Everything went beautifully and we all got cavities.
What They Say:
My Blue Ogre
Takeo Goda is a giant guy with a giant heart. Too bad the girls don’t want him! (They always go for his good-looking best friend, Sunakawa.) Used to being on the sidelines, Takeo simply stands tall and accepts his fate. But one day when he saves a girl named Yamato from a harasser on the train, his (love!) life suddenly takes an incredible turn! Takeo can hardly believe it when he crosses paths with Yamato again, and he finds himself falling in love with her… But with handsome Sunakawa around, does Takeo even stand a chance?
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Yamato wants to meet with Takeo without Suna being around! Surely that means she’s finally ready to ask Takeo for advice about getting to Suna’s heart, right? Ah, surely everyone but Takeo can read the writing on the wall and see that her reason to spend time with Takeo is… to spend time with Takeo, but unfortunately, Takeo is a brick wall in a lot of ways, and his constant in-your-face contributions to a conversation prevent anything from even attempting to get through to him from someone as timid and, in this situation, nervous as Yamato. That sets the stage for some more classic misunderstandings that crush Yamato and make Takeo seem like the bad guy for reasons he can’t possibly fathom. Things don’t look great for a minute or so, but from that point on, everything falls into place to fulfill all the wishes Takeo and any who have put themselves into his shoes could dream up.
It’s an interesting scenario, because despite Takeo being male – very male – the demographic is female, and as such it might be harder to classify the series as pure wish fulfillment than your standard eroge or harem light novel fare. At any rate, it’s quite idealist at this point, and instead turns to all those rosy shoujo sensibilities to elicit more of an emotional response and not at all a sexual one, or at the very least to pander to those who resonate more strongly with a more traditional sense of cuteness than those associated with moe culture. That’s not to say it’s inherently less shameless – it may prove too saccharine for some, and even as someone for whom all of these tactics are super effective, I can’t look at it critically and say it might not have some holes in its realism spectrum.
This is all the beginning, though, the point that I appreciate shoujo series tending to reach early on as opposed to shounen counterparts that may reach it at the end of the entire series… in its source material, which will almost never be fully adapted in anime form. So everything may be impossibly perfect for now, but we’re still in the very early stages, so there’s a whole world to explore going forward. For now I can at least be happy for our lovable protagonists, all three of whom seem to be in a pretty great place right now. Because what My Love Story!! did today had a very focused purpose, and it all got me hook, line, and sinker.
In Summary:
My Love Story!! is officially the most adorable show airing, in all the sweet ways that you don’t tend to get from series skewing toward a teenage male demographic, but with a male protagonist that allows those same viewers to have a deeper connection. It’s likely to be charming to a variety of audiences, but the cynic may look at it as a bit too ideal in a few ways. For now I’d say that’s fine for what it needed to do, and I look forward to how it progresses going forward.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
HP Envy 14.
