Hello and welcome back to another review. I will keep this review brief as I do not have too much to say about it.
For longer than he’d care to admit, Sota Aoki has had a crush on his classmate Mio Hashimoto. Sitting next to her in class every day, Aoki wishes he could find a way to tell her how he feels, but something keeps holding him back. Despite being unable to confess his feelings, he’s at least able to talk to her about other, simpler things. He’s even occasionally borrowed school supplies from her, which is why he didn’t think twice about asking to borrow an eraser from her when he found himself needing one during class one day.
Noticing Hashimoto had written something on the eraser he’d borrowed, Aoki is devastated to find that she had written the name of another classmate, “Ida-kun”. Much to his horror, the very same Kousuke Ida, picks up the eraser after Aoki drops it and hands it back to Aoki, noticing his name on the eraser.
With Ida now convinced Aoki has a crush on him and Hashimoto wanting nothing more from him than their casual friendship, Aoki has no idea what to do next. Will he be able to clear up this misunderstanding with Ida, or will he find that fate has other plans?
– Edited from Viki
This was a fun show to watch. It reminded me how pure, sweet, wholesome, awkward and completely overwhelming first love and first relationships can be. But it also reminded me how silly and immature teenagers are and the stupid decisions they make because of that. And I mean that in the nicest way possible lol.
Even though this show remained light-hearted, I like that it did not shy away from the more serious topic of discrimination due to sexuality. It addressed it in a way that showed the weight of it (although not going too deep to be painful to watch) instead of sweeping it under the rug and ignoring it. And I love that the writers made the teen characters in this story brave enough to address it themselves.
Something I did not like was the constant miscommunication though. Good grief there was SO MUCH! Absolutely everyone refused to say what they actually meant and were constantly jumping to conclusions and it really started to get on my nerves. The miscommunication trope is one that always annoys me because it always feels like lazy writing. Almost always, issues could be resolved in a matter of seconds if the characters would just freaking speak to each other. But instead, they withhold information and then jump to conclusions. It’s annoying. I hate this in real life too. Communicating is really not that hard and I’ve never understood why people struggle with it so badly. And this is coming from someone who gets anxiety very easily.
I also feel like the actor that played Aoki over-acted at times. But that’s just my opinion as I am still not used to the exaggerated way Japanese actors act in live-action adaptations of manga. This style of acting is just not my cup of tea. I’m fine with it in an anime because it’s a cartoon, and I love seeing the exaggerated drawings in manga. But in live-action, I just can’t get with it.
The side characters were all great and made the cast feel well-rounded. I absolutely loved how supportive all the friends were of each other in pursuing their individual relationships. There is a sorta/kinda side couple situation going on that was also very cute and sometimes funny. If they were to ever get a spinoff series of some sort, I would be interested in watching it.
The music was also fun and catchy in this series as well. I believe the two main songs were performed by the actors who played the two main characters, Aoki and Ida.
Overall, this was a fun watch and I got some good laughs out of it. I don’t see myself watching it again any time soon, but I definitely recommend it if you are looking for something light-hearted and sweet.
Follow me on the interwebs:
