2025.6.14
(On Danjo no Yuujou wa Seiritsu suru? (Iya, Shinai!!))
After the latest episode, I had an epiphany:
Whoever's behind this work has attempted an Oregairu on us.
And what do you know, over the years I've grown to hate the Oregairu-type plot with a burning passion.
If you didn't know what Oregairu is, its full name is "Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Comedy wa Machigatteiru", and it's a (now finished) long-running show that has multiple seasons with the final season ended a few years ago. I *do* recommend you to watch Oregairu, however, because it *do* give you the most basic amount of enjoyment from time to time, and despite the core motif of its later part (as well as certain characters in the show; if you know you know) gradually gears toward being painful to watch, it do be a slow-burn process (which smooths out some rough patches in terms of sentiment), and it do have a half-acceptable resolution.
The show in question, unfortunately, has barely any of that.
The title itself is already a disaster of its own, but judging a title isn't really fair, so we'll put that aside. In short, the premise is bad and really doesn't make any sense (unless it is actually based on real-life events; but then again that would only mean the real-life it's based on barely makes any sense too). The story overall is mid at best, with the amount of development less than your typical highschool romance. The characters are also very bland: for the two girls, if you remove the part of their background setting that's majorly related to the male protagonist, you'd barely have any background setting left; this is not completely unsalvagable if the author is given the chance (either by themselves and whoever's at that kind of position) to fully develop the remaining part, but I personally didn't see much of that in the anime.
Towards the end of the season there was an attempt of introducing a new arc with an antagonist onee-san character and the "co-dependency vs. true love" trope (now you see why I have to mention Oregairu in the beginning); this trope, especially the one between two teenagers, is an easy option for aspiring light novel writers and/or manga artists attempting their first long story because we all had been a good-for-nothing brat at some point, but it is unfortunately also *very* easy to overcook it and turn it into a boring edge-fest; it's not a tool you can use willy-nilly and expect it would magically raise a mid story to a not-so-mid level; the way this is done in this show unfortunately makes the whole thing feel very forced. I haven't read the light novel and I know nothing about the author, but I would say (provided that the anime is being faithful) this is an acceptable debut work and an acceptable debut work only; should the author write more in the future I would expect improvements.
That being said, I *would* watch the remaining episode in the mean time; with how the plot has been developed till now, it's only going to be either mid or edgy; either way, whatever remains is probably only going to be sense of relief instead of satisfaction.