This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.
Dear anyone who likes this show: learn how to anime.
Note: This only takes into account episodes 1-7. There is the possibility that the show will do a complete 180 and address the issues in this article in an intelligent manner. In fact, I fervently hope the anime understands the potential it’s sitting on.
But I’m not going to hold my breath. This is the halfway point, and it’s going to take a lot to turn this failboat into a nice one.
Well, let’s get started with the
Plot progression.
If you watch Sukitte in reverse it’s about a girl with dependency issues who gains a personality and learns how to stand up for herself when she’s mistreated.
Episode 7
Episode 6
- Episode 5
Episode 4
Episode 3
Episode 2
Episode 1
Much better this way, huh?
Yes, trainwrecks can be enjoyable. But it needs to be clear that the show knows it’s bad so the viewers can get something meaningful out of it. Sukitte doesn’t. Instead, it acts like everything’s going just as planned, with the kind of naive, misinformed idealism you’d find from those people who wear Che t-shirts.
Sure, the glorification of unhealthy relationships with stupid, submissive women is popular right now (hey 50 Shades and Twilight), but I expect some fucking class from anime, the most superior of all artforms.
Speaking of, this show reminds me a lot of School Days. The only thing separating the girls in this show from the characters in that anime is that the girls here aren’t fucked physically and mentally on camera.
But it would take too long to get into the supporting characters’ faults, so let’s just focus on the
Main characters.
Yamato.
What the fuck does this guy even do? He has the personality of a– No, wait, he doesn’t even have one. “Pretty-boy” is the only thing that describes him, so you could say that rather than a personality, all he has is a word.
One of my biggest complaints with this character is that he’s willing to trample on everyone’s feelings in order to… Well, actually he doesn’t achieve anything from this. And that’s the fucking problem. Here’s Yamato giving advice to a crying girl before he fucks her:
Beyond this, he’s kissed almost every girl in high school. Classiness means nothing, apparently.
“Okay, fine. Who cares?”
Well from what we see of the guy, it’s quite clear that he’s never thought of those girls as anything other than walking slabs of meat with no value even as fucktoys. This wouldn’t be quite so big an issue if he weren’t portrayed as a perfect being. Even the most non-discerning viewer could probably infer that there might be at least a small downside to someone acting like this. But the anime doesn’t, to its fault.
Now I ain’t saying “bad” characters are detriments to a show. Everyone likes a good villain/anti-hero. But these characters need motivation — they need goals to strive for… world peace, removing an immediate obstacle, even just their own amusement. Point is, their actions need to have one.
Yamato? He… well, he doesn’t have any reasons for the problems he causes. He just does things, without any rhyme or reason. That can lead to an interesting character, but they need to be presented properly. Yamato, however, is solely praised throughout the show; he’s a goddamn hero with not even a minimal amount of critical analysis cast on his being, despite all the evidence in the show that maybe he’s not that great.
And that’s where the issue lies; the anime can’t handle what it’s showing us so it just closes its eyes and pretends nothing’s happening while singing praises of Yamato because he’s hot and popular. Fuck that.
Oh, and I forgot to mention he’s a
Cheater.
I don’t mean in the physical sense, that is. That wouldn’t be deserving of a full section (though I’m sure he has sex with Megu). No, he’s an emotional cheater, which I’d be willing to bet most agree is a lot worse.
Let’s start with how Yamato deals with Mei. He takes advantage of her by acting like he’s willing to take her opinions into consideration, but since she’s so emotionally dependent on him, she’ll never say, “Please walk home with me instead of hanging around other girls.” Meaning he gets to do whatever he wants. So he does.
And with Mei’s limp approval for Yamato working alongside Megu, we get this this scene:
That’s the symbol of his affection for Mei right there, lying strewn on a table at his job. He has figuratively discarded Mei, and yeah this is a big fucking deal. Hell, the whole reason she shut herself off from other people for her scholastic career is because she didn’t think she could trust them. Looks like she was right.
But he goes further than that…
So after this little sequence Yamato ends up spending all his time after school either working with Megu or staying at her place late at night. And what about Mei? Well, he just straight up lies to her about his new daily activity. Instead of mentioning that he’s leaving another girl’s place after workdays, he just pretends like he gets off later than he actually does.
In essence, he’s replaced Mei in all but official “girlfriend” status and decides to string her along because… Well, because that’s just the kind of character he is — there’s no real motivation; just action.
But enough of Yamato. He’s just a cardboard cutout imitating a character anyway. Let’s talk about what this anime has done to the character of
Mei.
Can a character undevelop? I think I answered that in the first section, but hell, let’s talk about it some more.
Mei begins the anime as a strong, independent woman who is bullied and ignored by everyone in her school. She gets sexually harassed by a student and lashes out, resulting in her kicking the most popular guy in school — Yamato. And as soon as Yamato enters the picture, things go downhill fast.
She finds out and is obviously freaked. But then he explains that kissing girls is just something he does without thinking; it’s even less intimate than waving at someone. Apparently this sways her and she admits she has feelings for him.
After that, she finds out that he’s fucked other girls in the school. But don’t worry, Mei. Fucking chicks doesn’t register on his intimate scale either; that’s like holding the door open for someone. This, somehow, also wins her heart.
So here we have Mei who fully understands that she’s just another notch in his belt at this point. But she loves him, so that changes everything! No, really, it changes everything about her.
From Gyarados to Magikarp.
V
- She makes friends, but only with Yamato’s close friends.
- She changes her appearance to suit his whims.
- She starts to deeply care about what others think of her, including all the people who bullied her earlier.
- She has frequent breakdowns in public.
- She delegates her opinion to others, especially Yamato.
I mean, holy shit. I really hope the director understands what this show is portraying to a sentient viewer and handles it accordingly. But as you’ll see from the next section, I don’t think he does.
“Overcoming walls”.
This show dispenses worse advice than you’d get from a back-alley abortionist.
Here Mei is, finding out that the reason her boyfriend doesn’t contact her until late at night is because he’s been staying with a girl whom Mei knows has feelings for him. Remember that “Cheating” section I posted a bit back? Yeah, this where the anime “deals” with it.
Cue the bitch crying for four minutes before her friends help her out with this great advice, explaining that mistrust is, well…
And with that, she decides the best way to win her boyfriend back is…
…by rewarding him with a kiss for cheating on her. And that’s the moral of the episode, which finally pissed me off enough to write this article.
So far, I give this piece of shit a 1/10. Will the director pull it together by the end or will he focus on pandering to the idiots who lap this kind of shit up? Based on what I’ve read of the manga, I think my rating is going to be pretty accurate for the rest of the show.
>Commie
what is this sorcery
That’s a pretty awful dialogue font you guys are using.
thank you
must be all those errors you didn’t edit in.
You have inspired me to go out and watch this. Be proud!
I like this show.
I like the show because Yamato, unlike too many male anime leads I could name, is not some pissant little puss when faced with a harem and is actually alpha for once.
But yeah, I used to like Mei because she’s like an anti-Sawako, who was actually pissed off at the shitheads who make fun of her instead of trying so fucking hard to be a doormat, but now… she’s like his pet or something.
Yamato’s case is helped of course by the fact that he’s a generic shoujo MC with a harem instead of being a generic shounen MC in a harem.
Then again, he’s pretty much the standard template for a generic shoujo MC: superficially perfect and the ideal man that girls dream of; except in this case he’s missing the crippling personality quirk/flaw that other shoujos have that try to balance out the character and to make him more ‘believable’ (see Tonari for endless examples, and of course why Haru is the superior male lead in the superior shoujo of the season).
Good man with good taste.
I knew sukitte was not worth my time.
Thanks for the confirmation.
It’s an excellent anime, I’m not even into lovey dovey anime but this anime is beautiful.
Honestly, I don’t even have a problem with most of this show. In fact, I don’t even think a lot of the “faults” you mention are detriments. I think the show is fully aware of what it’s doing with its scenes.
Like the scene where you call Yamato out on being a cheater? Well, the anime did that to. That’s why they zoomed in on the bracelet to begin with.
But putting aside all those differences of opinion, there is one thing that I’ve noticed after seven episodes in that’s starting to bug me:
Why does Mei like Yamato? Like, seriously, is this even addressed? I could chalk it up to simple curiosity earlier, but now that they’ve clearly established themselves as an “item,” I find it a little distressing that we haven’t been told why she likes him.
As I see it, that’s the real problem that this show is facing right now.
If the show was aware of what it’s doing, then it wouldn’t have the faults I was talking about. If cheating was such a big deal, then episode 7 wouldn’t have ended the way it did. As it is, the show is throwing these things all over the place, but there’s no consequences. It’s like a documentary on America where it’s all patriotic and shit but then there are scene splices of dead Indians every couple minutes or so and the conclusion is nothing bad ever happened. If that’s what makes a good show I better call up Tyler Durden and get him on directing duties ASAP.
Also, everyone likes Yamato because that’s what the show says is natural. Your only problem is why the whiny cunt likes him? Far as I can tell it’s because he was the first one to approach her and that set her heart aflutter. More specifically, 10:28 in episode 1, he apologizes and that blows her mind. Then he gives her his number and she calls him when she’s in trouble. He saved her and took her first kiss, so I guess she feels she can trust him. It probably could have been any dude, really, I doubt she’d have been picky as long as someone showed interest in her.
But you see, from how I interpreted the final actions of episode seven, I got the impression that Mei decided to act all alpha instead of just saying nothing about it like she’d been doing for the past few episodes. It’s reestablishing her character after the period of trying to figure out what to do with all the new shit thrown at her.
I mean, it’s like you said, Yamato’s not used to building an actual relationship. He obviously doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing regarding that. The only difference is that, from what I can tell from the episode, instead of just being the more forceful person he’s portrayed as being in the past, he actually tries to check shit with her this time around. Granted, that doesn’t help when you basically have two idiots new to the whole “actual relationship” thing and you get the whole “I dunno, whatever you want to do” routine (and since Yamato is the one asking, he’s naturally the one that actually gets to do whatever was suggested).
But as far as the characters in general though, it seems like two people trying to tackle something different from completely opposite ends of the dysfunctional relationship problem. And in that light, I think the show’s done a great job of establishing the characters as trying to overcome that, and having their various (undesirable) personality traits crop up as a result of them not knowing what the hell they’re doing.
So I guess what it boils down to is that I’m taking the optimistic road with this show. Maybe I just need to embrace my inner cynic more often; but from what I’ve seen so far, barring that problem I mentioned (that I’m hoping will get addressed), the show’s done a good job of establishing why the characters act the way they do and how that creates the situation these two are in.
Don’t get me wrong, the two are morons, but I think that’s the point of the two. At least, that’s the impression that I got out of this. And I guess that’s why I’m optimistic that they’ll do something good with it.
(Also, I haven’t read the manga, so I don’t really know what’s coming with regard to the source material).
Dropped this at 2 and I guess I won’t be picking it up again. I probably would’ve kept watching it, but Tonari is the superior shoujo this season.
This show is stupid.
Fuck, I was hoping you’d do an article like this for Little Busters instead. I am deeply disappointed.
Well, I was going to say read the manga…but then I remembered that it sucks, too.
Although what the anime did is almost as if they took the worst things from the manga, and decided to go with that :P
I’ll only speak of the first 5 episodes that I’ve seen, but I must say I really like this anime because it’s different from other anime where the main characters don’t do anything for the whole damn series. It also has a lot of feelings in it, and it’s an anime I can enjoy together with my girl friend.
Usually, I find you pretty sensible Dark_Sage, but I think you’re being unreasonable here.
“Beyond this, he’s kissed almost every girl in high school and it’s implied he slept with quite a few.”
It hasn’t been implied that he has slept with quite a few people. It’s the contrary in fact, because if he slept with that many people, there would be less value in having slept with him, but Aiko at least initially, thought highly of her encounter with him, and her thoughts even indicated that she took his virginity (relatively recently as well).
“This wouldn’t be quite so big an issue if he weren’t portrayed as a perfect being. Even the most non-discerning viewer could probably infer that there might be at least a small downside to someone acting like this. But the anime doesn’t, to its fault.”
But, he isn’t portrayed as perfect. It’s been shown many times that he has caused Mei distress, and even highlighted the problems he caused for Aiko although some of that was not completely his fault since Aiko was a victim of the mainstream pressures of what it means to be beautiful.
“Yamato? He… well, he doesn’t have any reasons for the problems he causes. He just does things, without any rhyme or reason. That can lead to an interesting character, but they need to be presented properly. Even the most non-discerning viewer could probably infer that there might be at least a small downside to someone acting like this. But the anime doesn’t, to its fault.”
It has been presented properly (all of which in episode 3). Basically, Yamato is a poor human being because he was a pansy who was afraid of being physically abused, leading him to only interacting superficially with people. This resulted in Nakanishi moving away during middle school. His growth spurt (and the show hasn’t made this clear, but I think that Yamato’s tendency to “help” girls was at least initially, a conscious effort to help him move to the top of the social ladder) helped him to become an alpha who would not get bullied, but to this day, he still acts all PC and inoffensive, and conforms to what is expected of somebody of his social standing. He even admitted to being a shitty human being (past and present). Any misfits that Yamato “helped” may have a skewed opinion of his actions, but to some extent, his portrayal has been less than ideal. I don’t mean this as an insult, but I think that you understand the Twihards very well, to the point that you processed the show entirely in a Twihard’s point of view when you watched this, which is why you have such a big problem with the show.
“But then he explains that kissing girls is just something he does without thinking; it’s even less intimate than waving at someone. Apparently this sways her and she admits she has feelings for him.”
She wasn’t swayed by how he admitted that kisses meant nothing to him. It was because he displayed interest in her. I believe that in episode 2, IB’s script mentioned something about how she felt that Yamato acknowledged her and looked her in the eye when he spoke (or something like that), which indicated that she was used to people being dicks to her even before the incident with the rabbit poisoning.
“After that, she finds out that he’s fucked other girls in the school. But don’t worry, Mei. Fucking chicks doesn’t register on his intimate scale either; that’s like holding the door open for someone. This, somehow, also wins her heart.”
That isn’t what happened either. What won her over was that Yamato punched Hayakawa, and hence defended her. As she has indicated, she has never really had a friend, as they were all opportunistic fakers, so a small thing like this could move her.
“Cue the bitch crying for four minutes before her friends help her out with this great advice, explaining that having your boyfriend cheat on you is, well…”
You screwed with the context here to suit your opinion. Aiko wasn’t stating that being cheated on was a wall that needed to be overcome. She was referring to how when one starts worrying about the trustworthiness of their partner, it’s a wall that needs to be overcome. Aiko pretty much told Mei to make her feelings known to him, and with (Aiko’s) knowledge of Yamato actually not being somebody that is physically unfaithful, it would help Mei out in her relationship. Note that I am not suggesting that a kiss was the best way for Mei to get her point across.
I meant to continue my previosu reply, but hit reply too soon.
Anyways, I see the show as a portrayal of a relation between two emotionally dysfunctional people, and I believe that the dude who appeared at the end of episode 7, will show Yamato that he needs to change as a person.
Fair enough. I agree that the article sucks, but I’m gonna leave it up anyway. Since I am, I may as well respond to some of that.
I thought I remembered a line somewhat like “I won’t sleep with any more girls other than you.” which lead me to thinking “Oh, they’re hinting he’s fucked more than one chick.” Where in the show does it hint that Aiko was the first person he’s had sex with?
The show does portray the negative effect of interacting with pretty-boy, but only as an afterthought. Like Shirt said, he’s the ideal male with no drawbacks. Anything in the show that might reflect negatively on his character is simply ignored. Aiko’s self-mutilation, for example. Where in the show is there a critical eye turned on Yamato for this, or anything else that he’s done? The closest the show gets is describing his backstory, which doesn’t count as character development or criticism. Rather than showing background character development it shows him as stale as he always was… just that after he hit puberty he became sexually appealing to females.
Getting onto the point where I talked about sway/winning her heart… that was a misunderstanding caused by lazy writing. I didn’t mean to say that those were cause-and-effect situations. Rather, I meant to describe them as things that did not affect Mei’s views of Yamato, when they probably should have.
As for that last paragraph… Yeah, I guess I was being a bit too manipulative there. I’ll edit that.
“I thought I remembered a line somewhat like “I won’t sleep with any more girls other than you.” which lead me to thinking “Oh, they’re hinting he’s fucked more than one chick.” Where in the show does it hint that Aiko was the first person he’s had sex with?”
IB’s translation was that “I won’t do it with anyone anymore.” after Yamato admitted to having sex with Aiko when Mei asked about whether he did or not.
Aiko’s thoughts on the matter seem to indicate that he was a virgin prior to having sex with her, as she painted him as being a victim for consoling her with sex. If he was the type to just fuck whoever he wanted, I don’t think she would have thought about it this way.
In episode 4, Aiko noted that Yamato doesn’t have friends with benefits like Hayakawa does. An unnamed girl who cheats on her boyfriend with Hayakawa also stated to Hayakawa that the the two of them are very different from one another since Hayakawa hooks up with people immediately while Yamato does not.
“The show does portray the negative effect of interacting with pretty-boy, but only as an afterthought.”
Okay, I won’t contest this.
Hm, well I’m probably just stupid then. Line removed.
Oh, and again thanks for the critique. Nice to know I’ve got people keeping me honest.
No problem, man. You do make legitimate criticisms, but I still have some hope left for this series based on the director’s work.
D_S, Aiko doesn’t self-mutilate. Those are stretch marks from losing all that weight so quickly.
She should use more cocoa butter.
Glad I choose the superior shoujo this season instead of this.
Why did I even bother to read this?
Why did I even bother to post a comment?
No. I like this show, and will still like it until it ends.
No. Don’t command me to watch Tonari instead. There is an ‘=’ sign between these two shows, at least for me.
Yeah, it’d be awful if someone challenged and caused you to reflect upon your views.
Given that Vance already said much of it, and that I prefer not to post a wall of text, I tend to keep my comment straight to what I feel after reading what are posted above my earlier statement. However, should there be any enlightenment needed, please, you know what to do.
I think you are too harsh with the criticism here. I agree the show isn’t great, it might not even be good, but I don’t think it’s total shit. Tonari is clearly superior in every way, but I still kind of like this show. Nowadays you gotta take what you can get in terms of shoujo, it’s an underrepresented genre. Maybe you’re right though, maybe it’s total shit and the only reason I think otherwise is because there isn’t enough shoujo aired to form a proper frame of reference. Stranger things have happened. But for me this show is not terrible, I think it hovers somewhere between a solid 6-7 out of 10.
Yeah, pretty much. There’s barely any romance shoujo so you have to take what you can get.
You’re a shithead. How are you going to right a review on something you didn’t even finish? This review is nothing like the anime. Keel shit you could’ve at least finished the anime before you started bashing because from the review you don’t know shit.