Watari-kun no xx ga Houkai Sunzen

Watari-Kun's xx is About to Collapse is a rollercoaster of a rom-com that will take you through every emotion. The story is one of dramatic childhood love alongside growing up. There is a strong sense of family as well. Our MC Watari, Naoto, is a highschooler who was orphaned alongside his little sister Suzu, and were passed on from relative to relative until finally settling down with their aunt Tamayo. As he's going through his high school life, and crushing on his beautiful classmate Ishihara, Yukari, he is reunited with his childhood friend and first love, Tachibana, Satsuki. And thus begins the collapse of his sanity.The story: It starts of slow and a bit annoying, but picks up massively by the mid-point of the show, with the characters unraveling and growing up. There is a love-triangle which might be annoying to some ofcourse, but I thought it was done pretty well. My favorite part of the show though, was the romance between the MC and FMC and the "family" theme. It was genuinely quite wholesome at times. The romance itself is quite spicy, so it always had me intrigued. The characters: I enjoyed most of the characters in the series. Unfortunately, there were a lot of cut content for a few of the side-characters that helped flesh them out more. The biggest losers here were Suzu and her aunt Tamayo, whose relationships as fellow little sisters was quite wholesome. Coming to them individually: Naoto: Nao-Kun starts of as a typical spineless highschooler but overtime grows into a mature MC that realizes what he truly wants, while also helping his friends and eventual girlfriend. He has a lot of PTSD from what his family went through as they were exiled from their parents' families and after his parents death. But by the end of the series, he finds the family he needed thanks to Suzu, Tamayo and of course, Satsuki. Satsuki: Best character of this series, hands down. She is bat-sh*t insane and I love it. At the start it feels as if she's just messing with Naoto's head. Some people say that she stalked the MC and constantly came between the the MC and Ishihara to sabotage their relationship. But that's an exaggeration. As she did her best to avoid the two when they were dating, and Ishihara with her own insecurity, self-destructed and bought the two together. But as her backstory is revealed, we learn why she came to be like this, and that she is as broken as Naoto is. Which makes them finding a family in each other all the more wholesome. Ishihara: The secondary love interest, is an interesting case. She is your typical perfect girl, class queen, but quite modest at the same time. Naoto and her are mutually interested in each other. They only really knew each other for a few months tops, because Naoto transferred in the middle of the school year. Regardless they start dating after Ishihara practically begs him as a form of trial dating, until it becomes reality. But her downfall is her own insecurities which lead to her eventual self-destruction. But she does pick herself back up, and becomes successful in her own right. Tokui: The MC's best friend, wingman, and an absolute chad. He is an absolute mastermind, and manipulates a lot of things to help Naoto in his own way. As someone who has previously been in a relationship, he is knowledgeable about this stuff. He gets his closure as well eventually. Suzu and Tamayo: Had to bunch them together, because they represent Naoto's family. Both start of as annoying, but Suzu grows out of her overbearing bro-con nature into a supportive little sister, and Tamayo grows more warm to her nephew and niece. Umezawa: A bratty kouhai who also has feelings for Naoto. A less important love interest, but a love interest nonetheless. Alot of her stuff got cut from the anime, but she had a lot of wholesome scenes with Suzu. And special mention to Abe-Kun and Shimada-San. Two chill people that helped their friends in a pinch. Animation: Well this was the only aspect that dragged the series down. The manga had stellar art, but the anime left a lot to be desired. It's a real shame. However, I won't complain to much because we did get a full adaptation for a less popular series. Music: Both OP/ED and OSTs were decent. Nothing more to add. Voice Acting: Also great on all fronts. Really brought the characters to life as I knew them from the manga. Overall, I would give a high 7/10 for Watari-Kun the anime. The story and characters were great. If the animation was better, it could've been an 8 or higher in my opinion. Would definitely recommend checking out the manga as well!

Watari-kun's ****** Is About to Collapse — Help? Can I get a yell on that? Like seriously: HELP!? What's the aforementioned thing that is on the brink of collapse!? Is it MY sanity, or am I going INSANE!? The typical rom-com, school-based, and/or otherwise. So easy to make the concept for, but oh so difficult to actually write and build its premise upon for the basis of stories that many authors truly thought they had a gem on their hands, until reality set in that it ended up being quite the opposite of that regard. In that sense, I can kind of see and understand whyambitious people would try to phrase their works in some kind of psychotic drama for the sake of it, and even, in the ambitions of the infamous rom-com on planet Earth, mangaka Reiji Miyajima's Kanojo, Okarishimasu a.k.a. Rent-A-Girlfriend, go so...SO FAR as to make a statement that love can breed out even the most insane of premises just to lose its virginity through stimulation and contempt that makes people go insane for their one and only life Oshis. Well, boy, was I damn wrong. There's another series just like it, and even though it's not as lengthy as the aforementioned rom-com series, it was kind of a kink for me back in the day when this manga was released, and I even read it from start to finish, thinking, "How would this get animated on the off chance that this comes to the small screen?" Little did I know that the anime was about to come just when the manga's serialization had just ended its run back in September 2023. And that, my "wholesome" rom-com friends, is Watari-kun no XX ga Houkai Sunzen, a.k.a. Watari-kun's ****** Is About to Collapse, the 2nd anime adaptation of mangaka Naru Narumi's works, 7 years after the CGDCT gourmet comedy that was Winter 2018's Ramen Daisuki Koizumi-san, a.k.a. Ms. Koizumi Loves Ramen Noodles. Talk about a serious whiplash churning out "genre-defining" works that truly baffle the mind. What comes to mind when you think of childhood romances? Pretty simple, right? Just a boy and a girl living and sharing life together from their young days, and when they come of age, they learn of each other's traits to get to know one another better to merge all of that into pure love that leads to marriage and then a happy family to live into an old ripe age where love transcends all problems. That's the sweet spot when it comes to the aforementioned romance, but for Naru Narumi, it seems that she got the idea of trying to take the rom-com genre and dial it up to 11, and by that I mean your typical romantic love that somehow forces people to overthink so much that it makes them question their every move if it's worth it in the long run. It's seriously and honestly deranged, if you can stomach such a plot from the get-go. Young childhood love, but with the growing pangs of a garden hoe that ultimately destroyed any hopes for the future. That's what MC Naoya Watari has to contend with, with his sister Suzu and aunt Tamayo, the former of whom is a rather clingy brocon that doesn't want to let go of her brother in all circumstances, and the latter who just treats them like adopted siblings from a failed family marriage. Of course, this is but only the surface of what the Watari family has to contend with, with their assets being the safeguard of the house and a small garden at the back sheds of it, though with one garden hoe and a girl who seemingly is the trouble of where everything all transpired for the Watari siblings, stands Satsuki Tachibana, the girl whom Naoto wants nothing to do with, NOTHING. The trauma beset and "begrudgingly" set up her being the menace that destroyed their old house's farm garden of vegetables and fruits, and it's all the more reason why this rom-com has got quite the thriller drama going for it, as the Jason Voorhees lookalike when it comes to decimating things that are precious to the other. In a sliver of hope, the story itself sounds every bit as simple, cliche, or whatever is going on in your mind, but it has a progression to it that, true to the series' plot, does not get any better at trying to place both its characters and us, the audience, under immense stress that we'll be constantly pulling our hair strings out for mindless tension. What stands out as a better future for Naoto is trying to get rid of Satsuki in his life and live amongst the other cast of characters that would come to define him as such. It's truly a doozy at how much the pangs of life have for this rather unfortunate MC who's just earnestly trying to live out a life of his own with his family. And as if the romantic aspect isn't enough to begin with, it's the familial drama that sets in for the close contacts trying to get the drift of others, and I'm not one to admit that I'm ashamed at finding myself being relatable to the problems and issues that arise within Naoto's life, to warrant navigating against the current and getting back to the zone that matters. It's basically a textbook example of how people can be so selfish to the point of showing a lack of coherence, and as repulsive as it looks, it's selfish love at its finest to top the very sinful being we humans have to live with: the lack of understanding, and not just within a single party alone at that. For Naoto though, his troubles truly start at home, with Suzushiro and Tamayo, because he was not given the care that most other high schoolers his age ever got thanks to his own family trauma as well, leaving all the care to Aunt Tamayo, who always chides him to be productive in some form and not mess around, like he did with Satsuki (even if it's out of his consent). As if that's not bad enough, the trauma-inducing follow-up with Suzu because they share the exact same sentiments when it comes to the "garden killer," which was the start of the whole premise of Watari's (family) ****** (peace) collapsing for real, and Satsuki being just not all that attentive to her surroundings, only paints an even worse picture for the lil' sis to become even more protective of her brother. You might even think that Naoto has it easy in school, but the troubles there amplify it ten-fold thanks to the endless romantic drama that cements forth its presence from there on out. Satsuki is one hell of a problem for Naoto, though he has the reassurance of his "bro" through Shigenobu Tokui, who at first glance seems to be the nonchalant one seeing his friend go through so much shit with the garden killer, until he really starts having a hand in Naoto's life to make his life even harder. And one of those ways is through their classmate Yukari Ishikawa, who is your stereotypical girl with the heart of a maiden but someone who gets easily crushed within the weight of her own troubles, having a crush on Naoto but having to fight the uphill battle against the rather spineless Satsuki in fighting for his affection. Even worse, as the series progresses, there's a 3rd girl in play...or rather, she's more like the 3rd party in Naoto's romantic "harem" of all things through the track-and-field athlete Makina Umezawa, who bears the classic "from enemies to lovers" storyline and doesn't even stand a chance against both Satsuki and Ishikawa to begin with. Truly, no one is sane in this series, and to say that "this is to be expected" of a series that knows no bounds when it comes to obsessive love, you haven't quite seen the worst execution of it yet, that it's "so bad it's good" to digest some rubbish love tactics for the sake of inducing drama that's of a "thriller" level of sorts. To be frank, I should've known how average the production is from start to finish, not just because of the mediocre workmanship that Staple Entertainment has become, but also because it has links to yet another studio that was the result of a takeover that essentially rebranded itself as such. Can you guess what that studio is? If you've guessed Hoods Entertainment, you're right, because even its in-house director Takashi Naoya has been essentially directing ALL of Staple Entertainment's produced shows since Summer 2022's Kinsou no Vermeil a.k.a. Vermeil in Gold, alongside producer Shinya Ueda as the CEO of the small studio. Both producer and director taking all of Hoods Entertainment's ethos and bringing it into Staple Entertainment should tell you of its rather underwhelming production overall, and to last the allowable max limit of the 26-episode-long, 2-consecutive-cours treatment, is already a miracle, having already done production way ahead of time to compensate for it. The music, or rather the series' OST, is rather mixed for me, as some are ones that I like, and then others that truly just do nothing other than incite the tremor of the series throughout its run. And to make matters worse, all of its theme songs are just rather forgettable, with Pedro's ED for the 1st cour, as well as Shallm's OP and Yurina Hirate's ED for the 2nd cour. The one consolation, however, turned out to be Yuika's OP, which I really, REALLY love, not just due to how the OP visuals turn out to be quite the strip-unstripped dance hand movements, but also because it's a very catchy song that's everything I love about Yuika's vocals and that also perfectly catches the nuance of Satsuki's early appearances in the source material. At the end of it all, I find myself in an impasse about Watari-kun no xx ga Houkai Sunzen, a.k.a. Watari-kun's ****** Is about to Collapse's adaptation, even when it is the near-complete adaptation of the original manga itself. Sure, you have essentially every opportunity to reread the manga to see what the anime cut out, but is it really worth going through another round of romantic trauma again? On the other hand, I'm glad that I can finally check the box off for one of the manga that has been in my on-hold list for quite some time, and at the same time, miss the experience of some romantic slop in the process. For sure, it's been quite the thrill to see the collapse of a romantic series in the making that perfectly captures the semblance of a "psychotic thriller," in a way that real-life imperfect relationships also somehow have similar traits to it. So...bite the hand that feeds your ego, I guess?

Finally, this sweet summer 2025 anime has ended, and honestly… I’m sitting here with that quiet, warm emptiness you get when something genuinely good wraps up. Watari-kun Is About to Collapse was one of those shows I deliberately avoided while it was airing. When it first started, I remember telling myself, “Nope. Let it finish. I want to binge this properly.” Turns out, that patience really paid off. From episode 1, let’s be real, you already know where this is heading. Watari and Satsuki are clearly that couple. No cheap bait, no unnecessary mystery about who’s endgame. And honestly? I appreciated that so much. Watching themtogether felt natural, comfortable, and incredibly wholesome. Their chemistry isn’t loud or flashy, it’s the kind that grows quietly, the kind built on shared memories, awkward silences, and unspoken understanding. I won’t lie, though. Watching them did make me a little jealous. The idea of growing up with a childhood friend like Satsuki, someone who stays by your side through all the messy phases of life, loving you not just for who you are now but for who you were back then too… yeah, real life doesn’t hand those out very often. Maybe that’s exactly why anime romances like this hit so hard. They let us experience something rare, almost ideal, but still grounded enough to feel emotionally real. What really surprised me was how much weight the show gives to its side characters. Everyone carries some kind of emotional baggage, and none of it feels forced. Their pasts shape their present choices, and you can genuinely feel why they act the way they do. It made me relate to them more than I expected, especially during moments where characters hesitate, mess up, or avoid difficult conversations. That’s teenage life. That’s human. I also loved how the anime tackled real issues without turning preachy. Career anxiety, family responsibilities, money problems, future planning, relationships pulling you in different directions… it all sneaks up on you in this show. There were moments where I paused an episode and just sat there thinking, “Yeah, I really should get my life a bit more together.” Not many romcoms manage to quietly inspire you like that. And Suzu. Man, I have a soft spot for her arc. Watching Watari’s little sister slowly grow from someone completely dependent on her brother into someone finding her own footing was genuinely heartwarming. It didn’t happen overnight, and that’s what made it feel real. By the end, seeing her stand more confidently on her own felt like a small but meaningful victory. Watari himself is an interesting protagonist. He’s not perfect, not always decisive, and definitely not always right. Sometimes he makes choices that frustrate you, and sometimes you find yourself rooting for him even when you know he’s about to mess up. But that’s life, isn’t it? We learn step by step, through wrong turns and second guesses. I was honestly just glad things worked out in the end, not in a magical way, but in a way that felt earned. By the time the final episode ended, I realized I was smiling without even noticing. No dramatic cliffhanger, no unnecessary chaos. Just closure, growth, and a quiet sense of satisfaction. Overall, this was easily one of the best romcoms of 2025 for me. Warm, relatable, emotionally sincere, and comforting in a way that lingers even after the screen fades to black. 10/10. I’ll definitely remember Watari-kun Is About to Collapse fondly for a long time.

I liked this from the 1st episode. After many episodes I did feel for a while that the show dragging on and felt it would have been better if they made it a 13 episode show. But by the last episode I didn't mind they had extended the show. Its just a good romance show. The art, animation character design are all good, right for a romcom. This has the right combination of romance and comedy. It borders on being a harem show but doesn't make it cringe as many harem shows are. I found it hard to ship between the two main love interests ofWatari-kun, as all the characters are likable. The sibling relationship between Watari and his little sister is also done nicely. Though I felt Watari-kun seemed to get a growth spurt unlike his sister. Meaning Watari-kun seemed to grow up much faster than his sister making it a bit weird. Watari-kun has a hard time I gotta admit, as he doesn't wanna hurt anyone. And things get complex for him, and hence the title of the show. But I think most guys watching this wouldn't mind being in his situation and think his problem is not such a bad one to have. Or maybe I'm self projecting my thoughts LOL.

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