Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Comedy wa Machigatteiru Review — C

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Another love comedy, as it says in the title. The twist: the main character actually has a personality, and likes to play the villain.

So this started out like a lot of other shows: a volunteer club listens to students’ requests, and the club members who have no friends become friends. Where this show is interesting is in the fact that the main character does everything wrong. Little girl can’t make any friends? He threatens her classmates and makes them piss their pants so they’ll band together. Wants to win at the school festival? He cheats. He cares about other people, but his solutions tend to make everyone happy except himself. The “villain” (if anyone can be called the villain) is this one guy who is genuinely nice. The main character finds him disgusting. For more details on how the show takes the school love comedy format and exploits it, check out this excellent post.

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It’s not the greatest show, by any stretch of the imagination. For the most part it’s pretty generic school life hijinks. The ice queen, the nice girl, the trap, the crazed friend, school festivals and the like are all present. But the one big twist on the usual format makes it worth watching.

  • Storytelling – C – Takes the usual format and transforms it. Still has most of the flaws of the original, however.
  • Voice – D – Feels very generic, aside from the big twist.
  • Characters – B – Good characterizations, particularly of the male lead.
  • Attention Grab – C – I got a bit bored in a few of the arcs. For the most part it kept my attention though.
  • Production – B – Looks fine.
  • Overall – C

Recommendations – Kokoro Connect, OreShura

8 thoughts on “Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Comedy wa Machigatteiru Review — C

  1. I love OreGairu with every fibre of my being, but in the end, I still agree with this review. It is a generic LN romcom, just wrapped up in different colours. I actually think Hachiman himself wouldn’t even like this anime if it was showed to him. He’d probably say, “Every romcom includes some BIG TWIST to point out in the promotional material, but that doesn’t make them original.” I think this is the ultimate irony of the show.

  2. What I don’t like is, there isn’t even a conclusion. In the first 4 episode, I was thinking, “Bah, this anime is too episodic, just like Doraemon.” Later, that opinion changed because there’s a bit more chemistry between Hachiman and his two girls. But in the end, it really is just an episodic anime. They went through school festival. They went through athletic meet. And it ends there. What happened to the main characters? They went back into sitting serenely in that empty classroom.
    >_>

    1. I think that’s the only way this show could end. Despite everything, none of the characters really grew at all. Hachiman is his same cynical self. It takes the recipe of getting a high school club that becomes friends, and twists it so that they stay mostly the same.

  3. I think this has been one of the better series this spring. I’d probably have rated it B. I loved Hachiman’s analysis of the social interactions; much truth in this imo! Also, the main characters were quite interesting for the most part:
    Agreed, I would have wished for Hachiman to open up and change somewhat over the course of the series, too. The way he dealt with Sagami (the organization commitee president) in ep. 11 was harsh and completely uncalled for. But usually he stood up for his friends. His unjust dislike for the “villain” is just envy; it’s not nice but totally realistic. Unfortunately Hashiman doesn’t realize that he’s no longer the lone wolf he likes to see himself as. I love his cynicism, though.
    Yui is a bit of wasted potential imo. At first I thought, please not the annoying third wheel again. But I pretty much liked episode 2 and how it turned out she had pretty much zero self confidence and humiliated herself to be friends with the blonde girl’s gang. She could have been like Natsume in Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun whom I liked very much. Unfortunately she turned into pretty much of a stock character later on.
    Yuigahama wasn’t developed properly, either. Perhaps I missed something but at first (in ep 08) it seemed she had some trouble at home and later on it turned out she just had an annoying older sister. In any case, I liked her looks!

    1. His cynicism is great. Very realistic analyses too, if extremely pessimistic.

      Agreed with respect to Yui. She started out pretty interesting when she was trying to fit in, but didn’t serve much purpose aside from generic love rival in the second half.

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