Reviews for Anyway, I'm Falling in Love with You.

Douse, Koishite Shimaunda. tries to be a bittersweet romance but mostly feels like 12 episodes of still frames pretending to be animation, with the occasional raindrop or water ripple as the only sign of life. The story of a girl and her 4 childhood friends. 3 harboring feelings for her that could have been compelling, but it’s bogged down by glacial pacing, muted drama, and a pandemic backdrop that adds nothing. The romance tension exists in theory, but every time something might happen, the script slams the brakes and retreats to “just friends” territory. The clean character designs and pretty rain shots only highlight howstatic everything else is. The finale as nothing more than a non-ending where no one moves forward, no one confesses, and you're left wondering why you sat through four hours of emotional standstill.

Thanks for reading.

I guess I’m the only one here who enjoys cringy, trashy anime—HAHA. This anime has a laid-back, easygoing vibe and follows a girl with four super popular, attractive childhood best friends. The story explores different routes, showing what it would be like if she ended up with each of them while offering insight into their perspectives and relationships with her. You’ve got your classic male tropes: the hot nerdy guy, the fashionable popular guy who used to be a delinquent, the caring but emotionally clueless guy, and the crybaby-turned-reliable athlete. The pacing is slow, and it seems to take place during the 2020 pandemic. Personally, Ienjoy it because it feels like an otome game—except instead of choosing your route, the anime decides the endgame guy for you.

I didn’t have any issues with the art; the visuals were pretty and gave off a nice summer feel. The plot isn’t anything revolutionary—just your typical reverse harem—but the way each character expresses their feelings for the main girl is pretty entertaining. The series shifts between the past and present, reminding viewers to appreciate the present because you never realize how good things are until you look back on them later in life. The present is clouded with mystery, always carrying a sad element whenever the main character reminisces about the past.

Maybe I just have a thing for trashy shoujos, but even though it’s predictable and you already know who she’ll end up with, it’s still fun watching everyone’s emotions unfold. It took me a few episodes to really get into it… or maybe I’m just shoujo deprived LOL.

Koishima is basically what happens if someone takes every single negative shoujo stereotype, rolls them into one and makes a series out of it. It’s not a good story by any stretch of the imagination, the characters frustrate the hell out of you, but for some reason it’s addicting. It has a similar addictive quality to Rent a girlfriend where you know you probably shouldn’t waste your time watching it, but you can’t turn your eyes away. I “hate watched” it for 3 months thinking I was going to give it a very low score, but by the end of it, I found myself caringabout the characters and wanting to see how things end. Mindless entertainment is still entertainment at the end of the day.

The best way I can describe this show is it’s like a soap opera. There’s so many cliches, so much wish-fulfilment, I mean drop dead gorgeous girl somehow has never had a boyfriend and is childhood friends with the 4 hottest guys in school who all are in love with and competing for her ? It’s the sort of stuff a 16 year old might write as a fanfic on tumblr. But goddamn it, I kind of liked it. The messiness was fun to watch. I like seeing drama play out and this show had it in spades. My one big issue with the story is that at times, Mizuho just feels like a prize to be won by the boys rather than an actual character. Like she’s floating back and forth between the main two dudes depending on the time of the day. Everyone just does stuff to win her over without giving her feelings any concern or trying to talk to her.

The show bounces around from present day(2020) to several years in the future with Mizuho established as a manga author. This was kind of frustrating at times because we would get really invested in something in 2020 with the pandemic year and then we’d bounce around to the future and vice versa. I’m not sure if it went like this in the manga or what, but in the anime it sort of kept you engaged in watching the show because you wanted to see what happened to all the guys and who ended up winning. They gave us bits and pieces of that all the way up to the finale episode where there’s a big reveal that alone makes me want to watch season 2.

The guys are all basically the sort of caricatures you’d get from a fanfic. Smart guy with lofty ambitions of being a doctor, cute twink model, the hot aggressive jock who’s way too into you, etc. All of them have their own personalities and quirks, different designs reflecting that and varying levels of aggressiveness in pursuing the MC. What I find crazy is how all of these near perfect guys end up going for the SAME girl. Like were there no other girls on this island? I also had an issue with the main guy who has some serious stalker energy.. feels like the author rewarded a guy for harassing the MC and making her uncomfortable, not respecting her personal space etc., again, really reinforcing those negative stereotypes of shoujo romance.

Production values are atrocious here. It’s no doubt the worst put together series of the season. The animation is a PowerPoint, the art is passable, character designs are cute for the leads, but literally every other background character is greyed out. Not sure if that’s a stylistic choice or if it’s budget constraints as I haven’t read the manga, but it’s certainly one of the looks of all time. This show also has a very weird tendency to hold frames and scenes for way too long, creating this awkward pause in the action that makes it uncomfortable to watch. I refer to this as “dead space” because it feels like space on a video editing timeline where you’d normally cut to create a jump cut or make things flow together better. This is a constant in the series and it makes watching it feel very melodramatic and cringe at times, and this is coming from someone who LOVES shoujosei more than anything, so don’t feel like I’m attacking the demographic.

Koishima isn’t a great show, but it’s like watching a train wreck. You somehow can’t take your eyes away from it even though you know it’s not a good thing. There’s a reason why the score went up from the first few weeks until the end. It does gradually grow on you and because of all the cliffhangers, you find yourself wanting more and more. I’ll be around for season 2 because I need to know how things end in present day and the past timeline.

Koishima gets a very frustrating 6 out of 10.

This anime was painful to watch. PAINFUL. And I don't mean the animations that everyone seems to be bothered about, though yes the animation could've been at least a bit less static. I really enjoyed all the rain scenes, they capture rain and water well. I think the character designs were nice and enjoyed them as well. What was so painful about this anime is the story. It's about a girl with a very nice and wholesome relationship with 4 childhood friends, out of which 3 turn out to be into her romantically. Near the end of high school 2 the guys try to stop beingfriend-zoned and try to actively confess their feelings. Instead of replying honestly, partially thanks to the 4th friend's (who's probably gay and into one of the male friends pursuing the heroine) advice, she tries to remain friends with all of them but somehow ends all alone anyways. As a female who hung out with my brother's friends, the terror of the loss of dearest friends because they at some point develop romantical feelings is horrible and debilitating. It ruins the friendship and there's no going back virtually ever (7+ years minimum). People whine about her passivity but this aspect of her behaviour I fully understood. There's no good exit. You're basically going to drown anyways. But while I understood it, it's not something pleasant to watch unless you're trying to wallow more in your sadness.

You watch 12 episodes of this sad adult reminiscing about her youth. If you're an adult nearing 30, the lack of freedom and enthusiasm you used to have is a feeling you might know all too well. This emotion is captured exquisitely in the anime.

However, nothing really happens. It ends with a depressing note and an awaiting of the second season. Honestly, I felt like 12 episodes were already too much for what I hoped would happen (she'd end up picking one of them at least as an adult, and ideally some happy ending for some of those who learned how to move on), but having gotten literally nowhere in the duration of 4 hours is truly wild.

It's set in the period of the pandemic, but the restrictions are barely relevant to the story, so imo that was also a bit of a wasted opportunity.

If you're a masochist or feel like wallowing in your pain you might love this anime. Especially if you are or were in any of the following situations:

- gay interested in a hetero

- in love with a best friend's love interest

- feeling, like you will lose (all) your best friend(s) because you don't have deeper/romantical feelings

- you missed love opportunities as a youth and are now suffering still in limbo

- you gave up on your goals and pursued something else

Ultimately I think the anime did a great job of being terrible, but it was not a pleasant watch for me and it didn't seem educative or interesting enough (as some heartbreaking but amazing animes are) so it's truly hard to rate it. However, since I think it should've just ended with 12 episodes and had some actual climax, for me they failed.

This was actively terrible, and I'm someone who loves Brothers Conflict. There is no animation to speak of, everything is a png. The 3d is ugly and doesn't fit in with the garbage art, the lighting makes it so you can't even tell what color hair the protagonists have, every single character is one dimensional and is lucky to have any sort of personality, characters will be shy and quiet one moment and bubbly and confident ten seconds later, you can see hastily cropped out white remnants of plain white background on each character, one scene has characters under a shower of water and thedroplets were depicted by using default sparkle vfx, the writing and pacing could not possibly be any worse, and all in all, this anime is actual garbage. Us reverse harem fans are so starved for content that we have to resort to slop like this. I refuse to watch any more of this, and if you were thinking of watching this series, stay back, for your own good.

I feel compelled to write this: I RECOMMEND THIS ANIME! If you enjoy romance stories, reverse harems, shoujo manga, just watch it, there's no shame! Some of the criticism I see is that it's full of negative shoujo stereotypes. It's not. The FL is hard working and driven, and ends up having a career around something she loves. She is *not* a stumbling crybaby whose only redeemable quality consists of cooking skills (now that would be a shoujo stereotype!). The male characters are not toxic at all, they all have positive hobbies or ambitions; they generally solve their conflicts using their words; having a long-standing friendshipwith the FL, they care about her and about each other, and generally behave as well as one can expect a 16 years old to. Some have a crush, maybe they are a bit pushy or competitive, or maybe they are oblivious or not honest about their feelings at all. That's the beauty of having a sparkling adolescence, which kind of is the message of this season at least.

There were a few things that I liked from the beginning: the use of two timelines (makes the story much more interesting), the slow progression and quiet atmosphere focused more on their interactions and conversations (which gave me the feeling of really seeing someone's memories).

Overall I liked the character design, they are all quite distinctive and memorable. And gorgeous, it's anime, it's to be expected. The animation quality has issues, some angles and proportions are not the best and there's a lot of stills, but at least it's consistent throughout. I didn't feel it worsening terribly towards the end like I've seen in other shows recently.

I am not a big fan of the opening with the blurry camera frames, nor the songs, nor did I like that they draw "extras" using stick figures but at least it helps you follow the story more easily.

I think there was certainly some room for improvement, and I don't know how long the story will take nor how well the relationships will evolve, but I honestly enjoyed watching it. To me this season was consistent and I am looking forward to the next one. If anything, I wish there were more reverse harems with actual romance and a decent storyline.

I'm not one to write reviews, but my God, I've seen hundreds of bad animes in which their characters are endearing enough to at least know about them, but these? Say that they are poorly written is to do them a favor, I don't know if predictable is the word, but the story is very bland and boring. I remember watching Kiss Him not Me, and saying "this is bad", laughing, finishing it and not remembering half of it... That's FMAB compared to this, I don't recommend wasting your time with this, there are other animes this season that are minimally decent if you compare themto this.

Listen. I love my yummy trash anime okay. But this is not yummy. I wouldn't even consider this trash because at least with trash, I can somehow have a good time. This is actual shite and just pissed me off the more it went on. However, I was invested enough to finish it. I'm basically rewriting what I wrote in my tags for this show but I feel that strongly about it to post it as an actual "review" lol. So first of all, I'm an anime only, but I have looked up what happens in the manga because I had theories. Unfortunately, none ofthem were correct. This is particularly unfortunate because I think it would've been cool/dramatic to kill off Kizuki with Covid- I mean the "infectious disease" that is cancelling all their school events (except it's really NOT because everyone is still out doing normal activities and NO ONE IS SICK). I just have to laugh for the fact that it's very clearly based off the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic (their school years take place in LITERALLY 2020) but you consistently forget that fact because IT'S NOT LIKE IT'S IMPORTANT! PANDEMIC MY ASS, AM I RIGHT LADIES? Back to my point, there are LITERAL flashbacks of Kizuki; so ill from his asthma that he could not attend school regularly in elementary school. And what did they do with that? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Which then brings me to the way present day Mizuho talks about Kizuki. "Why aren't you here wiping away my tears?". "Did you know it's been 10 years since the summer festival with everyone?". As someone who is actively working through grief, these lines imply something more impactful happened than "he broke up with me after getting so depressed from failing a swim meet and ghosted me for 3 years". At least they do to me! Maybe Mizuho is just hella dramatic (which, same). But this created a death flag in my eyes and they went nowhere with it. I like when characters die because most of the time (if the story is good), it's meaningful and propels not only the characters but the story itself forward (<- guy who really loves Gurren Lagann).

You wanna know what else they did nothing with? They implied (at least to me with some dialogue) that Airu not only had feelings for Mizuho but ALSO KIZUKI and that would've made for some EXTRA JUICY DRAMA. Maybe I'm just too gay and wanted some yaoi, but this would've made for a solid love triangle instead of whatever the fuck the shit with Kizuki, Shin, and Mizuho was. WHICH SPEAKING OF SHIN, dude has the personality of a cardboard box. I was slightly interested in him reappearing in present day with the intention of proposing to Mizuho but he just LEAVES? I get he's a doctor now and was "on call" but holy shit you just killed the drama I was waiting for in present day! He never comes back btw. THE PRESENT DAY TIMELINE BORED ME TO TEARS. I do not care that Mizuho is a manga editor and the series she's in charge of got cancelled. You didn't give me a damn reason to care! Her solution to this is to regurgitate the words she was told in high school about writing a series inspired by "sparkling adolescence". To which her mangaka replies, "What sparkling adolescence?", takes a few episodes to brood on this, and then suddenly sends a manuscript for a new series in the last episode inspired by this concept because she had a sudden revelation. How convenient for Mizuho. Who I would like to add had a dream of becoming a mangaka herself. Not an editor. The reason for this switch is never explained. Present day timeline is basically Mizuho sulking the entire time with the occasional interaction with one of the four guys. It's almost painful to watch.

Anyway, back to Shin's character - I don't blame him for being agonizingly boring. Because all of them are. The characters with the most personality in this show by far are Airu and Shugo, and even then we're not working with much (which speaking of, can we talk about why the subs on Crunchyroll suddenly started calling him "Syugo"? That is not my dudes name). However, despite them being the most serviceable characters, they still did not have enough personality for me to truly care. Airu has the best design so there was a higher chance for me to care, but that is not a huge feat because the animation in this show is actually atrocious. Like Kuroko no Basket mid-game levels of horrible frames. IYKYK. Not only that, but 90% of the time, nobody MOVES. You hear dialogue, but you're just staring at still images. I genuinely thought my internet had cut out a few times while I was watching this show. It was almost impressive with the amount of corners that were cut to hit those deadlines because shiet if I had this source material to adapt, I would too! I originally wasn't going to bag on the studio for this show because I like the nostalgic summer vibe that the art gives off, but it went downhill SO FAST and even if the show gets a blu-ray release, the staff would have to go in and fix the ENTIRE SHOW. Ain't no way they're doing that. No time for dat, Goku.

GENUINELY SPEAKING - despite the many reviews I can see for this show on this site alone, I still feel like I am the only person alive (aside from Mother's Basement) that has seen this show. Which then begs the question - HOW THE FUCK IS IT GETTING A SEASON 2? WHO GREENLIT THIS? I WANT TO TALK. I have not been this angry about an anime since Glasslip and- I can't even finish that sentence because I'll go on a whole other tangent about how bad and much of A MISSED OPPORTUNITY THAT SHOW WAS. Anyway, this show is a dumpster fire and I don't think I have it in me to continue it in season 2. I will live the rest of my life perplexed at how it somehow is getting a second season.

tldr: Do yourself a favor and skip it. Also the title sucks.

Okay so let me clear something first... I do not recommend this anime at all. But the thing is that i dont know why, but im enjoying this show. Its a classic romance history, focused on a girl and his 4 boy friends who APPARENTLY are all in love with her since they where youger. Yes, as you can guess, its filled up with cliches. The story is like many others we have watched through the years, with the beach episode, the pool episode, the main character is sick episode and the aquarium episode. The overall animation is on the tightrope but somethings thatcreeps me out is those white and brown background people. I mean wtf is that. Was the budget so low they could only animate the 5 main characters?

I personally think that if the direction of the episodes where better this anime would be much more enjoyable, even having all these mistakes im talking about.

But something i have to speak out for is the AMAZING OST. Those piano chords just fit so well with the scenes they are placed in. Even if theres not happening much, the music makes me really emotional.

Appart form that, its just another seasonal forgettable highschool shojo but im curious who will be the partner she'll choose. I guess we will have to wait to discover it.

I personally think that if you dont give it a try, you wont be able to understand this hate-love this show is making me feel hahahaha

Thank you for reading, i love you all <3

Ah finally I finished watching this (yes, I did force myself to complete this one to see if it would improve. Spoiler, it doesn't). I honestly don't know what the point of this season is; from the start, we know she doesn't end up with any of them. Moreover, the sequences about present time (grown-up Mizuho) mainly focus on her career as an editor, whilst the anime barely focuses on manga (except at the beginning and ending). To make it more impactful we should have seen more of that in the past sequences. I did not enjoy this anime for multiple reasons so I'll just listthem here:

- All her childhood boy friends realize they love her, oh wow. Two of them will do nothing and accept being friends (good).

- The two boys who love her both kiss her without consent. That's a big no.

- One of the boys who loves her is just too forceful to the point where it's just creepy. Mizuho this, Mizuho that.

- The animation is what it is, not that good. Some sequences froze on characters making it just awkward to watch.

- The story feels empty. So do the dialogues. A lot focuses around the pandemic; "oh no we cannot do that event because of the pandemic" whilst they still go to school, no one wears a mask, everyone is living their lives normally as if there was no pandemic at all, so the pandemic excuse for cancelling all the events and the characters being sad about it doesn't make sens.

That's it for me. This anime felt very empty. Next time I watch something like that, I will definitely not finish it.

ESP: Decidí ver este anime por curiosidad, sin saber nada de nada al respecto y efectivamente me decepcionó. La trama es simple y no me enganchó en el primer episodio. En portada parece un harem reverso pero no nada que ver, es mucho peor. Los personajes son clichés y planos. Las expresiones exageradas y muy dentro de los clichés de los shoujos de los 2000's. La trama surge a través de querer llevar una relación tóxica O ESO PARECE AL PRINCIPIO. Ningún personaje parece lo suficientemente atractivo o medianamente inteligente como para ser interesante. Los sucesos de los acontecimientos en el primer episodio es lioso y mal llevado. La animación ylos diseños son feos, poses forzadas y mal anatomía. Se me hace imposible ver mas de un minuto si no sufrir por la animación... le daría un chance a seguir viendo si la trama fuese medianamente interesante, pero no lo es. En fin. Una decepción.

ENG:

I decided to watch this anime out of curiosity, without knowing anything about it and I was indeed disappointed.

The plot is simple and didn't hook me in the first episode. On the cover it looks like a reverse harem but nothing to do with it, it's much worse.

The characters are cliché and flat. The expressions are exaggerated and very much within the clichés of 2000's shoujos.

The plot arises through wanting to lead a toxic relationship OR SO IT SEEMS AT FIRST.

No character seems attractive or halfway intelligent enough to be interesting. The events of the events in the first episode is messy and poorly paced.

The animation and designs are ugly, forced poses and bad anatomy. I find it impossible to watch more than a minute if I don't suffer through the animation... I'd give it a chance to keep watching if the plot was mildly interesting, but it's not. Anyway. A disappointment.

Now listen before I start this review. I am a lover of all romance anime, including some pretty bad/trashy ones. I sat myself through all the seasons of Diabolik Lovers and, while it wasn't good, I still watched all of it. And I still could not bring myself to watch more than 3 episodes of whatever this is. No background information about the characters - you're immediately thrown in with 5 random characters in a reverse haram of 4 guys and 1 girl. The main guy is red flag central and gives off creepy vibes to me. "I will make sure you fall in love withme" doesn't give romance to me, it's giving stalker. Add on top of it that I know nothing about these characters, the transitions between scenes are frankly confusing and leave me wondering how we got there (random camping trip after school?), and the random long pauses of nothing.

Romance tropes are there for a reason - I find nothing wrong with using them because it appeals to a certain audience (me). However, when you just simply string them together in a weird and choppy fashion it makes no sense to the audience and left me scratching my head multiple times

A total disaster of 2025. This yuck-anime is not just a disappointment, it's a blatant insult to the shoujo genre and anime fans in general. It not only fails to meet any expectations but also serves as a textbook example of how to completely ruin even the most basic premise, turning it into a boring, predictable, and utterly pointless waste of time. The plot of this anime is an outright offense to the very idea of "romantic drama". The protagonist, Mizuno Nishino, has a "bad" birthday, where her dad forgets it and the guy she likes shows no interest in her. Then, out of nowhere, her childhoodfriend Kizuki confesses his love for her. On paper, this could have been a typical setup for a heartfelt story, but instead, the show dives into a sea of clichés and tired tropes that make you think, “when will this end?” It's not just predictable, it's painfully boring and soul-crushing.

The characters in this anime are not people, they're empty shells of overused stereotypes that no one could possibly care about. Mizuno is a completely generic, forgettable heroine with absolutely no unique traits or personality. Kizuki, on the other hand, is just another "childhood friend turned love interest" whose existence is nothing more than a plot device. There’s no development, no change, no depth. These characters are hollow, and watching them interact feels like a complete waste of time. You don’t empathize with them, you just want to be done with them.

It's hard to ignore how bad the animation is in this series. Despite Typhoon Graphics' attempt to bring the story to life, the visuals are flat, lifeless, and uninspired. The characters move like cardboard cutouts, and the world around them feels like a dull, empty space. The colors are muted, the movements are stiff, and the whole aesthetic screams “we didn’t try.” Even the simplest scenes feel forced, as if the animators wanted to finish as quickly as possible without actually putting any effort into making it visually appealing.

Overall, it is not just a bad anime. It’s a complete waste of your time. From its predictable plot to its hollow characters and lifeless animation, this show is a disgrace to the romantic drama genre. Don’t bother watching it. Everything about it is tedious and unremarkable, and it deserves to be forgotten. If you're looking for a meaningful romance, skip this show entirely. It’s the worst choice of 2025 and one of the most pointless pieces of entertainment you can imagine.

1 point for the fireworks and pool.

1 point just for the fact that I feel bad for valuing the time spent at 0.

I tried. I really did. Usually I love these fluffy romance animes. This one though, is just awful. I don't know if it just struck a personal cord but I find myself sighing and rolling my eyes. So first, the animation is rather lazy and the colors are too much leaving the anime feeling washed out. Second, there just isn't any chemistry in this show. The main character is willfully dense. She likes this other guy but hangs out with four guys and considered them all friends. Talk about friend zoned. On top of that she just 'never realized' that they liked her. Either she is extremelynaive or she is leading them all on. So the apparent main romance is with Kizuki. He takes the leap to try and escape the friend zone. Pushing her against a wall and forcibly kissing her is not the way to do that my guy. Yet the show makes this the impetus for her 'catching the feels.' Way to glorify casual sexual assault! There are romantic gestures and confessions and then there is this. Forcibly kissing someone who is obviously unaware and unwilling at the time is technically sexual assault and it bothered me. I tried getting past this but then one of the other guys almost takes advantage of her while she is sleeping due to getting sick. So not only is the main character rather unlikable as she seems to be leading four guys on but the guys are unlikeable as well. An alternate title of this show could be (depending on the ending) "How I got out of the friend zone by sexually assaulting my crush and thankfully she liked it rather than pressed charges"

This is like really bad, I hate watched cus it was only a chapter per week and even soo I watched it at 2x sped, not only cus I didn't wanted waste time in it but also cus it was sooooo slow, in talking 40 second slides or like one piece running scenes I really wanted to end just to find a second season announcement, even so I really think I will be watching that second season My advice is not see this cus it have a way to trap you, you know is bad bad but like a car on fire you just can't stopwatching

the first episode was strong but then after that it jus became boring and bland. i usually dont write reviews, but oh my God, I've seen so many bad animes but this one was next level. it made no sense. things jus happened for no reason. the mc was so dense. i dont kno why this is even hyped up the amount of glaze it gets is insane. the romance feels so forced, they jus stare at each other awkwardly half the time. this was a waste of time literally. There were also too many nonconsensual, I'm-going-to-grab-this-girl-and-kiss-her-to-get-her-to-love-me. The story felt so repetitive and nothing newwas even happening. The art was really beautiful in this, but the story was both rushed and cringe asf.

I really tried to push through the whole season but I couldn't keep watching anymore. The story wasn't progressing and nothing was going anywhere. I felt like all the episodes I watched were just a repeat with different characters making "moves". I never really write reviews for animes but this is my first so i'm unsure how to go from here but I would not recommend this. I could already tell that from. the episodes I watched so far that the FL would not be able to choose one person that she likes. All these reverse harems are like that but this anime just had nosubstance to it and everything just seemed TOO slow. The art style was fine but there were frames that remained still and moved so the artists wouldn't have to create more and more frames which led to the video looking too jumpy.

Characters weren't well rounded, their personalities were just too bland and nothing aided them in creating more chemistry with the FL. Just overall the characters had nothing appealing or eye catching about them which made me bored.

I really liked how the main character never gives up and continues fighting for her dreams, even when things get difficult. It is also very nice to see how her friends support her and encourage her to keep going, which gives the story a warm and emotional touch. The anime is visually very beautiful, with soft colors and scenes that help convey the characters’ feelings. However, I didn’t like the part where Kisuki leaves for a while and completely loses contact with his friends, because it created a sense of distance that felt a bit sad and frustrating. Even so, for people who enjoy romance stories fullof emotions, personal growth, and meaningful relationships, I highly recommend this anime.

I don't know what you guys are talking about with all the bad reviews, the animation is so pretty in my opinion and so is the story! I personally liked the new, clean animation style plus the colors are absolutely beautiful. I really love the beachy vibes and atmosphere this animation created as it reminds me a lot of my other favorite animes, "Free!" and "Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop." The artstyle and vibes alone was the reason I started watching it in the first place. As for the story, I'm also liking it so far. It's very chill yet entertaining at thesame time. I like all the main characters, and their backstories are interesting to me. I like how the fl's main focus is on her own dreams of being a manga author. And I like how she's trying hard to keep her already existing friendships with the guys while also trying to grow and understand herself and her feelings towards everyone. She's still a highschool student so it makes sense that she doesn't have everything figured out. I suppose the reason I like this story a bit more than the other reviewers could be because I really love the childhood friends to lovers trope in romance and this anime has exactly that. All the mls have been friends with each other and the fl since childhood.

The only thing I don't like is how stressful the story is with the drama and the whole "love polygon" situation but I guess I should've read the tags before starting. Though even with this it's honestly not that bad.

I think if you also like the childhood friends to lovers trope or just want a chill romance anime to watch, you'll probably like this!

Gg, go next, I'm not even going to waste your time here. (For those who need more details, here you go.) Pro -the best part of this anime wasn't even the romance, it was a 3 to 5-minute reflective intro. Each ep started with the main girl character thinking how great and exciting her life was 10 years ago. (2020) Con - 2020 was five years ago( as of writing this) and the virus event lasted for about 1-2 years and the world is only now healing(2024-2025). I say this because it is high-key felt like this anime/novel tried to use that event for a cheap paycheck.They show contently references to the event for cheap conflict and drama which then was solved in a matter of 5-10 minutes in the same episode. Like… just say the event was canceled and have the characters do a smaller version of the event. Bringing up COVID was such a bloody waste of a plot point.

Pro

- The banter between the male characters wasn't all that bad. They were low-key amusing.

Con

- That is all they had going for them. The blonde love interest was somewhat interesting but the ending with him was disappointing. The other two guys in the story weren't all that bad, to be honest. The great offender was the pushy blue hair. This might be a shojo thing but they love to just overload the story with excessive boundary-breaking. Maybe I don't see the appeal but pinning a girl against a shower room wall after just confusing your feeling a day before sounds scary. Another example is blonde hair randomly taking off his shirt after the main girl character wakes up for an accidental sleepover at his place. Oh, another, brown hair say that the main girl’s shoe was untied and decided to tie it for her??? Aren't these high school kids? I just can't buy that event actually occurring and it not being weird as hell to perform.

Pro

- ooh, beautiful colors

Con

-holy, was that where all your budget went? Every 5 Seconds of motion is left with a momentary 3-second pause for meaningless suspense. The amount of time I had to check if my Crunchyroll was bugged has to be studied. The anime caused me too many times with that 5-second pump fake, I'm depressed thinking about it.

Again I say gg, go next, for there is nothing you can gain from this show… well except the final ep and the 3-5 minutes of reflections.