Tada-kun wa Koi wo Shinai

While Wotakoi mostly focused on the comedy aspect of rom-com, Tadakoi's focus lay more on the romance aspect. Obviously it isn't just a romance, it definitely had some amusing moments early on while they were laying the groundwork for the more heavy drama laden romantic chase in the waning episodes. It almost feels unfair to compare the two shows as I have been doing with them both, but it's just so difficult for me not to. I watched them on the same day, back-to-back for eleven weeks straight. They're the same genre, but each with different focal points and strengths, which made me appreciate whatboth Wotakoi and Tadakoi did differently, and in some cases, better than each other. I mentioned it in my Wotakoi review, but I'd watch Tadakoi for the dramatic romance first, then switch to Wotakoi for the lighthearted comedy. They were perfect foils for my Thursdays. But now, to dive deeper into the nuances of Tadakoi. Among the multitudes of things that Tadakoi did correctly, I think their biggest win lies in the characters. They did such a good job getting you to care about them and learn their quirky personalities, each of which was hiding some deeper insecurity that was, unfortunately, not touched on for some of the less important characters due to lack of time. By episodes five, I felt that I had a pretty good connection with all of the characters on the screen and, if not for the lack of episodes, I feel like each could have gone through extremely satisfying arcs. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about the few episodes, in the end it didn't matter that much, the show was always about Mitsuyoshi and Theresa. I feel like too much of a focus on the supporting cast would have taken away from the impact of the main love story, which dominates the remaining episodes and doesn't disappoint with its twists and turns. In fact, I felt as if I was right there with Mitsuyoshi, getting slowly drawn in by this strange, quirky foreign girl. Yes, I got so invested that I even teared up when Mitsuyoshi's version of the ending came on in episode eleven and I think that speaks volumes as to my feelings on the show. The other thing that really stands out when I look at Tadakoi, are the general expectations laid upon it. Everyone, including me, thought that it was going to be completely generic after three or so episodes. And from that outlook, it definitely seemed like it would be. But it did such a great job at subverting those expectations. I, like so many others, thought we'd get that classic "everyone's ship sails, except for that one asshole who gets in the way of the main couple". But everything about that sentence was wrong when you compare that to Tadakoi. Only one ship really sails, and the others are somewhat hinted, but never confirmed. Probably best of all, the romantic rival isn't the classic jerk who doesn't really love the girl, hates the protagonist, etc. Charles was legitimately a great guy, and it made him an even better character in the grand scheme of things. That was such a refreshing take on the trope, that I just had to find time to mention it here. Those are just a couple of things that I love about Tadakoi and there's so much more to rave about, but that would take up far too much time. Before I conclude, I just have to comment on my favorite part of the show, which is the ending song. I love that song. It's among one of my favorite endings of all time, though it's personally in tight competition with Alternative GGO's ending song for ED of the season. If I had to come up with any complaints with Tadakoi, I'd have to say that my biggest gripe is the fact that they opened so many story lines with no intention of ever finishing them. Maybe I'm incorrect with that and we'll get a spinoff or OVA that ties up many of the loose ends regarding the supporting cast, who kind of get the shaft for the latter half of the show. Not a bad thing, in my opinion, but I can see why it'd be a negative for some. There may be a little too much melodrama for my liking too, but I sort of feel like it was all necessary, to drive Mitsuyoshi forward. Despite those little gripes, I adore this little love story. It was self-contained and did enough to set it apart from other romances for me. I won't be knee jerk and say that it's my favorite romance of all time, or even rom-com, but it comes damn close in certain aspects. Dare I even say that I liked it more than Wotakoi overall? My score certainly reflects that. And, while I may have scored it a little higher than many would say is deserving, I have to say that it does deserve it for all the enjoyment it gave me for thirteen weeks. In fact, Tadakoi may just be my anime of the season.

Tada Never Falls in Love is like a colorful bouquet of plastic flowers. From a distance, you might mistake it for the real thing. But upon closer inspection, you'll find it's merely a lifeless imitation. Factory produced from the most generic mold, identical to its fellow flowers rolling off the conveyor belt alongside it. Undeniably crafted with talent, Tadakoi offers refined background art and detailed character animation in place of quality writing. While the show had the potential to be good with its solid audiovisuals, they are entirely wasted on generic characters and a poorly written story. The story follows the titular Mitsuyoshi Tada, an uncharismatic photographerwhose tough past has prevented him from ever knowing love. Through a chance encounter, he meets an enthusiastic foreigner, Teresa. She acts overly excited, running around trying to hop fences and expressing crazy interest in a Samurai TV series, which seems to have given her some wrong impressions about Japan. All of it is played to comedic effect. It's fun and lighthearted despite being unrealistic, with her voice actress's upbeat performance selling her personality well. Then, through another chance encounter, she ends up being stuck in the rain protecting a stray cat and splashed from all directions by water like the universe is punishing her for being nice. But to her rescue comes the lethargic Tada with an umbrella and an invitation to go to his family-owned cafe. The cafe is lushly ornamented and has warm lighting to contrast the gray rainstorm, a cozy atmosphere. Teresa compares what she believes is Tada's heroism to the samurai she idolizes in her favorite show, and that's how she falls in love. She meets his family, has a meal, changes into dry clothes, thanks Tada, then heads home to the house she just moved into… which happens to be right next door. Tada and Teresa's relationship feels contrived and hard to believe from the moment they first meet. An unbelievable amount of plot conveniences bring them together. It feels less like their relationship develops organically and more like a writer forces them together. The show attempts to play off the cliched intro as a joke, but it's still lazy writing no matter how much you laugh about it. Aside from these contrivances, the leads don't have much chemistry with one another for most of the show. Often times it feels as though Tada's writing bends backward to Fall in Love; his character and relationship with Teresa never feel believable enough to be the foundation for the series. He's unrealistically oblivious to Teresa's pining over him until the plot decides it's the right time for them to finally acknowledge their feelings. Obliviousness for the sake of stalling the story is lazy writing and does not make good characters. It's contrived to create a compelling resolution, making Tada difficult to look at as anything but a plot device for most of the show. No analysis of his personality wouldn't lead to frustration. Occasionally the show lampshades his emotional unawareness with the fact that his parents were killed in a car crash when he was younger, but we never see him from a personal enough perspective to understand why he became closed off or to what degree it affects him in the present. Why does it feel like these days, more and more anime mistake emotionally-damaged characters for brain-damaged ones? In one of the show's best and funniest episodes, narrated by Tada's cat Nyanko Big (a far more interesting character), the two protagonists share a sensitive moment that seemed like something out of a much better series. However, this is Tada-kun we're dealing with, so there's practically no introspection; when Teresa catches Nyanko Big from a tree and falls back onto Tada, only for him to catch her, it's a perfectly timed moment of silence between the two, yet it has almost no impact. While that moment showcases Teresa's understated burgeoning love for Tada, it never feels like a mutual romance. When they make eye contact in a seemingly mutually tender moment, there is no sign anything is on Tada's mind. He's totally vacant. There's never a hint that he might be in love outside of these moments where he might blush a little and only return to ordinary moments later, unphased. Any potential for development is squashed. There is no satisfying growth for him. When the ending inevitably has to wrap up the story in a 'satisfying' way, his character arc takes a jarringly rapid change to compensate for the missing development. Leaving both him and the finale feeling underserved and artificial. At least Teresa's feelings for Tada feel somewhat genuine. The lasting effects of their understated flirtations are seen in Teresa throughout the show. Her feelings develop more and more until she has to face them in a somewhat effective resolution. Sadly, any potentially remarkable scenes focusing on Teresa get entirely snuffed out by Tada's dull idiocy, but they're also somewhat helped by the interesting visual language. Through subtle visual storytelling techniques, we learn that she's pining for him from the start; over the show, we see brief moments of her lost in thought, looking at him with starry eyes. It's not a one-dimensional drama like Tada's; she gets enough scenes describing her life situation for us to know that she is constantly considering the arranged marriage she's in and how it ensures that she could never have a relationship with Tada. Her dilemma is miles more compelling than anything else the series offers emotionally, thanks to the strong directing rather than the writing. Plenty of care has been put into the visuals. There's no shortage of small but purposeful details added to the settings the cast inhabits; homes lined with photos of memories from previous episodes or ones that refer to their backstories. Is it enough to outweigh the mediocre characterization? No, not by a long shot, but at least it's something to keep you engaged with it and tells you that the director cared about their craft. Where the visuals are more effective is the comedy. With the director of Monthly Girl's Nozaki-kun, it's clear why the comedy here is so strong; jokes are well-timed, and there's so much character animation to telegraph a joke and convey the cast's personalities. Of course, when jokes are derived from bland characters, they almost always fall flat. Where the majority of my gripes come in is the side cast. This is a rom-com, after all, so there are quite a few. None of them make up for what the protagonists lack. A few even bring the whole show down. Most of them are incredibly generic one-note cardboard cutouts, the ones that do receive development are somehow made even worse with insufferable episodes dedicated to telling us the boring story of characters that I can't imagine anyone would care about. Teresa's friend/servant traveled with her to Japan, Alec. Her whole character is just the tough girl who is overprotective of Teresa because a few shallow reasons told us through a backstory. She often beats up the group's clown, a generic clown kid whose name I literally can't remember. His only purpose was comic relief, and his animation was the most detailed of the group to showcase his comedic personality, but in truth, everything about him felt so cringy, with an overdone voice performance to add even more annoyance. A few others hang around the group, like Tada's sister and occasionally the prince who is engaged to Teresa. I somewhat appreciated how Teresa's suitor wasn't portrayed as an evil threat like many tropey arranged marriage stories, but instead as a nice guy who respects her wishes. However, his passivity also makes him have no impact on the story. He's surprisingly forgettable for one of the more unusual archetypes, but the show wastes all his on-screen presence, leaving him a bland cipher like the rest of the recurring cast. Hajime, more commonly known as Pin-senpai, is undoubtedly the worst part of the show by a wide margin. Introduced by him creepily ogling the female cast to ascertain their breast sizes, defusing the saccharine factor this series was going for whenever he appears on-screen. He is never content with fading into the background while on-screen with everyone else. He's constantly yelling, so much yelling with such an irritating voice. He has to scream as loudly as possible whenever he speaks. Having an obnoxious character like Pin is fine for a comedy series of this type, but what he screams about, no, what his whole character is about, is so pointless and weird, sometimes downright creepy. He adores a model, Hina, to an absurd degree because he loves big boobs… You can have a perverted character, that's fine, but he is over-exaggerated to an obnoxious and unbelievable degree. None of his jokes are funny unless it's other characters making fun of him, like how they used Hina merchandise to trick him into losing their photography club game. Pin's character arc seemed less than an excuse for him to seem less like an annoying walking cliche, and it fell flat. Sadly, the show gives him an entire episode to show he had some compassion. His character had potential, with his childhood friend Hinako (notice the name??), who is very clearly the model from the moment she's introduced right next to the pinup poster. Throughout the show, there are plenty of hints to indicate she's in love with him, despite him not realizing the model he ogles every day is actually his friend. Hinako looks the same as she does in her bikini shoots, except that she wears glasses. It's such a stupid conflict that the show lampshades the lazy writing by having Alec point out that it's obvious. This stupid conflict damages the believability of both Pin and Hinako because other than the cookie-cutter personalities, they have nothing else to prove their unlikable stories aren't all there is to them. Wow, great themes, Tadakoi. Their episode is the most boring because of how one-dimensional the situation and characters are, but also one of the most distasteful ones. Their relationship arc culminates in Hinako being disappointed at how Pinhead never realized she was the model, but she's happy that he at least likes her idol personality and her boobs. I guess you could say Hinako technically had character development. She discovered her fetish for cucking herself. Amazing. But Pinhead still has no redeeming value even after we're forced to sit through his 'development' episode. Screw that guy. Barely anything happens in Tadakoi until the final few episodes. That's when it finally decides there must be some kind of progress made before the end. Regardless of the artificial developments made by the end, it's always predictable; from episode one, you can guess how the story will play out. Perhaps with more interesting characters, it could have been watchable despite these flaws, but instead, it's just aggressively bland. No amount of lush sceneries and trained directing could save dull, lazy writing. At least the opening song is pretty good. Tadakoi is the variety of mediocrity that will pass through the anime community with no impact, then inevitably be forgotten forever. You might get something out of it if you're a fan of the director or new to anime. Otherwise, I suggest you skip this generic fluff.

It starts off as a masterpiece but drops to being a good anime and apparently you give that a 5 to show off how awesome and pro you are . The story is neither original nor cliche but then again it's a slice of life and if your'e watching it that means you like that kinda stuff. Then again it does make you fall in love with the characters which I must say were really well created and to be honest when your eyes catch this awesome art and animation with the perfect soundtrack and background music accompanying them it gets a bit hard not tolove the anime even though it has some shortcomings esp. later in.

A romantic anime this season? Hmm.... never been a huge fan of the romance genre, but sure I'll give it a go. Whoa, Tada-kun is surprisingly good for a romance anime. I like it. It's a different type of romance, but one which I end up liking. Story: Tada-kun is about a Japanese guy, Tada Mitsuyoshi, falling in love with a gaijin, Teresa Wagner, who's actually a Princess from Lux... I mean Larsenburg :v. The story is quite interesting, because they develop the romantic relationship very well. Teresa was the one who liked Tada at first of course, when their eyes first met :v, butthen as they get to know each other more, Tada eventually falls in love with her too! Not to forget the fantastic friends they have who's always supporting then. Ijuuin, Tada's best friend, Yui, Tada's younger sister, Alexandra aka Alec, Teresa's best friend and guardian, and of course, Charles, Teresa's supposed husband-to-be. The ending is.... rather cliche, because Tada ends up with Teresa and not the other way around(as always with romance anime), which I don't exactly like. I mean, usually in a love triangle yo'd expect the 2 guys to fight for the girl but not in Tada-kun. Charles let Teresa go to Tada, which is quite disappointing, I was expecting a fight to the death between Tada and Charles(although that'd be very ugly) What I really like about the story is how they manage to fuse romance and comedy and turning Tada-kun into a Romcom anime, which is pretty entertaining, to say the least. Ah, last but not least, RAINBOW SHOGUN!!! Rating: 8.9/10 Animation: The animation is excellent for Tada-kun, the way the scenery and facial expressions are animated. You can tell the producers put in a lot of effort to make the animation look good. Rating: 8.8/10 Music/Sound: Probably the most catchy opening this season. And the ost, light-hearted. Rating: 8.2/10 Characters: I love the way the producers approached character development for this anime. At first, Tada is portrayed as a rather quiet, introverted person with Teresa being the extroverted, happy-go-lucky person who always smiles. But then, as the two of them get to know each other better, Tada-kun starts to open up to Teresa, even sharing his very personal feelings about his past. Now that, is very interesting. Oh and dont forget Tada's best pal Ijuuin who's always supporting Tada to the end, even going so far as to follow Tada all the way to Lux... Larsenburg. And Alec too, being the support pillar of Teresa during Teresa's saddest moments and Charles, the very kind and friendly person who only wants Teresa to be happy. To me he's the MVP of the anime, because he gave up his love for Teresa in order for Teresa to pursue her love, Tada. That, is a very manly thing to do. Rating: 9.3/10 In conclusion, Tada-kun is a very good romcom for all the romcom anime fans. Definitely recommend watching it! The criticism that I can give is that, the ending is too cliche and uninteresting, I mean, would not 2 guys fight over 1 girl?! Final rating: 8.8/10

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