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Dated 22 April 2013: Spring 2013: I've dropped six shows already

Iwai
Hair Pornography ~The Animation~.

Remember when I said I drop fewer shows these days because I'm less likely to start something I'm not sure I'll enjoy? Yeah, that went out the window this season. At present, I am following eight currently airing shows (not counting Detective Conan) and have already given up on six other shows. Specifically, I've stopped watching Red Data Girl, Dansi Bunri Crime Edge, Namiuchigiwa no Muromi-san, Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Comedy wa Machigatteiru, Photokano, and Hentai Ouji to Warawanai Neko.

Izumiko
Those are some glasses.

There's not anything particularly wrong with Red Data Girl, except that I just didn't find it very interesting. It's the kind of show that requires some commitment on the part of the viewer to actively attempt to unravel the intricacies during the journey to some final revelation, but I just can't quite seem to care about the spirits and folklore. I feel as if I should be watching it on general principle, since it is different from the usual retreads and low-brow fare. I gave up after episode three, but I'll start it up again if I hear enough people insist that Red Data Girl turns out to be incredible later. Oh, and I guess technically it's called RDG Red Data Girl.

Iwai and Kiri
At least he was careful with the scissors.

Dansi Bunri Crime Edge is preposterous. I knew that ahead of time, but it really is just too silly for me to continue watching. I guess the problem is it is silly-stupid not silly-funny. For example, Valvrave the Liberator is also silly, but I'm still watching it because it leans towards silly-funny. And while Dansi Bunri Crime Edge does not take itself entirely seriously, there is a certain lack of bemusement as the characters experience events that are simply ridiculous, even in a setting as absurd as the Crime Edge one. I gave up after episode three even though I'm a big fan of hair porn.

Muromi
Muromi is sort of racist.

I stopped watching Namiuchigiwa no Muromi-san for no particular reason except that it just wasn't my sort of thing. I mean, it's fine, but you sort of have to be in the mood for its jokes to work. Being a half-length show, it doesn't exactly require much of a commitment to begin with, but I don't really feel like watching a show about wacky mermaid antics every week. Three episodes was enough.

Miura
Yumiko Miura and Fate Testarossa should hang out.

I can't help but think of Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru as a Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai clone. This is probably because I dropped Bokutomo about the same time people started to act insufferably superior for truncating it as Haganai instead. So I've only a superficial understanding of I Don't Have Many Friends to begin with. Because RomCom SNAFU—or whatever nonsense we're supposed to call Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Comedy wa Machigatteiru—also features a club of self-described loners, watching it makes me think I've been tricked into resuming a series I abandoned in 2011. Worse yet, I at least sort of still liked the Bokunai characters when I dropped the show. With Yahari Something Something, I definitely like the "popular" twats in the school a lot more than our unsociable, bitter, cynical protagonists. I managed three episodes.

Takashi and Itta
I was already prepared to despise these guys on general principle.

I wanted to like Photokano. All it needed to do was sort of be like Amagami SS with just a little bit of a spine and the solid cast of seiyuu would sort the rest out. How bad could it be? I'm going to break from my normal position here to directly mention some spoilers, but rest easy that they are only spoilers if you are really new to anime, because Photokano doesn't break any new ground—or at least it didn't during its first three episodes. First of all, Potato-kun is only an aspiring photographer because his father gave him his old digital SLR. He's not someone with an actual interest in photography, such as Kosuda from B Gata H Kei. It turns out there are two photography-related clubs at his school: One's a group of irritating asshole stalkers, and the other is comprised of probably-pretty-cool girls. Guess which club Potato-kun joins? Go on. Guess. These other guys in his club have the dubious distinction of being even more annoying than the yahoos in Kaoru's photography club from Ai Yori Aoshi. At least Kaoru's club had a guy obsessed with trains.

Haruka, Takashi, Kazya, and Itta
Those are some contrivances.

Photokano also basks in the most tired and unlikely anime cliches, such as the mid-air collision kiss. The Ga Rei manga featured a mid-air collision kiss, but it presented it as an absurd chain of events for comedic effect. In Photokano, the incident is without irony and offered as just one of those serendipitous (?) moments caused by the irregular rules of anime gravity. I should have figured out before the three-episode mark that I would be better off just waiting for other people to post Photokano screenshots instead of actually watching the show.

Azusa, Youta, and Tsukiko
You are a craven douche, Potato-kun.

I knew I would drop Hentai Ouji to Warawanai Neko because I was unimpressed with the manga. If anything, the anime is worse because Potato-kun is annoying as all get-out. Not only is he one of those anime characters who flusters extremely easily, causing him to yammer excitedly in a wet panic, he's excruciatingly voiced by Kaji Yuki (the pig from Accel World), who is already bad enough as Ellen in the (otherwise excellent) Shingeki no Kyoujin. I acknowledge that Henneko is remarkably popular, but surely its fans simply have much higher Kaji Yuki tolerances than I do, or they're drawn to the flat (ha! I kill me) expressionless girl. Yukarin is in this too, but she's wasted here in my opinion. I only managed two episodes.

Dated 9 June 2020: Giving Oregairu a second chance

Yukino
Yukino, those twintails are wearing you.

I dropped the first season of Yahari Ore no Seishun Rabukome wa Machigatteiru. (localized as My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, As I Expected and My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU, but also known simply as Oregairu) after three episodes seven years ago. However, the series has a lot of fans who insist it's really good, and its third season does start in a few weeks, so I figured it deserved another try. I've finished the first season now, but most of my complaints from 2013 still hold.

Yui
Yui is a fraud. That hair ball is a clip-on. Also, unrelatedly, she is bad at dogs.

Hachiman and Yukino simply aren't endearing characters. Maybe they appeal to viewers who identify with them. I guess Yui is okay, but I'm mostly ambivalent about her. One thing I will give the show credit for is its portrayal of the popular kids. Instead of being backstabbing sadists like you'll typically find in anime school cliques, it's pretty obvious why their classmates gravitate toward Hayato and Yumiko.

Rumi
This one kid who appeared in two episodes is a better character than most of the regular cast.

Unfortunately, Oregairu also has entirely worthless characters as well. Specifically, the chuuni guy never stopped being annoying, and the fujoshi literally has no scenes or dialogue that don't involve screaming about boys love. These two characters could not be any more one-note if you tried, and they really drag down the rest of the show, especially when the episode is trying to say something insightful about relationships or the challenges facing students who feel as if they don't fit in with their classmates or what society expects of them.

Hachiman
I hope those who compared Hachiman to Batman while Oregairu was airing were doing so in jest.

I'm hoping the second season will be much better, because so far I'm entirely unimpressed with Oregairu. At least the second season (Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Comedy wa Machigatteiru. Zoku) adds Iroha to the cast. Granted, literally everything I know about Iroha comes from this video on the YouTube, but she also seems more popular than either Yukino or Yui, so presumably she has something going for her. Granted, that's sort of a low bar to clear considering how unimpressed I am by the show's two main girls so far. Really, the one to beat is Komachi, Hachiman's surprisingly reliable kid sister. She has her shit together and is clearly more intelligent than her brother, at least.

Dated 4 August 2020: The End of Oregairu ~Air/My Purest Heart for Thee~

Yukino
I wonder if sales of blue-blocking computer glasses are down
now that you can just enable night mode on basically any OS.

I gave Oregairu a second chance in anticipation of Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Comedy wa Machigatteiru. Kan (My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU Climax!) completing the series this season. I'm glad this worked out a lot better this time than when I watched Shakugan no Shana II so I could watch Shakugan no Shana III. (Shana II is not great.) Through four episodes, the conclusion of Oregairu III contains the sort of emotional resonance you ought to expect by now if you've been following the previous seasons.

Yui and Hikigaya
Kids and their selfies.

It's a difficult balancing act, to be sure, capturing the stakes in a way that makes us care about the outcome without swinging too far into melodrama. Still, I'm only about 80-percent sure that this season will cover the source material's conclusion. I mean, I have at least heard that this is the case. But not having read the light novels, I'm a little unsure how the series will manage to wrap things up within the remaining episodes. My guess is that some characters just won't get covered to the satisfaction of their more ardent fans.

Dated 29 September 2020: The End of Oregairu ~Air/My Purest Yahallo for Thee~

Iroha
BEST GIRL.

Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Comedy wa Machigatteiru. Kan (My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU Climax!, among other localized names) completed the three-season run of a harem comedy that fared surprisingly well despite my initial misgivings. Generally speaking, the term "harem comedy" itself feels anachronistic now and less appropriate even when applied to shows such as Gotoubun no Hanayome (The Quintessential Quintuplets) compared to the label's Love Hina-era association (at least in my mind). I suppose it's probably still applicable for shows such as Kanojo, Okarishimasu (Rent-a-Girlfriend). But I digress.

Yui
Oregairu might have been a better series if told from Yui's point of view.

These types of shows invoke a competitive element that pits various female protagonists against each other to vie for the male lead's affection, ultimately "winning" by becoming the romantic interest he selects at the conclusion of the series. Longtime readers of this blog may remember I'm not a fan of this construct when the male lead is so frequently a dull sap, to say nothing of the ones who are legitimately terrible cretins. I'm did not watch Kanojo, Okarishimasu, but I did watch it get shredded on the Twitter, and Potato-kun appears to be a colossal douche in addition to the show's numerous other problems. Does the girl who ultimately ends up with such a character really win? [Spoilers: No.]

Hachiman and Yukino
Kids and their selfies.

Oregairu does not suffer from this particular problem, at least by its conclusion. Hachiman in the third season is no longer the same person he was in the first season. Unfortunately, the girl who ultimately "wins" has her own issues. [Spoilers henceforth, obviously, if you haven't already either seen this coming or learned about it via some other way, such as discussions about the light novels' ending.]

Komachi and Iroha
It's about the future, Madam Chancellor.

Yukino is not interesting. She is supposed to be the most complex of the various love interests, and has some significant hang-ups that admittedly align well with Hachiman's character, but I never found her problems or growth compelling. As far as "winning" the harem comedy contest goes, she is the most sensible one to pair with Hachiman, but my lack of investment in their relationship makes the show's resolution somewhat hollow. Ultimately, it was still a good journey, and I can appreciate why Oregairu accumulated so much praise during its run, but I can't quite point to it as a much-watch show by any means.