(13 episodes)
What’s it about ?
Adaptation of a series of light novels parodying dating sim clichés.
(Apparently the official nickname for the series is “Gaworare”, following the Haganai model of nonsensical abbreviations that avoid any of the title’s keywords.)
Characters
Souta, our male lead. He’s afflicted with the ability to see “flags” above people’s heads : death flags, friendship flags, love flags, etc. They notify him of these people’s potential futures ; he goes out of his way to break all of them. Now, that makes sense for death flags, but his self-inflicted solitude reeks of a martyr complex.
Nanami, a girl in his class (who happens to be part of the royal family of a poor kingdom, but she doesn’t like to talk about it), is our actual viewpoint character throughout the episode. Because she’s nosy as heck, she quickly notices his strange behaviour and demands explanations, which he eventually gives. She calls him on his bullshit for avoiding any kind of friendship or love, and obviously can’t stop being fascinated by the weirdo.
Akane, a very rich girl who wants to become friends with Souta, and won’t take no for an answer. Nice visual gag with the friendship flags who keep sprouting faster than he can break them. (Has Ai Kayano swallowed a helium tank for this role ? Because seriously.)
Given what we see in the OP and ED sequences, tons of other girls are going to throw themselves at him.
Production Values
Thoroughly average, although it does get some decent visual gags out of the “flag” concept.
Overall Impression
The obvious comparison point here is NouCome, another light novel adaptation that poked fun at dating sims. The good news is that it’s a lot less obnoxious, letting the characters some room to breathe, and taking a relatively deadpan approach to the premise. The bad news is that it isn’t that funny, and the characters can’t avoid the shallowness required by the plot.
It’s watchable and mildly funny, but it’s going to have to step up its game if it wants to keep me.
