Koi to Yobu ni wa Kimochi Warui

“You can’t judge another country by your country’s standards” A simple, yet oft forgotten message. Koikimo is a series that exemplifies the differences between the west and Japan in terms of entertainment. If you’re sensitive or not able to accept that fiction does not equate to reality, you should avoid this. If you are sensible and understand that you can enjoy a story, without necessarily agreeing with the premise and characters’ actions, this is a gold mine. Koikimo’s premise is truthfully a bit… odd, with the MC basically stalking the girl he likes, who happens to be a high school student and classmate of his littlesister, but it’s presented in such a way that makes you forget what’s even going on. Koikimo uses a really cute aestethic to hide a questionable premise, and does so very well in my opinion. Again, you don’t have to agree with what’s going on in a show to like it. It’s fiction, not a documentary. Shoujo Romance is my fave genre of LNs/animanga, so I check out any that air every season. I had no idea about this LN coming into the season and was immediately surprised by how much I love this damn show. In fact, it’s grown to be one of my faves. Ichika and Ryo’s relationship, while starting out in an unconventional way and with some weird circumstances, becomes very wholesome and downright adorable as the series progresses. Once the initial stalker phase ends, I liked the interactions between the two, a lot. Putting aside the age difference, their interactions and growth felt very organic to me and was the highlight of the show. The romance was well written and believable. It may not be socially acceptable, but things are not always black and white in life. In addtion to likeable main characters, Koikimo’s side cast was really good as well. A love rectangle of sorts begins to form at a certain point, and I thought it was navigated perfectly. In romcoms there’s always going to be someone getting their feelings hurt, but if you do it the right way it doesn’t hamper the experience. Koikimo certainly did that. Artistically, there’s nothing crazy or new going on design wise in the show, but I did really enjoy the bright colour palette throughout. I think it helped to create a cutsey atmosphere, in contrast to Higehiro, which ironically is the other series this season with a controversial premise. The OST is pretty solid as well as the OP and ED being bangers. In closing, I loved Koikimo. I’m not ashamed to say that. It’s not for everyone, but I encourage you to keep an open mind when watching not just this show, but any anime. You’re watching a medium that was created for people in a totally different society. There’s going to be things you don’t like or agree with, that’s ok. Luckily for me, once the show got going, it was easily my third fave show of the season and something I looked forward to on Mondays to start my week. I will certainly miss my fave ship of the season, but I’ll be checking out the manga and LN for more. Koikimo gets 10 out of 10.

(TLDR Review at the bottom, as usual, thanks for reading.) Is Spongebob Squarepants an asshole for pissing off Squidward? Is Peppa Pig a douchebag for body-shaming her dad? Is Richard Watterson someone it would be better to kill due to his lack of support in society and being a somewhat bad parent to his children? I don't see how anything I have said above is legit criticism in any way other than the enjoyment factor. So I don't really understand why characters in Koikimo are getting hate for doing their roles. "Almost every single season nowadays, it seems there has to be a scapegoat. An anime which you are somehowobliged to publically hate on or you'll be looked down upon by the community and no one will take you seriously." To you, (1)4 years from now. Nothing has changed. The romance genre is prone to some easy hate, which is very understandable. Taking into consideration some questionable themes that like to pop up for no good reason, other than to maybe satisfy some guilty pleasure, it's no question why this genre can have its titles that derail from the norm so very easily. Also with anime having a large western audience, a clash of cultures is inevitable, which brings forward some interesting events. Koikimo is a suspect of such a case. And with such cases like Koikimo, it is easy to bash the show for what it brings for not aligning with moral standards, which ends up making it a victim of its own product, and something you don't really know is either good or bad due to the large magnitude of polarising viewpoints. Koikimo is said to be a "disgusting anime" as a reason to dislike it when really and truly, it is a somewhat disgusting anime. Hell, it is literally there in the title "It's Too Sick to Call this Love" is the translation for this anime title. I don't know what people thought they were watching when they thought it would be something trying to "hide pedophilia". In any case, I don't see how Koikimo is anything bad for something it brings forward, it is very much fine to dislike the premise and be on your way, but with different applications to morals in a fictional realm from everyone, it becomes very inconsistent to rate something on such a base. I intend to rate this on a normal basis for reasons of non-bias, so, let's get into it. Narrative: Koikimo's introduction is quite interesting, it starts off with philanderer, Ryo Amakusa, stumbling across Ichika Arima for dumb reasons are dumb. But then it takes a quick turn of events with Ryo going full simp mode on a high schooler girl he just met. For the most part, everything here is consistent here on out, in other words, there isn't any improvement or degrading in any sense, even in characters. Only the quirks of Koikimo actually differentiate this from anything I have seen, because otherwise, this is a pretty baseline for itself. I honestly can't go on and talk more about the story, because it plays out as every rom-com should. There honestly is nothing special here so I don't know what is the point of saying anything more about the story. You know, it works, doesn't really have any flaws but at the same time, it is no distinction and is generally something you find in the bunch. The characters are interesting. For a rom-com as described above, you'd think the characters are pretty baseline too, and to some extent, not really. What I will say is that the characters are indeed baseline in anything that would link to personalities of initial bases, but honestly, I thought the character growth here was actually done very well. Seeing characters like Ryo get out of his damaging lifestyle and becoming a better person through Ichika was actually really nice to see, I suppose the character development is to be expected in something like Koikimo, but this was slightly different, with the age gap actually having a say in the relationship between the two. Ryo changed in ways that really made him think, even though he still has this creepy love for Ichika I do believe he understood what it meant for him to be with her. He is self-aware of what he is doing but is also in the irrational realm of love that makes him do questionable things. I can say this because his interactions with people like Arie, for example, isn't all one-nighter then sayonara, in other words, he has learnt to be a better person. It's an interesting development for the guy and all in all made for him to be quite interesting. Now I genuinely cannot say the same for people like the others. First, Ichika is your average rom-com girl character, honestly has no distinction other than her like some anime. You could say that this was smart in that some regular high school girl managed to change Ryo's mad life. But I refuse to believe that this story even dared to go to Shakespeare playing field. I mean, it could have though. Who knows. Anyways, Ichika is pretty basic, not much to say with her. The same goes for Rio, though her character is interesting, being a somewhat snarky observer. Tamaru is pretty average as well, being that kid who finds himself to be a rival. And Arie, who also finds herself to be a rival, a nice person with a cool interest in anime, but that is about it. Honestly, this lack of attention to characters is quite upsetting, but with this being a general standard rom-com with that one quirk to it, characters like these do fine, I suppose. Audiovisuals: For visuals, it is pretty box standard. What I will say is that the character design is ever so slightly strange, almost like its evolution went backwards to an older style. It's honestly not even that bad, but it is a new one, or do I call it an old one? Whatever it was, it was very easy to get used to and allowed for some cool original designs to some extent to have a watch too. But I mean it was still pretty box standard at the end of the day. Visuals is a funny one too. First off, OP and ED are actually really good, with the former being catchy, the latter being quite a nice little way to touch off with, both stick to me as well. OST is mid if you are wondering, nothing fancy here at all and it serves as only background music for "in the moment". The character voicing, however, for some reason, it sounded like someone forgot to filter out all the echos from the studio and just slapped the raw audio on the final product. Once you pick up on the odd-sounding, you will get used to it, and it isn't so annoying, but it was something pretty strange regardless. I've seen numerous people talk about the same thing with the audio problem. With issues like that, which rarely happen in anime, it is something to criticise but doing so becomes a futile effort with how minuscule it actually matters to a wide audience. Everything is fine though. Enjoyment: This isn't the most entertaining thing to watch, and how you watch it matters as well, considering that I watched this weekly, it actually made my weeks slightly better waiting on what will become of everything towards the end, though, I should have guessed what would happen from the very start because no rom-com pulls any fast ones because they don't. In a universal sense, assuming you aren't offended by this two-dimensional cartoon's premise, Koikimo has its light-hearted moments, it has its wholesome moments, and generally just very chill, going with its vibe throughout the entire series. Overall - 6.6 (7) ---------- TLDR Review: Story - 6: Pretty generic rom-com type story, uses age-gap as a quirk to differentiate from others. Visuals - 6: Some kind of backwards character design that makes this look a little unique. Audio - 7: OP and ED are really good, OST is basic, character voices feel a little off due to technicalities. Characters - 7: Ryo is the most interesting character, everyone else is on the generic side of things. Enjoyment - 7: Light-hearted, a little wholesome, and just chill. Overall - 6.6 (7) ---------- Only a few seasonals keep me really intact for me to go to length as to watch it pretty much every week. For some odd reason, Koikimo was one of them, idk, it was really relaxing to watch every week I suppose. I didn't really watch anything else like Koikimo this season, even other titles I enjoyed a lot more. The human mind is a strange one, isn't it? Anyways, there goes another controversial anime. It was fun for the most part and I will probably read the manga in my spare time. At the end of the day, this creepy anime did a decent job at being creepy, but it was a different kind of creepy, something that didn't make me lose faith in humanity kinda creepy, and what matters is whether or not this is enjoyable for us. So I leave off by saying, Koikimo is something I found somewhat fun.

Koikimo is dangerous because it uses cutesy art and rom-com cliches to hide what it's really about: A creepy adult man harassing and grooming a high school girl. The girl rejects the man, calls him disgusting, yet he continues to pursue her romantically and sexually. He takes pictures of her without consent, he visits her uninvited, he gets close to her mother, he flirts with her while she’s vulnerable and alone, he gives her tons of gifts, and he expects her love in return. Worst of all, it is targeted at teenagers. Not cute. Very fucked up. The art, animation, and sound are terrible too. Eventhough there is barely any animation, the character's faces morph like melting plastic. Their body proportions are constantly changing depending on the angle. Rather than using verbal dialogue, at times they copy text boxes straight from the manga and paste them on screen. The music sounds like nails scraping a chalkboard or simplistic stock elevator tunes played on repeat. I respect the voice actors’ effort but the audio processing sounds awful. It's like you’d expect from a low-budget OVA, not a TV anime. Every character in this show is a banal archetype, and they act in very strange ways. The generic female protagonist is friends with the businessman’s sister, which is how they got introduced. The sister is very aware of her brother’s behavior yet she nudges them together like cupid. She tells the man her address, gives him chances to be alone with her, and never warns her. For example, one time the sister said, “My brother’s insane in more ways than one, so just be on the lookout.” She said this to a male classmate who is in love with the female main character. Every time he pursues her, the businessman threatens him. Both of the main characters have alternate love interests. The girl’s male classmate and the man’s co-worker. Yet, the adult man chooses the high schooler instead. Even though the show describes both female characters in the same way: Kind, caring, happy, and big anime fans. Why does the man choose the young girl? Because he is a pedophile. Everyone acts like it's fine that an adult is in love with a teenage girl. The side characters treat pedophilia, stalking, and grooming like it's a normal relationship. There’s no room for interpretation. Koikimo is an anime about a pedophile who grooms a high school girl until she is tricked into liking him.

Reason for watching: I went into this thinking it would be more Comedy than Romance, and had thought some negative reviews were exaggerating. But honestly not much exaggeration. *Mild spoiler as I do give out the basic premise and gave a general layout of the storyline. TL;DR at the bottom. Let me do a quick review and opinion on this: Visuals: Definitely up my alley. I like the animation of the story, the art style of the animation, the OP, and ED. They are beautiful to me. Of course the animation could be better, but is not like this is some shounen show with lots of action,so I do not expect them to put a lot into animating each scene. 8/10 Audio: Seiyuus performance were fine. Is as good as you can expect from such animation. The female lead is able to show emotions through her voice so is not that bad. Male lead on the other hand just seem pretty bland, even for the humane/sentimental (not his stoic persona) scene, there's pretty much not much tone difference. OP and ED are nice, which is the only reason why audio score is above average. 6.5/10 Characters: Very simple. The story relies more on the story plot than the characters personality to tell the story. You can switch around the characters' personality, and the story can still work with a a little tweak here and there. Very average character, and subpar character "growth". Not like I expected much character growth for a 12 episode show. But Male lead essentially just became "kinder" because he fell in love. I get falling in love will make someone happy, but to change how they interact with almost everyone (in a matter of weeks, WHILE not seeing the love of his life frequently) is kind of a stretch. Male Lead's dad just somehow became more understanding because of a one liner from the Female lead... That is not character growth. that's just superpower. 5/10 Story: Oh this is the part where is ridiculous. I will echo many reviewers that the premise of this story is unpleasant. To put it badly, is Pedophilic. To put it nicely, is border lining Pedophilic. Yeap. Is of course not as jarring as the porn genre. But this story definitely has a pedophilic undertone. There is no other way around this. A "Japan's culture..", A "is fictional...", A "consenting age is different...", doesn't change the fact that is pedophilic. You don't see people all up in arms with the porn genre of pedophile(hentai, I know child porn is a big offense) or sexual assault, because we all know is fake. Doesn't change their genre, no excuses to "defend" them either. Also the circumstances leading to those genres in porn aren't as realistic as this story. The story is of a full grown man, 26 Year old, falling in love with a 16 year old high schooler who is also his sister's BEST FRIEND. Reason for falling in love is sketchy but I do believe we are not able to control our feelings and emotions. But what we, humans, and definitely grown adult, can control, are our actions. So Male lead falls in love, confessed, got rejected harshly, but still decided to pursue a 16 year old kid openly. Obtains her address without her consent, and consistently ignoring her "NOs" (this part is infuriating actually. regardless of what culture there is or which part of the world this story takes place. When a 16 year old repeatedly rejects you, respect it! Don't tell me is fiction, so NO can be seen as a YES, or she has a tsundere character or she's shy. What world do we live in if we can't understand CONSISTENT "NO" means NO even from a fictional character?). Male lead tries his best to win the heart of the female lead even when FL is uncomfortable. Then every other side character that knows about this aggressive courtship is accepting of it, enabling a full grown adult with a good number of romantic and sexual experiences, and exposure to mature interactions to pursue a 16 year old child who has zero experiences with Romance, and limited interpersonal interactions, AND obviously much less exposure to the world and its complex dynamics, AND also not fully in touch with her emotional and psychological state yet. The first 3 episodes are disgusting. Middle 6 episodes are fine if we can ignore how it all started. Last 3 episodes is a pathetic attempt to "correct" the show's logic (or just some sort of subpar redemption arc). If the story had started with ML and FL having normal interactions that grew closer and their feelings for each other developed independently, the age thing would not have bothered me this much. I do enjoy a plot with aggressive courtship like what male lead is doing here, but not when the other party is lacking so much in experiences and emotional and psychological development. If the female lead was a regular 20 year old university student, this wouldn't be as disturbing. She would have went through university meeting all sorts of people, and have much more experience as well as more maturity to assess her emotions and mental state. 10 years age gap is not a problem here. Is the age itself that is a problem. Middle 6 episodes are just normal cliché rom com scenes where ML not so aggressively courts FL, and both the ML and FL have alternate love interests popping into the story. Last 3 episodes are FL's 16 year old feelings developed romantically while ML realizes that he might be hurting/treating FL badly, because of their 10 years age gap that would be a cause for concern in society's standard... No is really not the age gap. No one really cares if a 45 YO and 35 YO falls in love. Not sure why they think making the 10 year age gap as the biggest problem actually makes sense. Even if japan culture generally raises sensible children, and consent is younger, doesn't change the fact that FL was not able to make an informed decision as well as ML due to their experiences. Is not fair game when FL was robbed off of growing up herself without all that calculated and targeted gaslighting. So is a happy ending as ML will brave through criticisms of the 10 years age gap and is determine to protect FL from the less understanding society's judgment, while FL with all her 16-17 years experience on Earth (more than half spent on studying and novels and anime) makes the determination to trust her feelings of LOVE and reciprocate ML's advances. I honestly don't know how anyone can think pedophile/ manipulation/ grooming elements is okay in a regular anime show because is a fiction. If mutual sex scenes between adults in shows require R21 rating. We should at least have rating for pedophilic story lines, maybe like rated C-reep? At least porn/hentai will rate them R21 and tell you the genre outright. This is not RomCom, is RomCriminalOffence. 5/10 (Story is okay, premise is bad). Total: 6.1/10 (6) TL;DR Definitely has pedophilic undertone no matter how fictional this story is (even if you add in talking clouds and flowers). Uncomfortable premise if you have awareness on how pedophilic crimes are the absolute worst. If you imagine FL to be at least 18 years old or have the maturity of a 20 years old, the story gets a little better lol. Cute songs and art style. Cute storylines in the middle 6 episodes lol. Mixed feelings because FL is not TOO young and there's no sexualization in here, If she's any younger, this would be a "Not recommended" sentiment. Basically a "vanilla Pedophilic" plot. - coming from someone who is not saintly or overly reserved (Eye for an eye plot, SA, cruel gangster plots, torture, murderers, anything with blood I do enjoy, even if it was 2 16 YOs falling in love and maybe get a little sexually curious, I am also fine), but when you exploit children, then is a no-go for me.

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