Romantic Killer

Romantic Killer is quite a nice crazy romantic comedy, although... There's plenty of humor, but the jokes walk a fine line between funny and dumb, and I can't decide which prevails. Some of the ideas and the way the series pokes fun at classic romcom clichés are quite hilarious and entertaining. Then again, the series itself can't avoid many of the clichés, so it’s sometimes pleasantly surprising, while other times it’s incredibly transparent and a viewer familiar with Japanese anime will know exactly what's next to come. In the more serious passages, the writers explore a lot of interesting issues and handle them in a very satisfying way, so I enjoyed the finale quite a bit. However, some of the characters and their actions sometimes strike me as silly, and not exactly believable. The series also has romance, which is ever-present given the premise, but any actual romantic moments that would create tension or drive the story forward are few and far between. Sure, it’s intentional, and it makes sense, but it turns a romantic series into yet another advertisement for friendship, which is a bit disappointing. Almost every major character has a personality trait that makes me like them, but also something that managed to annoy me over time. The regular animation was rather mediocre, but I appreciate the variety of traditional comedic animation devices the writers used and the wide range of the main character's goofy expressions. I also liked the fact that the cheesy 3D CGI animation used for the imaginary dating game (which I noticed already in the trailer) was actually bad on purpose. So, Romantic Killer is quite a nice crazy romantic comedy, that I passed a day with, had some good laughs, and which even gave me some food for thought, but unfortunately it wasn't a strong enough experience for me to rate it a 4*. Anyway, whoever manages to have a shot each time  someone says "ikemen" including the ending and documents the whole thing, gets a bottle of their choice from me...6.4/10 (27.10.2022)