Džaku-chara Tomozaki-kun - Season 1

I found that the psychological and sociological aspects of this anime series were its greatest strengths rather than the comedy or romantic elements. The fact that this show offers some help to isolated and withdrawn people, those who feel insecure and have poor social skills, can be taken as a really positive thing. Some of the advice, such as how to conduct a conversation in a social context, and how to behave in certain stressful situations, how to lighten the conversation, and how to approach people with different personalities can be generally applied, and I can confirm from my own experience that they work. So if you are not so confident with others, then this anime series might give you some useful tips and tricks for negotiating tricky social interactions. As far as the psychological aspect is concerned, none of the characters are portrayed as perfect (and that is a good thing). Slight SPOILERS. There is the withdrawn Tomozaki who has a major problem with a lack of self-confidence and is also uninterested in the world around him (everything is grey and life is just a trash game). Then we have Hinami, who hides behind her mask of being perfect at everything, and thinks her would-be perfect reality and dreams are always slipping through her fingers, so she has no enjoyment and happiness in life. At first, I had a big problem, it was right at the beginning when during the first confrontation between Hinami and Tomozaki where she literally shoved what she thought of him down his throat, but he just took it in his stride, and agreed to play her game without any real payback. I think that self-confidence is really important, and a person with healthy self-esteem would have just told her to go to hell. After all, in my opinion, the most important thing is that I am happy being myself, so you have no right to fuck with me! However, Tomozaki lacked any self-esteem, and he was not happy with himself, so okay, I got it eventually after a while. The next thing could generally be summed up if this anime series was renamed "How to be Normie - the Animation", where I thought OK you have a right to your opinions but this all goes against my personal and generally accepted view that there is usually nothing wrong with the way we are (unless we suffer from some significant or dangerous disorder) and if we are happy with ourselves, then society should accept us as such, and if it does not, then we have to have the right to justify and defend ourselves. However, after saying that, these lessons obviously help Tomozaki. Logically - he is improving his social skills necessary for life, which leads to an increase in self-confidence, awareness of the world around him, and suddenly he is being more like himself, and others are starting to respect him. Oh, and eventually this anime series starts to address what Hinami is like as well, and I was glad that this girl that was a slightly arrogant know-all for my taste finally gets a reality check. So a pretense, no matter how good it is, is an illusion that anyone can see through and not everyone will like. People appreciate honesty, for some reason they can appreciate your real opinions, goals, and dreams if you can talk about them with passion. They are even going to take criticism if they sense it is not meant in a bad way, and they prefer open and readable people to calculated ones hiding their true selves. I even liked the scene in the last episode where the situation from the first one is reversed, and this time Tomozaki gives his opinion of Hinami, based on what he has learned, with Hinami responding to him in an interesting and much better way. Resolving a major dispute by talking things out and coming to a compromise is the basis of a well-functioning and cultured society. However, some people hated the last episode, found it incredibly long-winded, and thought all the main protagonist’s guff about his feelings and internal struggles were boring and quite irritating. Based on this, we can conclude that this anime series will definitely not be to everyone’s tastes, and if you are confident, untroubled, and do not enjoy getting into the characters too deeply regarding their thoughts and development, then just look away! Aside from the main couple, there are a few supporting characters that also have their own pretty big problems. There is one girl whose biggest problem is her self-confidence, who is just living in another girl's shadow and trying to break free of it. There are also, shall we say, much shallower versions of the main protagonist, where their problem is more or less the same, although it is not as dramatic. There are a couple who cannot sort out their feelings, yet somehow all their problems are still resolved, sometimes satisfactorily and definitively, sometimes less so, or not at all, and the more someone like me watches it, the more intriguing they find the psychological aspect. End of SPOILERS So, in the end, this anime series completely won me over, and I got its message, I appreciated its ideas and its realism, and especially the last episode, which put this puzzle together nicely for me (no matter how long-winded it was), so in the end I am awarding a commendable 7.4/10. (04.07.2023) (mniej) (więcej)