from a girl.
“it annoys me that Hachiman will probably end up with her”
I wouldn’t want Hikki to be with the MC female either but it is a romcom… I think? This anime didn’t came off romcom rather than slice of life but I’ll stick around to see what this anime can do. Oreshura was fanservice but maybe this one can leave me with an interesting MC male lead to follow. As far as big boob girl… she has big boobs. Though, she looks cuter than the childhood friend dead meat from Oreshura.
Hikki (in my opinion) is a breath of fresh air, he’s snarky and sarcastic and it’s great to see a main character who tries to redefine the status quo. He’s likeable. He’s not spineless and his cynicism’s will greatly add to the humor, I feel. When he ate the girls cookie, I was like ‘Good on you, at least you stick to your guns!’.
And again you’re right, the main female lead (Yukino) is definitely Kuudere. I don’t necessarily have a problem with them, but, when they become kuudere to a point where they are annoying, it can become problematic. I can only hope that she’ll give a better impression next episode!