Reviews for Tonikawa: Over The Moon For You

This year, 2020, had a strange phenomenon of rom-coms. We had ‘Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove It’ at the beginning of the year, where the idea of romance became an experiment as part of its storyteller. Spring dropped us into a fantasy world of reverse harem and otome tropes with My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Led to Doom. And of course, let’s not forget Summer 2020 that gave us ‘Kanojo, Okarishmasu’ a rom-com with relationships based on lies. Fall 2020 decided to give us a truthful romantic comedy of a married couple, and by marriage, I mean commitmentand a lot of romance. Isn’t this just a strange year?

Kenjirou Hata isn’t known for being a masterpiece storywriter. Most of his works often deal with romantic comedy elements and among them is Hayate the Combat Butler. Watching Tonikaku Kawaii gave me a similar impression at first when we meet Nasa Yuzaki, the main protagonist who gets involved in an accident. Is it fate when at that moment that he encounters his future wife, Tsukasa Tsukyomi? And that’s the funny idea about fate. When we talk about fate, it seems characters are destined to meet and one of the recurring tropes from the author’s previous work. Nasa and Tsukasa develop a relationship quickly as they get married in the very first episode. If you don’t believe me, just watch their union and signed registration. When you have two main protagonists get married from the very first episode, there’s bound to be endless questions popping into your head.

One of the first questions may be why these two would get married in the first place? Doesn’t marriage take time and commitment? They barely know each other but now are a married couple, a type of relationship that may last until death do them apart. From the very first few episodes, we can deduct that both main characters does have attraction towards each other. Nasa sees Tsukasa as a girl that you can only dream of even dating, let alone marrying. On the other hand, Tsukasa sees Nasa as a gentle soul with a selfless nature that truly values her well-being. However, the two are lack experience when it comes to actual romance. For instance, it took a lot of convincing for Tsukasa to tell Nasa to talk to her without being so formal. Tsukasa herself has trouble expressing her feelings and this usually translates into dozens of awkward moments between the duo. You could easily say that each episode is a test for the two lovebirds. Although over time, Nasa and Tsukasa learns a lot about each other and what it means to love.

As mentioned before, marriage is a commitment and a lifelong vow. To comprehend this idea, Tsukasa and Nasa had to arrange their life into a state where they can live comfortably. This includes securing a stable job, buying the right furniture, and making time to be with each other. It sounds a lot harder than it looks but realistically, almost any normal couple would have to go through this process. For Tsukasa and Nasa, some unfortunate circumstances drops them into a temporary home in later episodes. It’s one of those old sayings where when life knocks you down, you have to get back up. From a storytelling perspective, the duo faces the hardship of life and reality. The main storytelling theme focuses on their way of life and how they live each day to be what they committed to.

Despite some of the serious wordings of the plot elements, Tonikaku Kawaii is a fairly lighthearted show with tons of comedy and entertainment. You have to remember that the author wants us to experience a light rom-com, without too many tearjerking moments or despair. Indeed, this anime adaptation remains lighthearted that focuses on entertaining rather than a complex storytelling. With 12 episodes, the anime sets the bar for being what a rom-com should be although I emphasize that the ongoing manga is fairly long. In other words, this 1-cour adaptation serves more as a tool for viewers to get into the surface of the franchise. There’s a whole lot more down the rabbit hole. Otherwise, fans should be familiar with the overall tone of the comedy such as the character name gags (namely Nasa), misunderstandings, and other mischiefs.

With its small yet colorful cast of characters, the author also borrows similar character concepts from his previous work such as maids. Characters such as Kaname, Aurora, Charlotte are decorated with maid characteristics while Kaginoji Chitose serves the role of a jealous girl who gets the wrong impression about Nasa. No doubt, Chitose causes some unsettling drama between the couple and some episodes shows that she can be an annoying brat to deal with. Luckily, this is where we see Nasa at how he tackles the problem in his honest and sincere way. In many ways, Nasa is the ‘nice guy’ in their relationship but only that he doesn’t finish last. He’s first to be married to such a perfect housewife.

Studio Sevens Arcs may not be a powerhouse studio when it comes to animation but one thing is for certain, they managed to connect the dots in the right places for this adaptation. Tonikaku Kawaii’s visual style has a light touch with its character designs. It has a vibrant colorful art that retains the style of the manga look. Tsukasa in particular stands out as the poster girl and while other female characters are made with delicacy. Nasa himself also has a girly look despite being a male. This may or may not rub people’s impressions in the wrong way but for a rom-com, it suits them right. Plus, who can forget all those cartoony expressions.

It’s almost like a dream fantasy for Nasa, being able to find such a perfect girl like Tsukasa. Fate tied the knots together for these two characters and by no doubt, they retain a faithful relationship. Everyday is a challenge and every episode follows their steps of this married couple. If only the real world is perfect with all that buffet handholding.

Tonikaku Kawaii is a masterpiece, and for a romance fan I believe it hits all the right buttons. The problem that usual romance anime have is that they usually focus on the "chase" part, and the whole hook is "Will they won't they [get together]". As a result, we get a 1 cour anime with an ending that hopefully has them holding hands, and usually they're not even getting together. ("Go read the manga" ending) Luckily for Tonikaku Kawaii, we're getting a married couple from the get go. Which means we're effectively eliminating the "chase" part that we have seen so many times and skip a fewstages.

There isn't much of a story per se, but the anime focuses on the development of the relationship of our two main characters, with some comedy and minimal drama. It's small dose of wholesomeness and happiness every week.

We're mostly hoping to see more cute moments between them, and seeing how they slowly but surely get to know each other better.

I think that in the sound department they've also done pretty nicely. I love Akari Kito's voice (voicing Tsukasa), and the OST in general, as well as the OP and the ED are quite nice.

If you're also a fan of "meta" memes and references for Japan's pop culture or for other anime, you'll definitely see it here.

Overall, if you're a romance fan and/or looking for some wholesome romcom, ToniKawa is definitely for you.

"You don't get married because you've proven you're in love... You get married so you can prove it." - Yuzaki Nasa First, one thing I want to make clear is that if you don't like simple romance with no drama, then you need to stay away from Tonikawa, because it's definitely not for you. Anime like OreGairu will suit you better. The beauty of Tonikawa lies in it's simplicity. It's not just another wholesome fluffy rom-com, it's much more than that. What I think makes Tonikawa the perfect rom-com for me is that how the romance isn't dragged out, there is little to no drama, whichis perfect for people like me. Not that I hate it, but I find it overwhelming, drama isn't something I'd watch every time, anime like OreGairu is good, but exhausting at the same time. On the other hand, we have anime like Tonikawa, which is completely different from that, it's something I could always watch. These kind of anime is precious to me, because it just eases my exhaustion of real life, it's a real mood refresher, at the end of a tiring day, I'd love to sit with a bowl of ice-cream and enjoy this sweet anime. It's THAT kind of an anime.

Another reason why I think it's great, is because of how it keeps some question unanswered. And frankly, I don't mind it, it's only been season 1 and they have been successful to pique my interest in the story that if a season 2 ever drops, I'd gladly watch it, not just because of it's wholesome romance aspect, but also because to find out where the plot is heading, because there's clearly a plot and it's definitely heading somewhere, as hinted by the mystery surrounding Tsukasa. The mystery keeps the overarching plot alive.

The plot is very simple, Nasa Yuzaki, our MC, falls in love at first sight with Tsukasa, our FMC. As Nasa tries to approach her, he gets hit by truck, only to be saved by Tsukasa's swift movements. Nasa doesn't miss the opportunity and forces himself to confess and ask her out. However, Tsukasa has one condition, they can only be together if he marries her! It may sound unrealistic, but nobody said it has to be realistic to enjoy the anime. The entire story is just Nasa and Tsukasa's compilation of learning how to be a married couple.

Though, it might sound boring at first, it is far from it. This is where the wholesome part shines the most. Going to bedding shopping together, Nasa trying his best to make small living space comfortable for his new bride, Tsukasa showing Nasa how to make a proper meal, Nasa introducing Tsukasa to his parents, all of these small things are a big part of this show, and most possibly the best part. This is where the true beauty of the anime lies, simply having fun in your daily life, that's what this anime is about, for most of it's part. While some questions have been left as a mystery, such as Tsukasa's past, all of it just compliments the plot while keeping the viewer's attracted.

Now onto the characters, one of the best aspect of this anime! While Nasa might seem like a very childish MC, I mean who throws away their life for a girl they barely know about? But it's no doubt how his love for Tsukasa is real. Though it may seem he loves Tsukasa just because she's cute (As per the title of the anime, Tonikaku Kawaii) he actually does love everything about her, not just that she's cute. During his speech with Chitose, he said the destiny is real and how he talked about his love to Tsukasa was just too heartwarming. Riemann Zeta Function is the very last thing I would expect to appear in an anime, using math to prove your love is also something I never expected from this anime. This just goes to say how he loves Tsukasa, a girl who he just met more than a person that you love and knew from a long time.

As much as Nasa loves Tsukasa, Tsukasa also loves everything about Nasa. When she was asked about what he likes about Nasa and how she blushes a little while saying that she like everything about him, it's just really heartwarming. Tsukasa notices the littlest detail about Nasa and compliments him on it, and Nasa also loves when she compliments him, what can be more cute than this?

Other than Nasa and Tsukasa, all other characters are absolutely adorable! Kaname, Aya, Nasa's parents, all these side characters, I just can't get enough of these adorable set of casts! The character who was a teensy bit annoying was Chitose, she reminded me of those generic Tsundere characters, other than that I don't hate her much. Also the voicing of each and every character is so amazing! I adore all the Seiyuus (Voice actors) working behind this anime.

About the artstyle, it's adorable! I don't know how anyone could not like it. The artstyle just compliments the setting and couldn't be any better. The blush lines are kinda ridiculous, but I'd be lying to myself if I said that I didn't find that cute.

The opening is just amazing, at first, I kind of didn't like the idea of EDM in an anime opening, because most of the time it sounds generic, but Yunomi changed my mind. I've listened to Yunomi before this, and I was very surprised that this opening was from Yunomi. And I was even more surprised when I found out that it was Tsukasa's Seiyuu who was singing the opening. Starting with a beautiful instrumental, when the EDM part started, it took me by surprise. Not only the opening, but the ending is beautiful beyond explanation. I have already listened to it an unhealthy amount of times, the piano's involvement in the ending is really great. I'm listening to it as I'm writing this review! It's really helpful and I'd suggest you listen to it while reading this as well, kinda gives a good feeling.

And now onto the most important part, enjoyment. If you read this review completely then you know that I've enjoyed this a lot. There aren't many heartwarming anime like this, which is why this is so special to me. I remember making a thread months ago, asking for a romance anime with simple story, "I just want a romance anime where the boy and girl are simply in love with each other, and do relationship stuff together without any drama." were my exact words, after I saw this anime, it felt like it was just made for me. I couldn't be more happier, I enjoyed every second of this anime.

I see a lot of negative comments about this anime, most of them complain about the same thing, about how everything is too simple, how much of a fool can you be? With a little bit of research, anyone could've found out that it's those simple SoL type of anime, if it wasn't your thing then why watch it? Many people try to bring real life logic into it, like how it shouldn't be possible for them to marry each other, blah blah blah. Oh please, this fiction, nowhere did it say that it's based on real life laws. I also don't get why people say that nothing happens in this anime, please don't be ignorant.

All criticisms on this anime look very shallow, it's what happens when you try too hard to find something bad about an anime. Although I don't blame those people, even if I tried then I couldn't truly find something about this anime that was absolutely terrible.

Fridays have been sweeter with this anime around. This anime impacted me in a way that Fridays will be a little empty without this, this is a huge success, and for that alone, this anime is more than deserving of a solid 9.

"If you marry me, I'll go out with you." - The (Princess Kaguya-ish) waifu material, Tsukasa Tsukuyomi: The modern-day sequel story of "The Tale of the Bamboo-Cutter's Wife". "Yes!! With pleasure!!" - The simp (that's not so simp) husbando material, Nasa Yuzaki: The man who'll achieve the speed of light faster than NASA! That's the only story plot "full of love and dreams" you need to know, an overnight done deal, and truly "faster than the speed of light". If you're wondering what Tonikaku Kawaii is all about, this is Hata Kenjirou (Hayate the Combat Butler!) flexing his marriage to Asano Mayumi (Sore ga Seiyuu!) in early 2018,that birthed the start of this amazing rom-com manga (right-smack on Valentine's Day in the same year, no less), and has finally come around to this anime adaptation (albeit under "Crunchyroll Originals" URGH). As a huge fan of the manga, I can't tell you how long fans have waited for this diamond gem of a rom-com to be brought to the small screen, and now this reality has come true. For anime-onlys, sorry, but you'll still have to read the manga regardless!

Rather than going through the usual points (as my reviews tend to be), I'd like you to conduct this very simple checklist:

- Wholesome, cutesy, adorable Rom-Com SoL happiness? Vanilla check.

- Romance right at the START instead of the END? Story plot check.

- Male MC not a clueless, spineless moron that thinks with his brain? Absolute check.

- Male MC is a man of Kazuma-level culture and boldness? DOUBLE check.

- Female MC not a violent tsundere bitch? Absolute check.

- Female MC smug face? DOUBLE check.

- Supporting cast isn't annoying AF? Hilarious, yet serious check.

- Even the most annoying character (the blonde loli) is reasonably non-intrusive? Idealistic check.

- No filler characters: Everyone seems real instead of feeling like they are being put there just for the sake of the MCs alone? Realistic check.

- Great OST? Musically check.

- "Meta" memes and references of Japan's pop culture and others? Extra check, if you're eagle-eyed, that's a plus. Good one on you.

- (Most importantly) Truck-kun unable to Isekai MC? TRIPLE Check!!!

If any of the points you see here checks out, then I'm sorry to say that this show is not for you.

And yes, to add the salt and rub some more wounds, Japan's legal age for young marriages are truly a gleam of wonder, with males at 18 and females at 16 (and yeap, both Nasa and Tsukasa are legal of age!). Talk about moving past ALL the BS drama, troupes and cliches (NTR included) and dense "high school" relationships we've seen time and time again that gets old so quickly. What you see here, is what you get: a pure wholesome vanilla romance of a young boy and young girl, their marriage as fresh as their friendship-cum-relationship towards one another, exploring each other's quirks and identifying what is good and bad while holding no grudges, and more importantly, going through the rite of passage together as one of (if not) the best husbando and waifu couple pairings of recent times.

Dr. Seuss even puts it best with this romantic quote: “You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep, because reality is finally better than your dreams.” BUT, with a cinch of comedy, as Mae West puts it: “Marriage is like trading in the adoration of many for the sarcasm of one.” WHEW, talk about idealistic (but realistic) gut-punching.

In a nutshell:

This is the marriage life of the Yuzakis': Nasa and Tsukasa, who only coincidentally met each other on a winter's night road, and within the span of the night, a marriage proposal is formed...and after 3 years of disappearance, the wishful thinking has come full circle. Day and night, this lovely and beautiful couple learns to understand each other's likes and dislikes for character development, all while committing "lewd" acts time and time again to amaze-balls of "will they get on it, or not?" (even right in Nasa's original home, such kind parents). Some backstories here and there that'll question you about Tsukasa's "immortality", but it's just a small set-up for both the anime and the manga (for now).

Even with the supporting cast of the Arisugawa family of jokers: Kaname is a down-to-earth, but extremely fun and comical (best supporting) LIT younger sister; Aya being the complete airhead (of over 9000) of an older sister that has held her crush for the husbando (for far too long) and reverting into YouTubing after the damage is done; and not to mention, their loving-cum-merciless mother who always gives the cold, hard truths to the older sister with no remorse. Like mother, like (older) daughter.

Also, the questions about the frustrations of blonde-haired Chitose and her able maids Aurora and Charlotte: Chitose seems like the typical "annoying AF" character that is the only opposing factor to the Yuzakis' marriage, but it sure takes a lot of convincing to get the mistress's mind straight and recognize that regardless of her actions, there's no stopping them both from divorce, and at the very least, she acknowledges that the marriage is here to stay. Both maid servants Charlotte and Aurora however, really punch in the "butt of the joke" towards the condescending naivete of the mistress, even Tsukasa (because she's THAT easy to be fooled). Carry the humour back and forth, because it's as hilarious as heck.

The only thing that worried me about this adaptation is the "Crunchyroll Originals" tagline, because shows under the series get a VERY BAD rap for subpar production quality (remember Gibiate from Summer 2020 and EX-ARM for Winter 2021?). Well, colour me surprised, because this is one of the better low-budget productions (besides Onyx Equinox) that was produced decently. The production team over at Seven Arcs did a fine job at adapting Hata Kenjirou's work, and even in an interview where the creator himself said that "this work is left to good hands" under director Hiroshi Ikehara (mainly directing kids' shows) and his team, I was SO relieved, and watching this for 3 months, it held on its own pretty nicely. A pretty good job, if I were to say so.

And the music, OOH. If that "historical-gone-total rap" feeling of an opening of Yunomi X Akari Kitou isn't a banger, then I don't know what is. While the ED is plentiful fine-ish, it does not get more important than getting the right VAs for both Nasa and Tsukasa. I know many have been asking for the old VAs of both main leads Hayate and Nagi (Ryouko Shiraishi and Rie Kugimiya) to reprise their roles, but what we got of the modern-day big favourites of both Junya Enoki (who's also Jujutsu Kaisen's main lead Yuuji) and Akari Kitou (who's also Adachi to Shimamura's main lead Adachi) are really good. Not quite the same nostalgia for die-hard Hayate fans, but definitely a worthy refresh for the times of now.

If you haven't got the gist of what I've said so far, please go back to that checklist, because Tonikaku Kawaii is truly a masterpiece work of Hata Kenjirou's calibre as a veteran mangaka that knows what he's doing, and really moving hearts a plentiful with overflowing fluffiness. Fans of the Rom-Com genre should absolutely not swipe left against this show, because it is pure diabetes to your heart.

"Girls are this soft?! Human hands are this warm... and feel this good? This is marriage?! It's fantastic!" -Nasa Yuzaki Ladies and gentlemen, the year is 2020, and 'pandering to incels' is still a viable business strategy. I'm not gonna make any friends for this one but... Tonikawa is real bad. This show popped on my radar while reading through the list of Fall 2020 seasonals. I thought to myself "I could go for a cute romance show -- I love those", and quickly threw it on my list. It would be fun to develop on two essential strangers living together and having to build a relationship fromzero, right? Surely I'd be drowning in cute fluff?

Yeah, I should know better than to trust the anime industry. Instead what I got was a pervert who'd never been within ten feet of a woman before and his empty, wish fulfillment girlfriend. The bulk of the show beyond the introduction is our main character Nasa, who spends his time thinking things like "What if I hold her like a body pillow when we sleep" or "how can I sneak off and see my wife naked in the public bath?" or the aforementioned quote at the beginning of the review. Of course, he can't say 5 words to her without blushing because she's a pretty girl and he doesn't know how to actually act towards his weird impulses. His wife Tsukasa is... a girl. She's pure and innocent -- she blushes whenever he says something nice or lewd about her. She's beautiful, she uses a bunch of beauty products, and of course, she cooks for him. She’s just feisty enough to be cute when a scene calls for it, but this trait basically is just an illusion and takes a backseat to her being shy and submissive around Nasa for the majority of the show. Unsurprisingly, she doesn't actually have much of a personality because she just exists to check the boxes on wish fulfillment fantasies. She's meat on a platter, and giving her significant individuality would serve to break the illusion of every man's fantasy.

Essentially, the entire content of the first three episodes has been cringing at our main character being a degenerate, watching the newlyweds get embarrassed over and over, and fan-servicing the under-aged waifu (because of course she is). It's not like this is some critique of this behaviour or anything -- it just knows enough people out there have similar feelings of loneliness, longing and desire without any idea of what a relationship will even look like. (Look, someone like them went out there and shot his shot and he got the girl!)

I do think Tonikawa is very self-aware of what it's doing, but that's not really a good thing when 'what it's doing' is just reinforcing a bunch of uncomfortable and arguably harmful tropes that already plague the anime and manga industry. I still wouldn't mind this so much if the show didn't brutally reinforce the whole 'perv and his paper doll' thing every chance it gets, but 4 episodes in and there's few signs of that stopping. There's just... next to no other substance here, and any vaguely cute moments get completely overshadowed by the show bashing my brain in that Nasa wants some anime titty.

The fourth episode finally made some attempt at developing Tsukasa, but it felt both too little and too late to win me over. Even during the moments where it’s not being uncomfortable, it feels like it’s trying to convince me this is some perfect, destined pairing. All the while, it’s overlooked the glaring lack of development between the two characters in favour of throwing in a checklist of relationship goals (e.g, a first kiss, a proposal, a wedding). It feels like there’s very little heart or thought put into this core aspect of the show -- which I suppose is exactly what I should expect from a shallow relationship fantasy.

In terms of anything else to this anime, a side character thinks Tsukasa's got 'beautiful skin like an iPhone X' and another side character spent a couple minutes of screentime making jokes about how small Nasa's dick is -- just in case there wasn't enough lewd humour. Finally, a third side character is Tsukasa’s obsessively protective imouto who also wants to marry her. Unsurprisingly, none of these characters are particularly interesting or compelling. There’s also an element of mystery about Tsukasa’s past that it seems to slowly want to develop, but this doesn’t feel like a very important part of the show so far.

I will at least grant the production quality's fine (if mostly unremarkable), and the opening is fairly catchy, so at least there's that? Beyond that, the cheap comedy omnipresent is nothing remarkable, but can still get the occasional laugh. I also still want to feel something towards the romance, but Tonikawa can’t even create a deep conversation towards it so far.

Maybe it'll catch me off guard and develop some maturity or depth later in the season, but as is I'm not really looking forward to the rest of this anime.

I don’t understand the praise for this. Tonikaku tries to be different and yet it falls short. Actually, scratch that. It falls FAR from being any different from any rom-com that I’ve seen. It attempted to mix up the order of a cliche and yet it still is the cliche. The show doesn’t know what it wants to be itself and there is near to nothing redeemable about the show. I have plenty of reasons why, as well. Let's dive in, shall we? TL;DR at the bottom Story One look at the plot reveals that there’s nothing special. In summary, the protagonist, Nasa, gets really smart and later seesa girl he likes and is too scared to confess. Hmmm, I’ve never seen this before. But wait! There’s Truck-Kun to save the day! Truck-Kun hits poor Nasa while he’s crossing the road! But fortunately for him, there’s the girl there to save the day. Let’s take a pause here, the synopsis itself is unappealing. It glues a bunch of cliches together into one giant mess; a protagonist that likes a girl, a girl that he’s too scared to confess to, and a truck that hits the protagonist. This has been seen God knows how many times even the newest of new weebs find the concept repetitive. Of course, this smart guy decides to try to ask out this girl after nearly bleeding to death, then she says yes on the condition that they marry. Then after a long while of not meeting, the girl just comes to his doorstep to marry him. Seriously? I don’t care how many people come up here using their excuses, this plot is straight-up brainless, like the story was made using mad libs and you pick the words using a random word generator.

On top of all of this, the show clearly wants to be different. The director was like, “You know what? Let’s just skip to the end and get them married”. This is an example of them wanting to drift away from a cliche. They switch up the beginning and the end in an attempt to “stand out”, because who cares about developing relationships when you can just conclude it in the first episode, right? But guess what? It still doesn’t stand out! Because everything sandwiched in the middle is just generic Slice-of-Life without a point except for introducing side characters or showing off their failed attempts to make it “cute”.

This Slice-of-Life is pretty mediocre, to say the least. It relies on “cute” faces and textbook awkward situations to tick off time, and the jokes they make aren’t that funny. Caught sniffing someone else’s clothes? Freaking out about a girl sleeping next to you? Really? I mean, I guess if you like small penis jokes and guys freaking out about a girl sleeping next to him, then this may be a bit enjoyable. And how many times does a show have to reference internet culture? It seriously got annoying after the second episode and afterward I wondered if I should drop this show or not. A girl saying to another girl that their skin is “like an iPhone X?”? And who else loves “game-streaming Youtubers?” I swear this script was made by someone who comes home after work from the studio for dinner and has to listen to his 11-year-old son blab on about internet things. Except this time, he is taking extremely loose notes. It’s mostly hit-or-miss humor except with the accuracy of a stormtrooper. They also leave many things open-ended, to the point where you can’t tell if they are serious or it was just a joke, and it was infuriating to watch and wait until they explain it again. Along with all of this, there is a random “mystery” element to it, as there is no explanation or clear backstory with Tsukasa. With that, they don’t give any further explanation why she is around and brushes off that element like it doesn’t exist. The main reason people seem to enjoy this show is because it is cute. However, I fail to find what is so cute about the same repeated jokes, Nasa acting like an awkward loser most of the time, and the side characters being absolute airheads. This is easily a 1.

Sound

Music is decent. The OP music is fairly interesting, as it has the vibe of Youtuber’s opening from 5 years ago, not that it’s a good or bad thing. There are also some notable VAs in this anime, like Akari Kitou, Konomi Kohara, and Sumire Uesaka. Each one of them has had their own big roles and their talent made this show a bit more tolerable. The music and sounds throughout the show, however, is a problem. It uses the wrong sounds at the wrong time. It fails to find the right emotion for the scene multiple times. This wrong use of sounds is recurring and can be unsettling. The soundtracks are catchy, so I’ll give this a 3.

Art

The art in the background gives a tranquil feeling. Definitely one of the better things in the series. However, there are some backgrounds and color combos that look like they were made in Microsoft 3d builder. The character designs are also one of the worst things I’ve seen. I’m not sure how people believe that these designs are cute and all. It’s expected during the hard times currently, but I’ve seen hentais with better character design than this crap. Its oversaturated colors and creepy looking eyes with their simplistic face structure make it hard to look at the half-decent scenery that was before my eyes. I also hate the blushes on this anime. Everytime someone blushes in this anime, it is represented by a bunch of red lines lazily stroked across the face. This is neither aesthetic nor appealing, and it looks disgusting. 2.

Characters

Characters are another black spot in the series. We have Nasa, and he acts like a clueless 11 year old around Tsukasa, the girl he fawns over. He’s absolutely hopeless in his love life and it is cringeworthy to watch the moves he makes on Tsukasa. And his personality? A textbook hopeless loner nerd, except without the harem, but still perverted. This is somehow meant to be “relatable” to the audience. What else? Oh, he’s smart? And guess why? He’s named Nasa! He felt obliged to become smart because his name was Nasa, which happened to be the name of the American Space Agency. I’ve heard many stupid explanations from anime, but this takes the cake. So let’s say he actually gets his goal, studies hard, and becomes a billionaire. If I were to see a billionaire with a scientific discovery, I’d still be reminded if they have some weird name. Like Stephen Hawking, despite him making so many discoveries, in the end he’s known for being disabled. Another weird thing about this show is that even though they bother to add a smart personality, it is almost never projected throughout the show. I actually forgot about his “smart” personality 7 episodes in until I decided to look back at the first episode, which shows how subtle and unnecessary this trait was.

Now let’s look at Tsukasa, the most lazily written character. Her personality is quite questionable. She decides to save Nasa, a random guy at the moment, from getting hit by a truck and just survives. They don’t bother explaining why this happens until the very end. And like any other logical character, decides to marry this random person he saved 2 years later, because who cares about developing relationships when they can just skip to the end? There’s no effort put into developing her, either, as she still has no foreseeable characteristics or backstory. Oh yeah, let's make her underage, too. She’s 16 while Nasa’s 18, and they’re getting married… Cute, right? I get that Japan has a low age of consent, but that itself is messed up on its own. The intention for her existence is to give the perfect girl that the audience can suck-up to. Nasa and Tsukasa’s relationship goes nowhere as well, as after they get married in the first episode. The episodes after consist of either introducing side characters, Nasa fantasizing things to do with Tsukasa and failing, or doing “fiance” things like picking out a wedding ring, introducing each other’s families, and kissing.

The side characters are unappealing as well, just whiny and annoying characters that provide random moments of fanservice. Let’s look into each of these side characters. First, we have Kaname. Kaname is Nasa’s friend and doesn’t make fun of his name. Awww, wholesome. Her entire existence, however, is to provide more fanservice to the audience, as she cleans Nasa’s bath while he’s still in the bath and makes fun of his penis. Her presence is an inconvenience and makes the show more uncomfortable. There’s her big sister, Aya, too. The reason for her existence is to have a random onee-chan feeling to the show. Now we have a textbook pervert and a textbook onee-chan. Really. The parents are pretty boring as well in their little appearance. If anything, they are a nuisance to the screen as they are constantly loud and worrying and I just can’t stand them.

Now we can look at Tsukasa’s side of characters. There’s Chitose, the generic imouto/tsundere. She is the wannabe conflict in an episode, but after that, she’s just a whiny grudge that I despise every time she appears on the screen. And of course, they had to inject more generic themes, with her wanting to marry Tsukasa as well, adding an unnecessary yuri relationship that doesn’t even go anywhere. Another piece to glue into this mess. The maids in this show are really just there to be clueless and don’t have any meaning to them. All in all the side characters are a mess and uninteresting and exist only for the point of making the audience uncomfortable.

Overall the characters are either annoying and have no sense to them or they exist for giving unnecessary fanservice. 1.

Enjoyment

I wasn’t able to find enjoyment in this show. As stated before, it relies on awkward situations and fanservice to keep the audience engaged. The show doesn’t even know itself what it wants to be, as it switches between random moments of fanservice and wholesome moments. It’s hard to tell if they wanted Tonikaku to be cute or uncomfortable to watch. It made me uncomfortable how they run time off of the clock making sexual jokes or giving compilations of Nasa failing to develop the little relationship that he has. It relies on the exploitation of an otaku’s fantasy of a girl just coming up to their door and wanting to marry him, and him not being able to do anything with the relationship to entertain the audience. This is yet another 1.

TL;DR

Story - 1/10: SOL so it’s not expected of a plot, but the premise is just plain stupid and the SOL is unfunny and tries too hard to reach out to the younger generation.

Sound - 3/10: Pretty good OP/ED, but the song choices feel off during most scenes.

Art - 2/10: Half-decent background/scenery, but the character designs are creepy and the art is oversaturated.

Characters - 1/10: The characters either have no explanation or have tropes that aren’t used throughout the entire show. Side characters are inconvenient and give occasional fanservice as their purpose.

Enjoyment - 1/10: The show doesn’t know itself, as it either switches around from cute to lewd moments in random intervals. Uncomfortable to watch.

Overall

Tonikaku tried hard to be different, but it couldn’t. It had no potential to be something and yet it tried to be something else. I suffered through Tonikaku. It’s a bad show that relied on random “cute” moments and unfunny situations in order to keep the audience engaged. Tonikaku truly wanted to be something, but in the end, it was a cliche mess. A cliche mess with uncomfortable characters, unbearable sounds, and eye-killing artstyle, and I’m glad it’s over.

:: This review is based on the first 4 episodes and has no major spoilers :: Imagine you have your shit together in life, nothing can stop you. You have worked hard ever since you were a kid to make sure you’re successful. Until one day while walking back to your home, you see this beautiful girl, who just takes your breath away. You want to talk to her but get in an accident before you could. Thinking it is your last moments, you confess to her and she agrees to go out with you on one condition. You have to marry her. I know right? Soundsridiculous! But don’t let it fool you, this is one of the sweetest shows of this season. I was very hesitant to watch this show because the synopsis looked quite weird as I’ve mentioned? But it has provided a lot of joy to me till now!

:: Story ~ 7 out of 10 ::

The story is nothing special, but it doesn’t have to be. You will just fall in love with the pure innocence and wholesomeness this show provides. But, if it is an immaculate story building experience you crave, Tonikaku is not the anime for you.

:: Art & Sound ~ 8 out of 10 ::

Neither the art nor sound here are something to write home about. But it is not bad at all. All in all, it is more than a decent package.

:: Characters ~ 8 out of 10 ::

The characters are just adorable. Especially Tsukasa. I did not anticipate how much of an impression she would leave on me as she did. Nasa is also quite funny. No complains on this regard.

:: Enjoyment ~ 9 out of 10 ::

This show was the shocker of the season for me. I had little hopes getting into it, but left with so much more. The journey till now has been divine. And I am looking forward to what’s in store for the future.

:: Overall ~ 8 out of 10 ::

If slice of life is your cup of tea and you were doubtful whether you should give this show a shot or not? You should definitely go for it! It is not the best slice of life anime or anything, but it is still a barrel of laughs and wholesomeness.

This show is a generic Rom Com...so what? With what seems to be a great anime adaptation, we can expect great things from this anime moving forward just like a Truck-Kun. With an all-you-can-eat lovefest, I have already fallen in love with an MC that understands that scams don't matter if there is a cute girl involved. Our two happily married lovestruck protagonists are very different than your usual nice guy accidentally tripping face-first into a lewd position with tsundere girlfriend. Story I love romance, and I love romance when it's executed right. With a humorous and lovable approach, we see this anime quickly break the barrier ofa typical rom-com and it’s usual tropes and head over to getting married, why you ask? Because this anime keeps on moving at great speed just like Truck-Kun. Our protagonist, Yuzaki, Nasa, near the verge of death receives a somewhat hilarious meeting with his future wife helping him, avoiding death, when our heroine, Yuzaki, Tsukasa(adopting his last name due to marriage) agreeing to our MC’s ridiculous request of marrying her, meets again to begin this great rom-com. I for one am very grateful to the all-powerful Truck-Kun; for he provides a different approach to the romance genre that I have come to appreciate.

Characters

While we have a somewhat generic character lineup, doesn’t mean that my ability to love them will wither away. Since they haven’t made such a change and diversity to the characters it’s easier to relate to, simply because I’m so used to a generic ideology.

Our protagonist Nasa isn’t much different than your usual rom-com protagonist, he simply embodies us, the medium of people who watch others romance prosper through anime. Though this time, he is the lucky victim who us, the viewer, despises. Why do you ask? Simple. He has the love we will never have. Nasa, besides my every fiber of being hating this lucky kid, is a fun character that is not good enough for his wife.

On the other hand, Tsukasa, our beloved wife, helps us realize that the best girl doesn’t have to be obnoxious tsundere. No, it can be Tsukasa the all caring wife, true to her feelings, won’t hit you for a stupid reason and wears an apron(if you know what I mean). Tsukasa has a somewhat mysterious background that is being revealed slowly. This is great, it differentiates from the usual childhood friend ideology. Honestly, I love her, she brings a breath of fresh air and we must all inhale and exhale very...very...very slowly, for we might never see another gem like this for a while.

Though this anime has somewhat of a generic character lineup besides Tsukasa, it doesn’t affect the overall laughs and moments you will experience with this anime.

Animation and Art

I’m not going to lie, I perceive this animation and art average at best. With no differentiation to your typical rom-com, animation and art let me down. At humorous points of this anime, we would automatically without question switch over to chibi characters, and a production cost of animation and art would pummel. Specifically speaking, the art has no entertainment or visual value, it brings nothing new to the table and at times would seem that the only effort put into this would be at heartwarming scenes or scenes where they had to put in some effort. The animation was subpar; nothing terrible occurred in this department but the overall enjoyment through animation. The animation wasn’t fluid and had not given me the breath of fresh air I had longed for, especially when taking a new approach to this genre of anime.

Sound

The sound is great, especially the OP. The OP brings a new sound to the average and boring sound that we see now. Other than that, the sounds that bring our couple to life are smooth and natural. There are many great moments when the soundtrack shined, allowing me to appreciate this anime more than I originally had.

Enjoyment

This couple had countlessly kept me, without a doubt, smiling throughout each episode. With heartfelt and stupid humorous moments our two happily married couple outshines through all of the muddy and usual generic tropes of a rom-com. I love romcoms, I do, it always reminds me time and time again that I will never reach a tier of greatness this protagonist of this caliber attains. While this anime is essentially a generic rom-com, you will have fun that is not provided in a normal and used plotline of other romcoms.

Overall

This anime is a great watch, with a new take on this genre, it outshines many of the usual romance animes we have seen in a while. Give this anime a watch; it portrays a new view of romance that everyone should see. Give this anime a try, why do you ask yet again? This anime will make you question, where is my wife?

Story:8

Characters:6

Animation/Art:4

Sound:8

Enjoyment:9

Overall:8

Alright, let us all hope and pray this anime turns out to be amazing, so we all can enjoy the love and joy we will never have!

This is the ultimate wish-fulfillment fantasy garbage. I can't believe so many people have bought into this trash. This has got to be the cringiest most overrated series I've seen in a while. I dont know, when you got two eccentric main characters getting together in the first episode, and little to no drama, it should make for a good slice-of-life romcom, right? Well... Story: Yet another "Guy gets the girl" show. It should be obvious given the cover art and from one look at this show. The show centers around main characters Yuzaki Nasa and Tsukuyomi Tsukasa. After getting hit by a truck, Nasa isquickly saved by the mysterious heroine and he confesses to her on the spot. She accepts. We follow the mundane day-to-day lives of this happy couple. It's pretty boring.

Most people complain about wish-fulfillment fantasies, but this show is literally based on that whole idea. This show was made to be the ultimate wish-fulfillment with the "perfect wife" whose only pupose is to serve the main male character.

Characters: This is where the show sucks. Nasa is made to be this complete genius with zero common sense. I can see it being funny in another anime, but the problem is this show manages to make use of every romcom trope and do nothing interesting with the characters.

We got the loli childhood friend, the not-loli childhood friend, the lesbian tsundere vying for her step-sister's affection, a trap maid who literally feels like he was added to the scenes as an afterthought, and that cheerful maid. And this is only episode 4. Jesus Christ.

"Girls are this soft?! Human hands are this warm... and feel this good? This is marriage?! It's fantastic!" - Nasa Yuzaki

The dialogue in this show is the absolute worst. When it's generic, I guess it's fine. But when it isn't being generic, it's being incredibly stupid and creepy. Who talks like that? Honestly...

Animation: It's cheap and it looks bad. Washed out colors. This looks like it came out in 2011.

Overall: If you're new to anime, this show is fine for you. It's a shonen comedy, so if you're a newcomer you might like it.

HOWEVER if you're not new, this show is seriously unfunny. It goes for all the cheap jokes most common in a shonen romcom. This is how most romcoms are when they are shonen. Literally every joke has zero creativity or thought put into it. It's generic as any other cheap anime.

Don't watch this show.

I was going to review Rose of Versailles, but I decided to binge this somewhat polarizing series on a whim. Most of the reviews I've read are either super positive and in the 8-10 range or super negative in the 2-3 range. I personally came down somewhere in the middle. I don't think this show is good by any means, but I also don't think it's offensively bad. It's just frustrating because it had so much untapped potential. How many beloved anime couples are actually married? Really think about it. I guess Holo and Lawrence from Spice and Wolf get married in the last chapter ofthe Light Novel, but it sure as hell doesn't happen in the anime. Mamoru and Usagi from Sailor Moon do get married but it's in the future and we never see much of what their marriage is like. Several Dragonball characters get married, but Toriyama doesn't write romance. I have zero idea how Goku and ChiChi's marriage works. He's a manchild that trains in the wilderness and sometimes occasionally comes home for dinner.

What if there was a relatable anime about a young married couple and how they have to face the everyday problems of married life? There are many real life couples in their late 20s and early 30s who grew up with anime and who would really enjoy a show like that! Since there isn't a single anime that's like that, it would be a wide open market! That's an amazing idea! How could they possibly screw this up?!

They screw it up directly out of the starting gate. The premise is actually one of the dumbest I've ever come across in anime. I've been watching anime since 1998, so I've seen some DUMB anime in my time. I do not make this statement lightly. Our hero is named NASA after the space institute because his parents are quirky and weird. He was so embarrassed by his name that he vowed to study until he became a genius and was the greatest student in Japan. Then nobody could make fun of him. That is one dumb motivation! One day, he's walking to school and sees a cute girl. He decides to rush across the street like a moron and get plowed by Truck-kun. Fortunately, this doesn't become an isekai. Instead, his life is saved by the cute girl. She starts to walk away, but he chases after her on 2 broken legs and with severe blood loss and head trauma to ask her on a date. She says she's not interested in dating and will only be with him if he agrees to marry her then and there. He agrees, but she disappears.

Nasa then does what anyone would do. He drops out of high school and wastes his natural genius by becoming a delivery boy. This is all in the hopes of somehow finding that girl he met one time when he was badly injured and suffering brain trauma. She shows up 2 years later out of the blue with a marriage certificate and they get married at midnight. Their marriage is illegal under Japanese law since he's 18 and she's only 16, but the series never actually brings this up! It would technically be legal in some provinces with parental consent, but they pay some random homeless person to be their witness and the parents never consent!

So the premise is stupid. So what? It's the execution that matters. Surely these 2 have great chemistry and are an adorable couple right? Nope! Almost every scene of them together was awkward and cringe inducing rather than warm and wholesome. Firstly, they have very little chemistry together and don't play off each other at all. Nasa is an awkward, geeky virgin whose only real trait is that he's a genius when the show remembers that he is. However, Nasa still has FAR more of a personality and character than Tsukasa. She's meant to be a blushing, Yamato nadeshiko but the show takes that to an extreme. She loves to cook, clean, compliment her husbando, and rarely ever speaks accept when spoken to. This makes her extremely boring. With a good anime couple, the guy will say something, then the girl has a witty retort, then the guy responds back in a playful way, and it's like a ping pong ball being lobbed back and forth. In Over the Moon, Nasa will engage in a long inner monologue about how cute his wife is and how maybe someday they might actually hold hands. Then he awkwardly asks to hold her hand. She then blushes and lets him do it. They never go back and forth exchanging more than 4 sentences! To the show's credit there is one scene where it reveals she loves trashy movies and forces Nasa to buy her a TV so she can watch Sharknado! Sadly, that's probably the best character development she gets in the entire show!

I've read some bad fanfiction. I've attempted to write mushy, romantic fanfiction. The dialogue in Over the Moon is BAD even by fanfic standards. Half of Nasa's dialogue is just "I can't believe girls are soft! I can't believe her hand is warm! I can't believe girls breathe when they sleep! I can't believe her hair smells nice!" In episode 2 he asks if he can touch her body and she replies, "From now on, my body is an all you can grab buffet!". That's Sci-fi original movie level dialogue. That's reaching Tommy Wiseau levels of stilted and unnatural.

I've covered the dialogue and lack of chemistry, but that's not all that's wrong with this show. You would expect them to tackle issues that young couples would find relatable. Maybe she snores loudly and he has to sleep somewhere else. Maybe their first time having sex is awkward and we get a comedic "training" montage. Maybe she gets stressed with school and they have an argument and need to make up. Instead they just do stuff like go to the hot springs or go to a festival or the kind of dates you would see in any other anime. They never encounter any of the problems that young couples actually face. If you've ever dated a woman in your life, watching this show becomes like watching aliens interact. It's not remotely realistic or relatable.

I know they can't show too much because she's 16 for some reason, but I would expect an anime about a young married couple to deal with physical intimacy. Instead, they act like 2 middle school kids going on their first date. I know I'm not the first review to say that, but it's so true! After 3 months, she's sleeping on the floor because both of them are too afraid of sleeping in the same bed! After 2 months of being married, they act like holding hands is some SUPER kinky, forbidden shit. I told my girlfriend this show was written by an Amish otaku whose entire knowledge of relationships is based off a single volume of Love Hina that he secretly bought at Walmart. At one point, Nasa comes home from work and catches her changing skirts in the bathroom. She still has her panties on, but they both freak out. She then apologizes for changing clothes in her own house because she should have known he would be coming home around that time. Also she was in the bathroom, not changing right behind the front door or anything! Trad Waifu's puritan power is hitting levels that shouldn't even be possible! When I was in college, I had a project partner from Saudi Arabia who lived with his wife from a traditional, arranged marriage. I could never imagine her apologizing for changing clothes in her own bathroom. No human being would ever do that!

As much as I like to dunk on this show and berate the fact it's rated far above anime romcoms that I enjoy like Karekano, the show does have moments where it's amusing. Tsukasa has a possessive little sister that wants to marry her and perpetually screams orders at 2 idiotic minions. Basically, her little sister is Emperor Pilaf from Dragonball. That at least made me happy. The random Sharknado reference was so awkward and out of nowhere it was pretty funny. The last episode was actually almost good and started to get near wholesome territory despite all its bad writing. I honestly don't believe this show was created to cater to incels as some have suggested online. It doesn't have ill intent and isn't deliberately reactionary in its gender roles or portrayal of marriage. The author really did want to create a wholesome, young couple and mix it with traditional anime quirks. In the end, it deserves indifference rather than vitriol. This isn't actually a hateful series, just a woefully underdeveloped one with awkward writing. They also shouldn't have chosen the director of fucking Ninja Slayer and Akiba's Trip to try direct a wholesome romance anime. The series dialogue was the man behind the series composition for Akiba's Trip, which is about a guy running around Tokyo ripping girls' clothes off to save them from alien parasites. Even with flawed source material, a better director and script writer probably could have made this work. Sadly, it's just kind of a wreck.

I don't know where to start with this, and I don't know what i'm going to do next. Oh, wait, now I can understand what these guys felt when they made this anime. Geez. I have to state that I don't really like this type of anime. Not a huge fan of rom-com animes; I don't despise them though. But this series kind of made me feel like if I did. The premise is pretty original, I must say: a mysteryous girl comes right out of nowhere and saves a guy's life and he, in repay, talks to her and kind of fall in love intwo minutes. When he asks her out, she just responses that she will do that if he marries her. The virgin guy, of course accepts that inmediately. After that, they never see each other again until some years later, when she comes again out of nowhere to tell him that he promised to marry her.The main chracter, even though he is in shock, he accepts again. And I had expectations. But after this, the narrative goes to nowhere, it becomes a show with no objective. Just a bunch of episodes showing their lives as a married couple (that has no idea who they are married to) and the really stupid part begins.

Nasa is a young man that, apparently, never touched a girl, never seen a girl, never breathed the same air of a girl, never ever been in a room with a girl. Although she is very mature to her age, he is a cringey guy that, more than being cute, behaves as a total perv. The lame comedy of this show relies primarily on him and his NEVER-SEEN-A-GIRL thing. Even when I thought it was going to get some better or that he, finally, would stop with that, no, there it goes again. And no, no, no, a person can't justify this by saying "he's in love" because, if it's that the case, that love has no base. They have met for two days and that's all.

"OMG, my wife is sleeping!", "OMG, I'm watching her as she sleeps and her pijama just opened!!", "OMG, should i hug her as a dakimakura when we sleep?", "OMG, A GIRL (that I married for no logical reason more than 'she is beautiful') is staying in my house?", "OMG, girls smell so good", "OMG, girl's hand are so soft", "OMG, she (the girl I married because is the only girl i've seen in my life, and that nows LIVES here) is changing his clothes in the next room! Sould I peep her? I mean, she's my wife", OMG, this is the first time I see her after she takes a bath!!" This is just an intro to all the things this guy says per episode. YEAH, WE GET IT, NASA NEVER WAS LESS THAN FIVE METERS AWAY FROM ANY WOMAN IN THE WORLD. Despite that's not my kind of humor either, okay, one time this can be funny to some people, that's okay. Two times, we can pass that. More than three times in the same episode with that poor safe humor? Stop that, stop it, I'm begging you.

EDIT: my god,I can't believe how many people is harshly defending Nasa, going to the other negative reviewer's profile to state that he is not a pervert. Lmao, I just watched the 6th episode and I can't believe how many times they made a joke about Nasa getting hot at what his wife does in HER SLEEP. Later, he was thinking about moving to a bigger place, and his first thought was a mental picture of Tsukasa getting out of the bathroom with just a towel wrapping her to tell him to bath with her. After that he goes all hot again and that's it. And the worst part of it is that he justifies every lewd thing he does by saying "I mean, I can, because... she is my wife". Btw, I'm NOT saying wether this is natural or not, I'm just saying HE IS A PERVERT AND DOES BEHAVE LIKE ONE, and all his stupid stuff about not understanding ANYTHING about how girls think, only makes it even worse; to him, even taking pictures of her is enough to make him scream, blush and to comport like a drooling dog, and even the things she recognize as romantic, he automatically thinks of it as a opportunity to touch her. Is that all he has in mind? I mean, he's no teenager, he's a grown up; being 18 and behaving like this it's not relatable. If that's "wholesome" and not a perv to you, I'm seriously worried about how you treat other persons.

While I was watching this, I read a lot of comments saying this was fun af. I really don't understand if that's because a person can identify themself with Nasa and his NEVER-SEEN-A-GIRL thing (which is something I would worry), or if its humor actually makes them laugh. Not judging, just trying to understand. Besides that types of comments, there was others saying that the main character was A TOTAL GENIUS and that he was a lot smarter and bolder than other main characters. No, he's not. He's desperate. The anime tries to convince you the other way around, trying to develope a love story that has no sustain in a really short time. I mean, what kind of sustain can this story have more than superficial atraction and a guy that couldn't live very well for years because he couldn't forget a girl he saw once? Maybe I'm not such a romantic person, don't mind me.

Tsukasa, his wife, is the only thing decent in this anime because is cute and not a perv nor ecchi material (at least, until now). And the worst part? The viewer doesn't get to know anything of her in the first half of the anime. They give some vague things about her past and so, but so far she is just a potato that wants to be the perfect wife for a guy she barely knows. And also, okay, the virgin guy fell in love in two seconds, yes, but when did she fall in love with him? Second episode she's already blushing at every stupid thing he says and every pervert reaction he has. As I said, no sustain at all. Love is not so simple, and never so rushed.

And well, if with Nasa you hadn't enough, then you have all the secondary characters, which also do some classical "hentai!" jokes and talk with double meaning. Even later appears Tsukasa's little sister, an absolutely annoying tsundere that has nothing else to do than meddle in their lives because she is kind of obssessed with her sister and can't accept Nasa as her "brother-in-law" (okay, I wouldn't either, but she has no reasons at all).This is the kind of character I hate the most, and even hurts to watch. Besides this unbearable human being, you have her maids. Two characters whose only objective is to make the typical jokes about the clumsy braindead maid. And even going further, you have the childhood friends thar are also sisters. One is evidently in love with Nasa, and the other one is just the exasperating one, a girl whose only purpose is to call him a degenerate (not so far tho) and to accompany him in the same repetitive stuff.

In the other hand, I have to say that the sound is good. The opening is cute and that's it. The animation is nothing remarcable nor memorable. Anyway, there are some positive things about it, even though they are so little. Although there is no depth, and except for Nasa and all the time he opens his mouth, there are some cute moments well made. And that's it. Two seconds later you will get another lame joke or another nonsensical and rushed action between both of them and the magic is broken.

There are comedies that I can stand, and there are some that I really can enjoy even though its flaws. This is not the case. I'm probbably going to keep watching this because I hate dropping things even if it's a suffer. Nevertheless, I won't recommend this to anyone, unless that person enjoys a repetitive "virgin guy" humor, or enjoys just a romance with no depth at all.

"Truck-kun failed to isekai me, so I married a hot teenage girl I happened to see walking down the street that night." That should be the title of this anime; a literal summary of the story. (There's a TL;DR at the bottom for convenience.) The story all happens in episode 1 and can be summed up in a paragraph: The main character, Nasa, decides to work really hard and becomes the top student with a guaranteed excellent future. He sees a girl walking down the street in the middle of the night, decides to cross the street to talk to her, and gets hit by one ofthe only two vehicles on the road. The girl manages to shield Nasa from the full force of the truck with her body, then proceeds to leave the accident scene with a minor cut on her head. Meanwhile, Nasa has several broken bones and is bleeding out, but decides to chase her down and ask her out. She agrees on the condition that he marries her first, to which Nasa agrees before passing out, finally. After several months pass, the girl shows up at his apartment to marry him and move in.

That's the story. They get married and live together as a married couple with a high school level relationship. It's pretty much just a slice-of-life show that relies on the embarrassment of the characters as comedy, normally ending with one of them reminding the other that they ARE a married couple. Hilarious. I'm not sure who this show is supposed to appeal to, but it certainly isn't for everybody.

Story - 1

The plot is so unbelievably stupid that it's hard to swallow. The sheer amount of plot conveniences in the first episode is disturbing. There were two trucks on the road the night they met--how do you not see one of the only two vehicles on the road? There was no other person on the streets during this scene. either, so it's not like it was too noisy or his view was blocked. She shielded him from the truck with her body, absorbing the brunt of the impact. That said, she walked away with a minor cut on her head. Nasa was laid out in a pool of blood, gushing blood from his head and, as the girl points out after he catches up to her, walking around on two broken legs. Anyway, Nasa heals, drops out of school and works many jobs to try and find this girl until she shows up one day at his apartment because why wouldn't she just know where he lives? To end the episode, she educates Nasa with her incredibly detailed knowledge of the marriage system and they get married officially. Beyond that, it's daily life adventures of a newlywed couple that has obviously never had another relationship in their lives.

Art and Sound - 7

Characters and animation are consistent and pretty well done. The music is generally pleasing, but nothing amazing. The high points of the show.

Characters - 2

Very bland characters with little personality so far (5 episodes in, at the time of writing). Nasa is smart after all of his studying, but has no experience with women, so he's constantly embarrassed around Tsukasa. Tsukasa is an empty character that, so far, is no more than a plot device and a pretty face: "This girl is seriously cute!" --Nasa Yuzaki.

Side characters have been introduced and are equally as one-dimensional as the main characters. The little sister that is plotting to break up the marriage using her inept maids, the childhood friend that has a crush on the main character, the friend's little sister that also seems to have a secret crush on him too.

Five episodes in, the only character development we've seen is more characters thrown in. Any small chance for development is usually upended by a joke or a plot convenience.

Enjoyment - 2

Jokes are very poor, mostly reliant on the embarrassing situations which are so overplayed and tired that they fail to hit most of the time.

The romance is non-existent since they married already and there is no outside drama to bring any tension or interest in the relationship. Anything that may have brought forth a meaningful growth in their relationship is quickly brushed aside or written off as a joke, ruining what could have been a moment of character development.

Overall - 4

This show has little going for it unless all you want is a show about nothing. It's similar to a cute girls doing cute things show, but it's a married couple.

TL;DR

This show is empty, feel-good fluff. If you like that kind of thing, watch the show.

If you wanted a romance story with interesting characters exploring themes of a mature relationship and married life, this is not what you will get. There's nothing worthwhile in this show and paired with a poorly conceived story filled with plot holes and excessive plot conveniences, it brings an average show down to a "below average" or "bad".

*UPDATE 12/21/2020*

Having finished the show, I can now confirm that nothing changed from start to finish in this show. There was no development of characters, plot, or anything really aside from them moving because of a fire.

I'm going to.keep it short and simple, as that's how the anime is. This show is hot garbage and it's similar to watching little children play house in every way, shape and form. From the guy getting dragged around to the girl not knowing when to give it up. From falling in obsessive love so easily to then having zero character or relationship development. I could go on. It's an anime about adults playing the children's version of house. And it won't change because that's exactly how the manga is, episodic. The author of the manga, the same one that brought us Hayate Combat Butler,writes episodic nonsense, not actually good romance. Hell, the MC is like a generic typical harem anime MC but instead of being put in a harem, he's in something different. Same annoying little turd, different setting. Now if watching adults play out their 7 year old years is something you consider wholesome or good romance, all the power to you. But for me, a romance obsessed anime fan, this is the lowest tier of romance you could get before crossing into non-existence.

So for the positives the animation and sound are fine and are the high points for the show. The characters look like their source material, and the animation isn't berserk cgi, but the art isn't anything noteworthy and you'll see the same style just about everywhere else. Nothing from the sound really stood out as being good or bad. I honestly find it hard to classify this anime as any particular genre. The comedy portion is generally very poor and is more a cringe factor than comedic. There is also the reliance it has on borrowing from other works, nothing wrong with well used parody butthis show just shoe horns in some reference in an attempt to add to its appeal.

The main characters Nasa and Tsukasa are nondescript. Nasa is a mary sue that is easily embarrassed and has a bank account. Tsukasa is "hinted" to be princess kaguya, otherwise she is at least relatable as a person. One character is just annoying, unlikable, and living in his own world, the other is so generic she could be anyone so long as they were cute.

The story lacks any feeling of romance between the two characters. They love each other because they love each other, even though they've known each other for 3 mins. They know hardly know each other but the deepest conversation we see is about movies? Cardboard cut outs have more depth than the main characters have shown in 4 episodes. The side characters are carbon copies from other series and are just tools to artificially create problems for the M.C.'s because there is no meaningful story between the two of them without some outside interference.

Didn't expect the story to be this good since they got married in the first episode. But now that I'm rethinking it, marriage is better than BF-GF relationship the author left no room for us to breath...this Kawaii story can even make a man blush.....Sooooo gooooood Unlike ANY(EVERY) other Anime, this one has a Reversed plot, where the MC gets married first then Character development, which leads to a good and enjoyable story Unlike other Romance Anime, this one easily catches us(especially boys) off guard with its Romance theme and comedy. There's another thing that there are chances of breakup in a relationship but in this case, thingslike this leads to another comedy scene(for example Ep 4).

Overall, Just love the story,the characters, the Artstyle .... and Enjoying the hell out of this anime. Feels ggod even after rewatching....

PLOT It is pretty barebones. Guy sees girl, instantly falls in love, girl reciprocates the feelings for whatever reason, they marry and from there onwards, it is a mind-numbing slice of life anime. The premise is void of any logic and the execution is just as senseless. The show goes through a checklist of situations for both characters without any love for detail or complexity. Given, a simple narrative can be enjoyable but not if it is a complete snoozefest. Furthermore, they use a lot of comedy to try and make things entertaining, which is a fair concept, but the show's humor did not work forme at all. This comedic style only makes me roll my eyes.

CHARACTERS

Let's focus on the two main characters since the side cast is absolutely forgettable.

Our main guy is Nasa Yuzaki and he has a complex about his name. For some reason, everyone chuckles and laughs about his name because it is the funniest thing ever if a guy is named after the American space agency. This humiliation motivates him to become the greatest mind ever, aiming for the very top. Well, all of it gets thrown out in the very first episode and his personality resets to a hormone-driven teen because he saw a cute girl. He is 18 years old but handholding is still way too risqué and he blushes uncontrollably if he talks with his wife for more than 5 seconds. Hopefully you enjoy this kind of "comedy", otherwise you will be miserable.

Since I already mentioned the cute girl, let's shove Tsukasa into the spotlight. She resembles an AI that just knows the very basics of acting like a human. Seriously, she has no real or notable character trait. Her only purpose is to be with Nasa and fulfill his wishes while not showing any ounce of individuality. Well, her second one would be to sell merchandise. I am not joking when I say she has as much personality as a Roomba.

There is no rhyme or reason to their relationships, it does not feel organic, and calling it forced is an understatement. I have not seen a single hint of actual chemistry between them.

VISUALS

I didn't expect much visual-wise since the anime clearly had not enough budget to pump out something stunning. The colors look washed out and the animation can get clunky but it gets the job done. Sometimes the screen is filled with a weird mish-mash of colors and shades but it is bearable. The worst offender is probably the character design, calling them grotesque might be a bit harsh, but no other word pops into my mind. To sum it up, the visuals are below average.

SOUND

Plain, unexciting and sometimes even a hindrance. In some scenes, the sound design just doesn't support what's happening on screen. It fails to be cohesive.

OVERALL OPINION

A cookie-cutter rom-com, but instead of clean cutters they used warped ones. Nothing works together, nothing about this anime is unique and nothing is memorable. Just another parasite wriggling its way into the romance genre.

I just want to leave a short review on why I only gave a 6/10. While I do love romance anime and like the feel-good aspect of a lot of SoL anime, I didn't quite get the same from Tonikaku. In my opinion, the best aspect of romance anime is when the two people you ship are unsure about how the other one feels, with a romantic finale of them getting together. I also don't mind a story where the characters are already a couple. The problem I saw with Tonikaku is, that there is notreally a story. I can pretty much tell the whole story in less than 5 minutes. Also, while the first episodes were cute as hell, it got repetitive really fast.

Another problem is that there aren't really memorable locations other than the ones the whole anime plays in. There also weren't astonishing animations or pictures.

They didn't cover the secret of her at all, so the mystic element is totally unnecessary in the end.

Tonikaku is definitely a feel-good anime and pretty cute as it is. I just don't see it having 13 episodes and can't recommend it to actively watch or binge it. It's a really good series to watch for when you want to chill and feel good or to watch next to playing games or something else, but I didn't have the need to binge it as I did with 5 other anime this week with a romance theme or parts of romance.

All in all not bad and totally wholesome, but a bit bland.

Can't understand what is so good about this anime for those who say it was the best title in 2020... It was boring as hell. The story was lame and pretty much pointless. 0 character developement either. Overused "omg she's changing I shouldn't look..." bull$hit. I watched the whole thing but couldn't find any enjoyable moment at all. The ending was pointless as the story led to nowhere. But the most positive thing about this... that I finally have an anime that I could give a 1 rating from the bottom of my heart. The house fire was something that had potential to move the story forward but it didn't.

Please go through the full review for a better understanding! Might include some light spoilers, so I'll give a spoiler warning! Note: I know I am giving almost all a 10/10 but it's for a reason! And also please remember that this is my opinion and I respect others' opinions as well. Genre of Tonikaku Kawaii- Romantic Comedy, Science Fiction 1. Story- 9/10 I loved the creativity of this story but the only reason I didn't give this a 10/10 is because it's kind of adapted from the Japanese Story The moon princess and I liked the fact they used this, but anyway I really loved the plot and whatI basically mean is that it has a good plot.

2. Art- 10/10

The art.. what can I even say! It is such a cute, romance anime and of course has an amazing art style! A 10/10 from me. duh!

3. Sound- 9/10

Really loved the opening to this anime! I'm waiting for future episodes and I have read the manga so I'm really excited!

4. Character- 10/10

The characters are so well written! It's not like (A light spoiler ahead!) Tsukasa is better than Nasa or Nasa is better than Tsukasa! They both balance each other perfectly and so. The Ultimate Ship! For the other characters, they are also amazing! Just watch the episodes will you?? :<

5. Enjoyment- 9/10

Nothing to really say but.. (Spoiler!!)

the Tsukasa x Nasa moments are so GOD DAMN AMAZING!

Just... AAAA It's so good!

6. Overall- 9/10

This anime is such a good romance anime and if you are a fan of romance animes, then this is a MUST-WATCH! Please do watch it! I highly recommend!! ^^

The manga is also great btw! :3

Thank you so much for reading all the way! I hope you liked my review!

Story 3.5/10: Basically, Tsukasa (the female MC) and Nasa (the male MC) decide to get married after she saves him from getting hit by a car. Thus starts their marriage life. The whole anime is a rom-com of the newlywed’s beginning marriage lives and the obstacles of it: romance/relationship development, learning one another’s hobbies/interests, going on trips, shopping and cooking together, sharing a house, and meeting family members/friends. Sounds cute and simple, right? The thing is, coming into this anime, I never realized how childish it would turn out to be. Almost every other line that comes out of Nasa’s mouth is going on andon about praising Tsukasa on how perfect she is. “My wife is so cute.” “This is my wife, the cutest girl in the universe!” “She’s so cute!” Ok we get it Nasa, she’s cute, you already said that a hundred times. Is his genius brain so limited that the only adjective he could think of to describe her is “cute”? And to top it off, Nasa blushes and has an internal struggle for every small thing they do like as if he’s never interacted with another girl his entire life. He freaks out when they hold hands, when they sleep in the same room (not even in the same bed), when he takes pictures of her, when she changes clothes, when they go to the women’s underwear/bra section of a clothing store, etc. Seriously, this boy is so immature for his age. “Do girls really smell this good?” “I didn’t know girls were this warm.” “Girls are this soft?! Human hands are this warm...and feel this good?” “My wife wore these clothes. W-Would she get mad if I touched them?” “I want to hug my braless, pantyless wife so much!” What a joke.

Don’t let the “marriage” title fool you, because the couple acts no differently from two children who are dating and live together. A big part of marriage is learning to share/budget money and compromise, yet the story completely glosses over any financial troubles by having Nasa willingly spend everything for his cute wife who he barely knows. Actually, what does Tsukasa do on a daily basis? Does she not go to school? What’s her background? What does she do during the day besides shopping, cooking, watching TV, and going to a public bathhouse? We don’t have a clue, because this anime does not care to delve into anything outside the couple’s superficial marriage relationship.

Characters 2/10: Rom-com is a risky genre because there’s not much room for a really interesting story or a huge plot-twist. So if the comedy and jokes don’t land, what’s left? The characters. And this is what made the promising story fall flat. Nasa and Tsukasa are supposedly newlywed adults, yet they act like middle-schoolers. They blush at every single small physical interaction they have. Nasa has excellent social skills and is supposedly a genius, yet he idiotically runs into the middle of the road at night without checking to see if there’s a big-ass truck driving by and doesn’t bat an eye whenever Tsukasa says anything strange about how she’s lived for centuries. And he’s a pervert. It’s not cool to try to sneakily touch someone’s breasts while they’re sleeping or smell someone’s dirty clothes while they’re not looking and use a stupid excuse like, "but she’s my wife!” This anime tries to play it off as funny and cute but no, it’s not. It’s creepy. Tsukasa is literally the very personification of the “ultimate waifu.” She has a beautiful smile, is cute and sweet, has excellent cooking skills, loves pop-culture and movies, can save you from getting killed by truck-kun, and of course, is a pro gamer girl. She’s too perfect and has next to no character depth. We know next to nothing about her past, yet somehow Nasa never questions anything and doesn’t seem to be very curious about it at all. Are you serious? Talk about a shallow relationship. If Nasa actually cared one bit about her aside from her appearance, that should’ve been the first thing on his mind to ask her.

The other characters are all just as bland. Chitose has a weird obsession with Tsukasa and is the one character who exists just to show strong opposition against their marriage. Her two maids are just there to secretly show their support for the main couple and have nothing else going for them. Kaname, Nasa’s childhood friend who is there to make “funny,” dirty jokes, stare at Nasa’s dick, and occasionally give Nasa advice on how to deal with girls. Aya, Kaname’s sister who has a crush on Nasa and basically plays the role of the jealous female love rival who stands no chance to be with the male MC, because there always has to be one of those characters.

Art 6/10: Not much to comment on the art style, it’s very simple and cutesy. Not much detail in the characters or backgrounds. At least it’s consistent.

Music 7/10: The best thing about this anime is the opening song.

3.5/10 Enjoyment: I really, really tried to like this show. It had so much potential. I kept watching in hopes that I would at least learn to get attached to the characters, but I couldn’t. Most of the characters do not act their age. This show has spent twelve episodes trying to convince me that these two couples are perfect and fated to be with one another, but I don’t buy it. I fail to see any chemistry since the characters are as interesting as a cardboard and they spend so much time getting embarrassed for everything. Granted, there were some nice moments that made me smile (ex: the explanation of the possible connection of scientific principles and love, meeting the parents, fireworks festival), but those few scenes were vastly overshadowed by the cheesy, repetitive jokes and flat characters. The funniest lines the characters ever say are the anime and game references but other than that, it’s just a constant recycling of the same type of cringe-inducing humor.

If you think watching a boy constantly pander to his wife is cute and wholesome or wish to meet someone as waifu-material as Tsukasa is, then you’ll probably like this. Otherwise, I would not recommend it at all.