Koi to jobu ni wa kimoči warui

Can persistent romantic conquest in X number of ways bear the desired fruit (except pineapples on pizza) and love? Koikimo will try to show and prove that it's not impossible, even if the age difference between the actors pushes the boundaries of social acceptance. Our cup is overflowing with the age-gap theme and I'm not against it in any way, it just needs caution, as clumsy handling would result in the worst possible audience reception. If there's anything Koikimo fails at that in my eyes that really bothers me, it's the repulsive character of the all-powerful Jesus-kuns and the boundless stalking. The two come together in the main character of the mildly narcissistic Ryo, who the freaking series unabashedly criticizes in a rather cheap and mechanical way from the very beginning. He reminded me of a similarly uncomfortable Takumi Usui from Maid Sama!, but unlike that yucky slimeball, Ryo was pleasantly aware, socially sophisticated, and sycophancy was non-existent in his vocabulary, so despite his insufferable intrusiveness, I was able to turn a blind eye to him. The disproportionate reaction to his behavior was saved by his coveted teenage Ichika, who overcomes him with a healthy dose of flamboyant innocence and stubbornness, leaving the pieces in constant civilized check. Koikimo is, after all, incredibly consistent, with all the pros and cons that entails. From the first minutes, the dice are rolled, the playing field is firmly set, and the anime never, ever tries to screw the viewer over. On the flip side, from the opposite angle, the plot never encounters even a single bump in the road, the characters don't engage in any deviousness, and so after the first episode, the bookies couldn't even calculate the odds on how it all turns out because it's so unhappily obvious. I can't even say I laughed uproariously, but a couple of cute gags satisfied me, and every now and then I found myself longingly lifting my tonsils or, conversely, stroking a more sentimental heart. Ultimately, the biggest plus of the whole piece is that I never felt insulted or demeaned as a viewer and I found the script surprisingly intelligent and charming (though the ending classically began to have hints of minor nonsensical decisions). The characters and their relationships don't overdo it and play 100% fair; did I really not find even a single more awkward moment? Wow! I have minor admiration for the mediocre character design and deteriorating animation around episode 10, but you couldn't expect any miracles from the smaller studio Nomad. Koikimo is far from brilliant and it hardly discovers America; a more thematically conservative audience might well take offense at it, but I never found myself in the drop waters and I’m walking away moderately satisfied. A very close and highly subjective 4 stars, because it's not disgusting to call this a decent anime. (19.10.2021)

The first two or three episodes were great, fun, it went by nicely. But then it slipped into the old classic and it wasn't as interesting to me. Suddenly it lost the specialness for me that drew me to this anime. Sure enough, it was still an enjoyable show, innocent and gripping. And yet the animation was really terrible; I didn't like the character designs and the way they tried to move the scene around at all costs, the backgrounds to make it like NPCs from Vice City were walking around... I think it was unnecessary and spoiled the impression. Static backgrounds are fine in Shōjo stuff, at least they don't steal the spotlight from the drama happening to the characters. In terms of the characters, they were fine, not everyone was original, but they worked together pretty well, their chemistry was ok and no one was over the top. But because I expected and wanted more comedy from this... Just a three, not a touch more. (05.07.2021)