“Simple yet… Serious”
What They Say:
Minimal makeup, messy hair, baggy clothes… There’s nothing really attractive about Rena Yukuhashi. Ryohei Hachiya asks Rena out for dinner because his boss forces him to. He was expecting the dinner to be boring, but the girl who turned up was…?!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Based on the manga by Iburō that debuted in 2019 and is ongoing with over a hundred chapters released so far, the anime adaptation landed early in the winter of 2021 with a broadcast version and an uncut version. With its English subtitled release, it’s localized as Simple Yet Sexy. The adaptation was one of the releases from AnimeFesta which saw more put into them than the first couple of projects as things started to come together more. The show has Rei Ishikura directing based on the series scripts by them and Eeyo Kurosaki. Kazuya Kuroda serves as both the character design and chief animation director with Studio Hokiboshi producing the animation.
The series draws to a close with this installment and it’s amusing to see how things come together. Sekugichi is clear while out on a date with Ryohei that she was very intentional in breaking him up with Rena so she could pursue him. He’s a bit surprised by that, but basically just keeps on with everything and the nice date that they’re having. It’s just red flags across the board for both, and it’s comical that she’s already propositioning for a love hotel experience before they start dating at all. But he can’t shake Rena from his mind, even with this. But it’s the moment that he realizes that he’ll always be thinking about her and wanting to be with her, and to be fair, Rena made the breakup after a misunderstanding and he didn’t want things to end. So we get the big romantic moment of him finding her in a park nearby and trying to fix everything. And yeah, no surprise, they do get back together and have some pretty good sex too.
In Summary:
The show played with some of the usual problematic curves that you’d expect from an adult relationship story, and some of it worked, some of it didn’t. Relationships are complicated in general, and my limited experience with them in the real world in Japanese culture makes it only feel even more so. Sekiguchi working hard to get Ryohei single certainly played out well for her until the whole thing crashed into just how much Ryohei loves Rena. It felt more like a sport from Sekiguchi, even her saying she’s only saying some of this because she’s a bit drunk. Rena and Ryohei had a problematic setup that happened, but they discovered a real interest, and it bloomed well over time. Manipulations by others were the main problem they faced, and while it took some effort, they overcame them, and we got a pretty solid little series out of it that makes me wish more mainstream shows tackled real relationships more.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: coolmic.me
