"The Embodiment of stupidity and idolization", "How to make OP isekai MCs look like properly written characters, "How to fail at the romance genre", "How to fail at the drama genre", "How to fail at time traveling", honestly you can call this anime many things but Good. Bokutachi no remake is the most souless anime i ever watched in my life. An anime about robots (Casshern Sins) manages to feel more humanized than this. Bokutachi no remake is an anime about a dude that gets a second chance to live his past and take another decision so he could change his life, yes it's those generic typesof time traveling animes. Funny enough the first episode manages to make you somewhat interested in the anime, but then you ask "what's so bad about it" well lemme explain through MAL rating system.
Story: Starts showing Kyouya as a hardworker otaku that did a bad career choice but get's a second chance at working at his "dream career", and yes we haven't even reached the time travel part yet, he then properly does his job at a game industry even overworking himself to try to guarantee his chance of being accepted (it was a intership), but sadly the project fails because of reasons outside of his reach, and he gets fired, now enters the time traveling, he went back 10 years so he could do the right career choice and this is where the Good Bokutachi (episode 1) starts to fade away for the awful bokutachi (episodes from 3 to 12), even tho he changed his university choice, it doesn't even feel like it, kyouya can easily solve any challenge that's presented to him, but you could ask "well he has 10 years of experience makes sense" except that it doesn't, because it was never shown that kyouya had experience dealing with thoses challenges, it only shows like twice him using future knowledge to help with decision making and it never uses his degree on economic university as a advantage for his decisions, only showed that he's a hardworked, and he doesn't solve anything through hardwork he just knows what to do in any situation, oh i forgot to talk about that he partners with the younger version of the platinum trio, do they matter ? not really, as the anime potrays kyouya as their god saviour that carries them through any issue, making them underdeveloped and making their relataionship artificial, skipping ahead as the anime is just a replay of "Issue>Kyouya solves it>Kyouya gets praised for it in some way" kyouya manages to make the platinum trio never be a thing because he's just better than them in every way and we are forced to go to the new future, kyouya (that was praised by the platinum trio) manages to be a random worker at a game industry, because that makes sense, a guy better than a legendary trio didn't manage to get a relevant hierarchy but let's procceed, then he skipped 12 years including most of his university life and now has to work, do you think he struggled at a new job without having full knowledge on it (yes he doesn't have any memories of the 12 years he skipped) ? Nope, he managed to work so well that he repeated the old cycle, everyone always asked for his help, he solved the problems of all his co-workers, he even manages to do a better job than the company president itself, while skipping 12 years of knowledge on the matter, sounds dumb right? well because it is, this anime is just a huge stupid adventure of a OP MC solving all the issues the story provides without any struggle whatsoever, oh yeah and you know the whole university envyronment ? Do you think it was properly used in the story ? Nope, it got put aside around episode 5 or 6 we do not see the characters developing their skill through challenges provided by the university, as kyouya is already perfect and solves everything and all the others just ask kyouya to solve their issues, oh yeah lemme point out something else, this anime has 3 tags, slice of life, romance and drama, do you think he properly utilizes any of them? No, the slice of life tag is there for obvious reasons, its his life and we see slices of it, there's no "oh yes seeing moments of his life matters for character depth/development" no it doesn't, we just see his life because we are forced to, oh romance, i wanna talk about this tag, its gonna be a short talk tho, romance in bokutachi is pretty short, there's a episode for 2 of the girls getting interested in him because he did a single cool thing to them, like a compliment (i'm not even joking, a girl falls in love with him because he says he likes her art, that's it), and you're curious why i mean 2 with 3 FMC? Well that's because kawasegawa get's treated as a side character through 90% of the anime, and funny enough still manages to be better written than anyone else in this series, going back to the romance, one of the girls kisses him, we enter a single episode harem romcom style with the 2 girls "fighting" for him, he says he has no feelings for the girl that kissed him, we skip 12 years he's married with that girl, done, yes, i'm done, that's all the romance this anime has, it's like 2 episodes max focusing on some form of romance theme, and he's married, but you could argue "well a lot of things could've happened on 12 years" yes you're right, but that's a issue, you can't do something, not show it to the public, then force the public to accept/understand the result of it, it's like starting a romcom, and on episode 2 making both characters marry by skipping all their romance development, and wanting your view to feel the love that couple feels towards each other, you know what's funnier ? people voted a lot for this couple as the best of the season, a couple that went: Compliments her art, falls in love with him but doesn't show development on it, kiss him, marry him, that's all we see, nothing else, and has the romance tag, about the drama i don't need to say a lot, one episode they start arguing because of a decision kyouya made, 2 minutes later the guy just goes "well i'll believe in you since it's you kyouya" i'm not joking, that's how the discussions ends, and that's how most of the drama goes, issue happens>kyouya quickly solves it with the logic of being kyouya>everyone praises him>repeat.
To conclude my rating, the story of bokutachi no remake is superficial, artificial, poorly written, with childish/godly solutions to any problem presented, that does nothing towards progressing its characters, with no positive traits as everything you see on it you probably seen somewhere else. Oh yeah and most of the things you see on the opening/ending never happen in the actual anime, like they wanted to show to you "yes we skipped content wanna quickly see it?"
Additional final episode critic: 40 seconds into the episode and Keiko goes "Why do you wanna go back to that hard time", bro which hard time, Kyouya was a fricking prodigy back then, hard time lol nice joke
Additional final episode critic 2: 1 minute into the episode and Kyouya pulls a "i wanted to struggle", yeah, you wanted, because you didn't and won't lmao ( i loved his speech btw, should've been made by another character on a whole another story tho)
Additional final episode critic 3: FINNALY HE SHOWED SOME AFFECTION TOWARDS SHINOAKI AFTER 12 EPISODES AND 1 TIME TRAVEL, you know i'll be mad if this episodes ends up being good
Additional final episode critic 4: Kyouya actually used future knowledge to help him do some decisions in the past (it wasn't anything big or world changing but he did), the God Loli saying he didn't was a lie, also is he stupid "they trusted in me ?" the whole anime was about them repeating "if kyouya says so its right"
Additional final episode critic 5: "Welcome back main character", how to acknowledge your issues 101
Additional final episode critic 6: Says he won't use future knowledge to do stuff but knows that if people rely on him that's their downfall, honestly this anime says something and does the opposite "congrats on not taking advantage, now go take advantage this time you stupid"
Additional final episode critic 7: cliffhanger ? seriously jeez
Additional final episode conclusion: Fixed some small problems, managed to create even bigger ones, Keiko is god ? Why god is a loli ? Why god choose kyouya of every other human being on earth ? He was just a unemployed hadworking dude lol, that's not merit for a second chance in life, so yeah that's a new plothole, good job remake creating a problem on your last episode, also it's funny how this anime is so sure it's getting a second season it straight up ends with a cliffhanger, if it doesn't get one i'll laugh
So my rating is 1, it's easily the worst story i ever seen, also another reason, the anime butchered the source material and rushed it a lot, which means yes, most of those issues above could've been avoided or better developed to not be seen as issues, but the anime just decided to go dumb mode and just present the problem at minute 5 and solve it at minute 7, same goes for the love development which was extremely better and wasn't one-sided like it was in the anime, if you wanna write you own story avoid everything remake does with his
Art: It's a generic art style with no amazing scenarie, copy pasted faces mostly on the female side, you can just remove their hair, replace with the hair of another female character and it would look just like her, with simplistic animation (not as a positive trait) and lack of details all over it.
So my rating on art is 2, it's bad and generic, like the studio didn't even try to pull something unique or good to look at, just searched "how to make appealing simple faces 10 minute tutorial" and did it.
Sound: The opening is mediocre, the ending is mediocre, simple lyrics and the music itself wasn't catchy like other OSTs, the sound on the overall anime was either "generic city noises.mp4" or "generic loop of a beat.mp4", shonoaki voice was so high pitched you could go deaf and it hurts my ears everytime the VA opened her mouth, i don't think it's the VA's fault on this but i didn't research or her other works, oh yeah and there's the ep where they sing a Suzumiya Haruhi OST, because this anime enjoys reciclying content so why not, they could've at least made a reference on the manga like they did with other IPs but nope.
In conclusion my rating is 5, it's mediocre because it never mattered or just annoyed, but not bad enough to make me want to watch on mute and only read the subtitles.
Character: This one is gonna be as big as the story one because oh god there's A LOT of issues, so prepare your popcorn, Kyouya, the MC, i think i told you enough about the character issues on the story (since sadly the story 99% focus on kyouya and everyone else feels like a side character, so you're forced to judge kyouya when juding the story as it's driven by him mostly), but as you know, he's the perfect MC, solving any issue, having no development as he already starts by being to do anything, expressionless he literally reacts the same way through 90% of the anime, only showing some emotion near the end when he starts regretting that he's the perfect MC, we barely know his feelings and he barely portrays them, he's unidimensional, he's always working the same way, even when its on a subject unrelated to him he still solves it the same way he does with the others, and how perfection is a issue you might ask, well, if your character does everything, why would you care about the others, which is what happens on remake, kyouya makes everyone feels like a side character, barely having enough screentime for them and their personal issues, always relying on him to solve even their personal issues that got lucky enough to be brought up, and that's also how the plot goes, since he's perfect, they end up failing because they couldn't rely forever on him, is that a interesting message? yes, but kyouya portrayed it on such a artificial way that we barely got to feel their downfall, Shinoaki feels like i'm watching a 5 year old on the body of a 20 year old, she's overall dumb doing silly childish things, her voice is extremely annoying, her character is only about looks, she's even sexualized right on episode 1, she has no depth, she's also unidimensional always relying on kyouya and barely showing what's special about the character shinoaki, we barely see her doing what's she's known for, which is being a artist, which was supposed to be a big thing based on how much hyped kyouya created on her but it didn't live up, and the romance she has with kyouya feels so artificial that you don't even think they're 2 human beings, Nanako is the love rival, even tho this isn't a harem anime it has cringe harem moments with the other girls, which funny enough has some depth to her character that sadly gets outshined by kyouya being the saviour of all the burden she carried and making her emotionally dependant on him to the point of ruining her characterization, she's not interesting the drama related to her is a pretty simple and common subject that gets easily solved by kyouya and the character has no depth outside of said drama i mentioned, Tsurayuki starts of as smart guy, get's outshined by kyouya, starts relying on him for everything, and gives up because of that, his backstory is boring just saying he's the son of a rich family and has a arranged marriage that's it, his drama is solved without we even going in depth into it, by guess who, yes kyouya the savior of everyone, he feels like a side male character just so the author didn't get forced to add a harem tag to his work, because shinoaki and nanako get way more attention than him as characters and he's mostly a side kick for kyouya, Kawasegawa is a amazing example of wasted potential, the only character with development, the only character with depth and we see her on kyouya first future, on his second future (they work together) and on his new past, giving the best advices, being interested on him, smart, feels like a actual human being whenever her dialogue is playing, and what the anime did ? Treated her as a side character, and i mean it on this one, she BARELY appears on the past, we go through like 4 episodes forgetting she's a character, and there's 0 attempt on developing her or her relation with kyouya even as friends, then we skip to the new future, which shows kawasegawa as a ruined character that relies on kyouya to save her, that doesn't follow what she believed in and that went from a character that scolded kyouya for always finding easy way outs to everything into a character that created a weird love on him by praising him and saying its not his fault that he ruined the future of all the other 4 main characters (including hers), easily the most interesting character that got ignored on the series and ruined near it's end and has the best chemic with kyouya out of all the FMC, about the supporting characters, outside of Keiko being Hoouma Kyouin (steins gate joke) Loli version which is appearing as a relevant plot point all the other support characters appeared like thrice and got completely ignored around episode 6 or 7, the teacher which gave amazing advice never appeared again even tho it was still the school arc, the actual side kick they planned for kyouya also gone, the club members of the weird club they joined also gone, they barely do anything toegther with the other 4 MC, the new support characters on his other future also barely matter, like i don't judge support characters being just "whatever who cares" but i think it's offensive when a anime gives said characters a decent amount of screen time but doesn't properly develop them outside of the bubble of "im still appearing because kyouya will need me at some moment, after he stops needing me i'll never appear again" (not joking that's what happened with the teacher after she gave a advice to kyouya, she was constantly appearing, advice, gone), also i wanna point out something hilarious which is the character of sayuri aka tsurayuki arranged marriage wife thingy, she appears, she sexually assault tsurayuki, she gets sexualized, and on the other episode she's gone, thats it, thats ALL she does, like my god is this anime retarded, how can you introduce someone for NO REASON, literally his arranged marriage HAD NO REASON TO EXIST, same goes for Kyouya sister, she appears twice for 10 seconds, and that's it, why she's even a character related to the MC if she's not even going to matter at all like why just spam random characters that won't do anything for the sake of faking that you have a big cast when you don't, 90% of the support characters could be removed and no one would miss them that's how irrelevant they are. In conclusion every single character in this is superficial and forgetable because of kyouya stealing the spotlight on every situation, kyouya is the issue everyone is under developed and himself is also under developed and funny enough the intention of the anime was to show that kyouya made them worse, but if you intentionally make your characters worse in the benefit of your generic MC that's also bad, you'll still be ruining your characters no matter what logic you follow, it's like, "ill intentionally make my story bad, so people see that was my intention, and consider it good" like thats so bizarre and nonsensical it barely feels like it was made by someone that knows what he's doing, when it comes to looks everyone is generic there's no remarkable or special trais, to the point of the daughter of shinoaki and kyouya being a loli copy paste of shinoaki, A LITERAL COPY PASTE, how can someone be so lazy to not even try to give a child a little bit of character design, the characters are awfu, generic, unidimensional, poorly developed and written, forgetable, and all the other bad things you can consider about a character, that you literally do not care about them, even whenever there's drama, whenever they cry because of said drama you don't feel a thing, you don't care, because there isn't enough development and there isn't enough content for you to care about that character.
Additional final episode critic: Kyouya finnally feels like a real human being, took him the whole anime but ok, any + is welcoming, i won't be changing my score on this tho, lol imagine ignoring 90% of the anime with him being a perfect robot to give this a extra point.
Additional final episode critic 2: Kyouya recognizes his ego as a perfect dude is a bad thing, character development at the end of the anime folks.
Additional final episode critic 3: Cool the side characters are back, that still didn't address the issue i mentioned above tbh, this was more of a second season promotional episode than the end of a season
In conclusion my rating on character is 1, a door has more character development than 90% of the characters in this anime, because at least doors can be different unlike shinoaki and her daughter.
I won't rate enjoyment as it's a subjective rating unrelated to actual quality of the producting, but if you think i'm biased towards enjoyment you can check my Kanojo mo Kanojo review which i gave it a 4 called it bad for a number of reasons and still gave it a 8 on enjoyment
Overall don't watch bokutachi no remake, learn from all the mistakes that this anime made from the source material issues to removing pieces of the source material and creating even more issues, this doesn't deserve the high rating it currently has and i honestly don't get how you people manage to blind yourself to the inumerous flaws this has and forcing into reality inexistant qualities of it, if you wanna watch a anime that's somewhat better on the exact same topic go watch ReLIFE, if you still want to watch remake i reccomend doing so on 2x speed, AND IM NOT EVEN JOKING when i say it get's more enjoyable for some unknown reason, the pacing is just all over the place on the episodes themselves.
My overall score is 2, my eyes didn't deserve going through 12 episodes, but i did it so you don't have to if that's how the saying goes.
