(12 episodes)
What’s it about ?
Adaptation of a romance shoujo manga.
Characters
Futaba, our heroine. She used to be quite cute and shy ; unfortunately, that brought on her the scorn and jealousy of the other girls in her class, who made her life miserable. So she reinvented herself as she entered high school : she’s now a frumpy mess who goes out of her way not to attract boys’ attention. But hey, she’s got friends now !
Said friends turn out to be shallow bullies who merely found somebody else to target in their class. It’s thus not too surprising for them to be absent of the “main cast of friends” shown in the ED sequence ; a breakup between Futaba and them seems imminent.
Tanaka was a small and a bit feminine boy that Futaba liked in middle school. He disappeared just as they were starting to go out ; suddenly moving out of town without warning. It’s all but said his parents had a nasty divorce ; he’s now a tall and sullen guy who’s going by the surname of Mabuchi. Also, he feels slightly insulted that Futaba took months to notice he was back. Sure, he’s changed quite a lot, but so has she, and he recognized her immediately.
What’s interesting is that Mabuchi keeps saying that they can’t go back to their old romance ; they’ve both changed too much, and can’t turn back the clock. What he doesn’t say is that he doesn’t like her anymore ; that’s how she interprets it, but he clearly still cares. Presumably he just doesn’t want to live in the past, and any relationship between them should take into account how they’ve both evolved. But Futaba isn’t getting the hint. Yet.
Production Values
Watercolours and shoujo character designs, of course. Perfectly okay, as it conveys emotions well.
Overall Impression
This starts a bit slow, but it gets much more interesting after the timeskip. Futaba’s reinvention is fascinating, and the interplay with her toxic friends makes me cringe (in a good way). And the central conflict is certainly more interesting than your standard romance plot.
Okay, show, you’ve got my attention. Let’s see where you’re going with this.
