Eva’s First Impression:
Ahhh~ Finally!!!! A new, and original Romantic Comedy! Tada-kun wa Koi wo Shinai immediately caught my eye the moment I read about it being released in the Spring a few months back. And then once the first PV came out, it had me hook instantaneously.
The premiere surprised me in a lot of ways with the simplicity of it, but while it was relatively linear from start to finish, it kept me thoroughly entertained with its humorous and endearing characters.
Our protagonist, Tada Mitsuyoshi has a very quiet presence. He tends to sit back more, let the others do their thing while he takes pictures in the background. He wasn’t entirely comfortable with interacting with a foreigner (Teresa), and tried to dodge her request if he could take her picture for her. The Goddesses of Fate has other things in mind by ensuring he would have to by killing the battery for Teresa’s camera.
And because of his nature, we didn’t actually learn a whole lot about Mitsuyoshi today, but there were still a couple of important clues that have been dropped along the way. He is a photographer, his parents are dead, he and his sister lives with their grandfather, and Mitsuyoshi is scared of heights/planes. And because the writers were adamenant of making the point of how he is scared of planes/heights, it sets the challenge line of what he needs to overcome in the future. But at the same time, I also wonder if perhaps his parents were killed in a height related accident (be it a plane crash or a fall).
Teresa Wagner is an adorable, precious girl who comes from the country of Larsenburg (*Luxembourg), a small country in Europe with beautiful valleys and greenery. Her extravagant way of speaking, her companion’s (Alec) role of serving as her retainer of a sort, constantly reminding her she needs to stop being so careless. Teresa has always dreamed of visiting Japan, and learned most of her Japanese through watching Rainbow Shogun, an old historical drama that she is absolutely obsessed about. (Unfortunately she didn’t quite realize Rainbow Shogun is entirely fiction, so some of the things she’s seeing on the streets are not legit stuff.)
Teresa comes across as an individual who goes wherever the wind takes her. Gets separated from her companion, no worries! Have no money? No problem! Lost and soaked to bone? As long as the cat is dry, she’s good! But it would also be fair to say she is quite a scatterbrain, not thinking twice about wanting to get a closer look at what she thought was the Shogun’s Secret Passage. And has a knack of getting along with cats. I can’t tell you how many times I was thinking, “WHAT IS SHE TRYING TO DO?!”
The funny thing about the two, is how their fates are completely entangled with one another. Not once, not twice, but four times Mitsuyoshi and Teresa encountered each other, all in one day! And now, they are even in the same class at school!
I also was incredibly fond of their first encounter, where Teresa was oblivious to the fact she was continuously photobombing Mitsuyoshi’s shot (eventually he just took the damn picture, and nailed it), forgot to take back her memory card, and just being all around absolutely adorable— eventually it had gotten to the point Mitsuyoshi simply could not in good conscious leave her alone, and brought her back to his grandfather’s shop.
Then we have the rest of the characters that were introduced today, Ijuin, who loves the ladies and shown to be a bit of a narcissist, Yui, who loves to dramatically recites quotes from her favourite author, Yoshiko Yamamura Poiron, and of course Alexandra Magritte, or Alec as Teresa calls her. She is Teresa’s retainer, and also a badass. Unfortunately Ijuin experienced her wrath through a misunderstanding, and was sent flying and got a black eye because of it. And of course Nyanko Big himself, the adorable cat who will turn his claws on Ijuin (poor guy, ahaha). The cat even has a website based on him, “Trepid Big Blog”!
Overall despite a rather “uneventful” start to the story, the premiere was still an enjoyable one that shows us a lot of promise for the future. I really like the character designs, and the OP Theme is very charming! The ED Theme however brings about a totally different mood! Anyhow, I am very excited to see where the story goes! Looking forward to the next episode!
Possibility of Blogging: High
Possibility of Watching: Guaranteed
Thanks for doing the review. I also find this anime quite charming.
Eagerly expecting how the story unfolds… I’ve lots of questions about the heroine: Why did she say a false surname? Why is she in Japan? She learned Japanese viewing that anime, really? [Cue flashback of Nodame Cantabile Paris Hen] And, as she has a bodyguard, is she of a royal family?
On the other hand, I don’t know if you wrote her name that way on purpose, but I was pretty sure she was Teresa until I read your review. Also, wasn’t the name of her country Luxembourg?
I think she said her false surname to not bring about attention of her… special status (I’m pretty sure she’s Royal Family too). She doesn’t necessarily want to draw unwanted attention, such as paparazzi or make it harder for students to approach her.
//On the other hand, I don’t know if you wrote her name that way on purpose, but I was pretty sure she was Teresa until I read your review. Also, wasn’t the name of her country Luxembourg?//
Yes I did. And in the matter of fact, I was quite torn of which variation to go with. I almost decided to include (Luxembourg) beside the name just in case- I should’ve done that, I don’t know why I chose not to (I’m going to put it in now). The subtitles I was using spelt it as “Larsenburg”, while MAL and other places listed it as the “Luxembourg“, so I’m not entirely sure why the subs decided to go with that. Same goes for how “Terasa” > “Teresa”, and “Alec” would usually be spelt as Alex. I wanted to see whether or not the subs would be adjusted in next week’s episode and hear people’s feedback on which one I should really be using. By the sound of it, I probably should use the proper spellings after-all.
EDIT: For the time being, I have made the adjustments, since it sounds like I am the odd one of the bunch ahahaha!😅
My guess is she’s royalty, and that’s why they used the fake brand name for the country, since the royals of Luxembourg are, well, real people.
The hints are all there. She gave a false surname, seems not very used to commoner life, has a friend who suspiciously looks and acts like a bodyguard and even calls her using the suffix -sama, usually reserved for very high standing people, and was supposed to reside in some kind of high string hotel/mansion (but ended up by mistake in an average one). Also, let’s face it, her looks scream “princess” from one mile afar. She’s practically the copy-paste of Asseylum from Aldnoah.Zero.