Hyakkano – 02 – First Kiss Conundrum

On their second day of being throuple, Hakari and Karane get Rentarou to start calling them by their first names and holding hands as they walk to school together going on about how perfect the weather is. They arrive to a harrowing scene: the perverted vice principal chasing down a boy and giving him a deep, sloppy French kiss. When Rentarou states he’s yet to kiss a girl as they’re his first girlfriends, Hakari and Karane enter into a battle for that first kiss.

Their first opportunities come up during lunch on the rooftop. Hakari starts by feeding Rentarou tamagoyaki, and a panciked Karane jams a cookie into his eye. Hakari then produces a box of Pocky (called “Bocky” here) with the hope that sharing one with him will lead to a kiss.

Karane sniffs out Hakari’s intentions and tries to get in there, but ends up poking his other eye. The two then see his two red eyes and think he might be sick, and are desperate to check him for a fever. Whenever Karane gets too close, Hakari bounces her away with her chest.

When Rentarou realizes they’ve both been trying to kiss him, but the core of their conflict is who gets to go first, he devises an extremely convoluted solution involving iPods playing “My First Kiss” on max volume and repeat, blindfolds, and sets of dice which which will sufficiently randomize the order of the kisses.

This goes pretty well…if manic hijinks were the intended result. The blindfolded Rentarou has to grope around and ends up in compromising positions with Hakari, while a cat deciding to play with the ribbon on Karane’s panties leads her to think he’s pawing her, so she clobbers him with every attempt. All of this is as hilarious as it is lovingly drawn and animated.

When this strategy fails, Hakari and Karane continue to bicker with one another, until Rentarou runs off, deciding that if the question of who gets to kiss him first causes so much strife, he’ll throw his first kiss in the trash by running in the halls and getting nabbed by the perverted vice principal.

Once again, Harane’s athleticism and wrestling acumen come in handy restraining the vice principal before her blender blade of a tongue can shoot down his gullet. Hakari also helps out by calling for an official from the education board who would get the principal fired for kissing students.

Hakari and Karane may vary differently in a great many things, but they’re alike in their deep love of Rentarou, so rather than letting him be assaulted by the vice principal, they each declare simultaneously that they’d rather the other girl kiss him first. Moved by their selflessness, Rentarou hugs them both.

The ultimate solution ends up being the simplest, and one Rentarou thought up first, but didn’t think would work because the girls were at loggerheads: they’ll simply kiss him at the exact same time. While initially reticent due to the fact they’ll also be kissing each other, Hakari and Karane agree that it’s the best solution, since at no point does either girl doubt how much the other girl loves him.

So the three take each others’ hands and lock lips at the same time, cementing their status as a legit three-person polycule (and possibly summoning a UFO). But it won’t last long in this state, because when the three are in the library, Rentarou reaches for the same book as a petite blue-haired girl. When their eyes meet, she is confirmed to be his third of 100 soul mates. To which I say, Let’s freakin’ go!

Hyakkano – 01 (First Impressions) – The Luckiest Telephone Pole in the Universe

Aijou Rentarou has absolutely no luck in love. From the time he was eight months old to the time he graduates from middle school, he’s been rejected one hundred times by girls he’s confessed to. His Friend, only referred to as “Friend A”, can’t figure why that is, as Rentarou seems to be quite a catch.

The problem isn’t exactly him, but a divine snafu. When he makes an offering and prays at the shrine of the god of love, said god emerges from the offering box to helpfully explain that he will indeed experience the opposite in high school: rather than one hundred rejections, he’ll have one hundred soulmates.

These scenes don’t simply unfold as-is, but with a healthy amount of stylized cutaways, references to popular culture (i.e. Tokyo Ghoul) and lots of lovely, lovely fourth-wall breaking. And that’s key. The rapid-fire dialogue has a satisfying rhythm. More often than not, it’s just funny as hell, and even the rare times it isn’t, it’s fun as hell to watch.

Rentarou’s first day of high school arrives, and when he bumps into two girls, they fall for him the moment they lay eyes on him. One of them, the pink-haired Hanazono Hakari, fakes a twisted ankle so he’ll help her to the nurse’s office. The orange-haired Inda Karane is a lot more stanoffish.

But be they tsundere or yandere, both are now totally smitten with Rentarou, and cling to him like cicadas to a telephone pole. I loved that metaphor, and the visual that accompanied it. I also love how Rentarou becomes the straight man to Hakari and Karane’s lively antics.

Rentarou is obviously quite unaccustomed to girls fawning over him, but he certainly seems to like it! That said, he’s always been a kind and thoughtful sort, so when he sees the girls searching intently for a pink four-leaf clover (per school legend about how finding one leads to true love), he buys them drinks to thank them.

Karane turns out to be a super tsundere, going heavy on hmmphs! and statements that start with “It’s not like ________!” Still, she accepts the drink and is clearly overjoyed to receive it, but runs off in a snit. Hakari also shows off the extent of her obsessive scheming by insisting she can’t drink more than 175ml so she can get an indirect kiss from Rentarou, only to get overexcited and spill the can.

When Rentarou offers her a hanky to wipe the spilled drink off her skirt, Hakari instead takes his hand in hers and confesses, right then and there. She loves him and wants to be his girlfriend. Harane returns (with one of every kind of drink from the vending machine since she wanted to repay him), sees that Hakari stole a march on her, and has no choice but to admit she loves Rentarou and wants to be his girlfriend too. And so, Rentarou must make a choice…so he calls for a commercial break!

He begs them to give him the night to deliberate, and visits the shrine god again for guidance. The god admits that he kinda screwed up Rentarou’s divine paperwork while he was distracted watching Castle in the Sky one night (such a great film). Thus, while virtually everyone else in the world is only fated to have one soulmate (or none), Rentarou has one hundred.

Furthermore, he warns him that if any of his soulmates fail to enter into a loving relationship with him, misfortune will befall them and eventually lead to death. Suffice it to say, his visit to the shrine only further complicated his conundrum.

Rentarou initially decides he’ll simply turn them both down, then meet with each separately to say he only did so to let the other one down gently so he could date them. But again, he’s a good dude, doesn’t feel right decieving them, and knows all too well the sting of rejection.

So instead, he meets with them the next day, caked with dirt, to declare that he loves them both want wants them both to be his girlfriends. While he admits that kinda sounds like two-timing, he promises he’ll be good to them and make them the happiest girlfriends they can be.

As a token of his commitment, he searched the clover bed all night and found not one but two four-leafs for each of them. Hakari takes the lead and accepts being two-timed as preferable to rejection. Being Rentarou’s girlfriend is all that matters. Harane grudgingly concurs, and just like that, he’s in a polycure with two cute, quirky girlfriends. Two down, ninety-eight to go!

Hyakkano pleasantly surprised me both with its effective comedy, charming characters, and Love is War! style visual density and inventiveness. There’s just so much going on, both in what’s thrown on the screen and in everyone’s voices. Throw in the other three girls in the promo art, each with their own distinct traits and quirks, and this looks poised to become even more absurd and fun as it goes.

Komi Can’t Communicate – 04 – Yamai Ren is Obsessed

This week’s first segment centers on Yadano Makeru, an extremely competitive girl who tries to “beat” Komi at the school physicals. She loses to Komi in height and vision tests, but wins in weight and “seated height”, which seems like an odd thing to measure, but whatever! In any case, Makeru’s mild eccentricity doesn’t prepares us for the horrors to come.

That’s because the rest of the episode is pretty much All Yamai Ren, All The Time. Ren doesn’t want to compete with Komi…she wants her. It’s all she can do to prevent herself from shouting in ecstacy as her body contorts in excitement at the mere sight of Komi walking down the hall. The girl is straight-up obsessed, wants to get closer, and will do so by any means necessary.

At first things seem innocent enough, as she makes too much Hamburg steak (albeit purposefully) as an excuse to share some with Komi at lunch time. Ren is sitting in Tadano’s seat when she asks Komi if she wants to eat with her, and Komi, seeing a vision of an encouraging miniature Tadano in his desk, gives the slightest of nods, and it’s off to the races, with Ren absolute heaven.

But this begs the question: Where is Tadano? Turns out Ren has taken him out of the picture, tying him to a chair with a lot of rope (her knot game is suspiciously elite) in her room, the walls of which are plastered with candid photos of Komi, some of them combined via collage with pictures of her in romantic (or lewd) positions.

Najimi, who is just trying to give Komi another nudge in her quest for 100 friends, invites themselves and Komi to Ren’s place, and Ren can’t resist the prospect of Komi rubbing her scent on her bed or leaving stray hairs around, so she agrees. She stuffs Tadano in her closet, promising she won’t bury him if he doesn’t scream, but eventually Najimi discovers him, and Ren drops the cute innocent act and goes Full Yandere.

It backfires spectacularly, as the moment Komi sees Tadano tied up, she’s ready to leave. She writes a polite “Thanks for having us” note, then leaves with Tadano. When Ren tells her that she was trying to do her a favor by getting rid of the trashboy so totally unworthy of her attention. Komi’s note in response is suitably devastating: “I choose my own friends.”

That said, the next day Komi is distraught and shaken by the experience, and asks Tadano to join her somewhere private to “talk”. She writes in her notebook how it might be best if they weren’t friends. Of course, this isn’t because she doesn’t like Tadano or thinks he’s beneath him; quite the contrary. She fears for his safety. What if something like yesterday happens again, and they don’t find him in time?

To this, Tadano responds that he also chooses his friends. Getting tied up and threatened by a yandere is a small price to pay for being Komi’s friend. Heartened by his response, as she definitely didn’t want their friendship to end, Komi voices it to him…literally…by saying she wants to be his friend in her teeny tiny adorable voice.

In the drama of Komi and Tadano leaving Ren’s, they left Najimi behind. Fortunately, Ren didn’t kill them, and instead Najimi assured her that if she apologized properly for what she did, Komi wouldn’t hate her. Ren does just that, apologizing to both Tadano and Komi for her actions (though as Tadano observes, she kinda sucks at apologies!)

Then Tadano and Najimi thoroughly explain how Komi is bad at communicating and wants to make 100 friends, and Ren is even more enamored of her, having now discovered her new cute quality. That’s how Ren becomes Komi’s fourth official—and most demented!—friend. Ren’s seiyu Hidaka Rina gets MVP honors this week for her deliciously shifty and layered performance.

Renai Boukun – 06

It’s a half-beach, half test-of-courage episode, with Akane trying to befriend Seiji’s sister Akua in the former and warning Guri to stay away from Seiji in the latter, all while Guri goofs off as usual in both and Yuzu always finds herself closer to Seiji than her beloved Akane.

After he rejects her advances, Shikimi notifies Seiji what was hinted at last week; that Akane and Yuzu’s families serve as swords and shields, respectively, with her role as a branch family member being support of the other two.

Meanwhile Akua remains cold to Akane until she’s attacked by the rabid demon penguin Stolas, then rescued largely thanks to Akane’s brute strength. She concedes that her brother likes strong women, so she’s at least a good match in that regard, if no other.

The beach was little more than a fresh setting for the Akane’s violent lunacy, which is less instrumental in the second segment, in which a Ghostbuster-cosplaying Guri leads everyone on a test of courage through the school at the behest of a couple who wants her to make them a couple forever.

The lunacy here lies in the fast-paced gauntlet of all the typical things you worry about running into at school after dark, from the spirits of dead students to self-playing pianos, moving stone busts, and the ever-present anatomical model. There’s no shortage of energy, at least for a few bursts.

But both during and after the test, at the end of which it’s revealed the couple were dead to begin with and needed a little help passing on to the hereafter, Akane makes it clear to Guri that she’s only going to tolerate this lovey-dovey harem thing for so long, so if she wants to remain friends, she’d better stay away from Seiji.

As if to underscore her seriousness, Akane doesn’t whip out her knives to threaten Guri. She also tells the very naive cupid that love, happy or sad, causes one’s heart to ache, and if that’s not happening with Guri, maybe she should reconsider being her rival.

I knew things were eventually going to get more serious, but I’m still not convinced that’s the best move for a show that doesn’t have a lot going for it besides its rapid-fire comedy.

Renai Boukun – 05

As expected, the pink-haired sadist doesn’t get to torture Seiji for long, as Akane arrives to rescue him, We learn she’s Shiramine Shikimi, cousin to Akane and Yuzu, who loves receiving pain as much as she loves doling it out. She also likes stealing things, particularly from Akane, and Seiji is one such thing.

A fight ensues, and Shikimi is able to repel Akane’s attacks and restrain her, then scolding her for becoming weaker and being a sorry excuse for a “weapon princess”. She’s more impressed with Yuzu’s shield. This is all to imply that Akane and Yuzu have never been ordinary high school students, but some higher calling they’ve yet to share with Seiji.

This is where Renai Boukun ditches the comedy altogether and gets a lot more serious, especially with the newly-arrived Guri telling Shikimi she can’t make her a part of the harem because there’s no real love inside of her.

Your mileage may vary on whether this show needs to be this serious or dramatic; I’m not the biggest fan of it. In any case, all the excitement leaves Seiji knocked out, and he then dies. Not even a fifteen-minute kiss from Akane can bring him back, Sleeping Beauty-style.

His death segues into the episode’s second segment, in which he meets Guri’s father Kami and his…er…neighbor Tiara? Coraly is also there. “Heaven” is little more than an ordinary Japanese living room.

There, Kami (‘God’) tells him he’s killed him “for the time being” so he could meet the one his daughter has latched herself onto. He wants her to one day succeed him as Kami-sama, so he wants Seiji to teach her about love, something she’s not made much progress with despite being assigned cupid duty.

Maou (‘the devil’) also stops by, wanting to convert Guri to demonhood, but as these are not humans, they don’t have a specific deadline in place for either thing to happen. Seiji can’t promise anything, because as Kami is well aware, Guri is a free spirit who will do what she wants when she wants to, which is rarely the same thing for long periods.

Seiji returns to the world of the living, where Akane is chasing Guri with her knives and Yuzu was about to kiss him as well, only for her and Seiji to knock heads. Seiji asks why Guri never let on about her father or the succession; Guri simply explains that stuff is boring and she doesn’t want to waste time talking about it. Fair enough!

Last week ever-darker elements of violence and sexual deprivation were introduced; this week there’s a lot more character drama and a general plot course is set, with various parties vying for Guri’s future just as the girls vie for Seiji. That’s all well and good, but it was also IMO the least funny, and least surprising, episode of Love Tyrant yet.

Renai Boukun – 04

“There are piranhas in that pond.”

The Gist: Yuzu-chan takes center stage this week, with a silly backstory that explains her love for her sister Akane and establishes that Yuzu has always been a tripping-prone klutz for…some reason. We also learn that Yuzu doesn’t actually attend Akane/Aino’s school but, instead, an all-girls school in which she uses male body-doubles in drag to fill her place.

Back in the present, Shiramine Shikimi shows up and is clearly just pretending to be a meek girl in need of help. (She’s obviously the mean pink haired girl from Akane x Yuzu’s past) After getting Aino to follow her to an abandoned hospital, she traps him with magic gum and begins to torture him with nails and BDSM.

Fear not! While it ends to be continued, Guri x Yuzu x Akane are on their way and at least 2/3 of those characters have an idea what is going on…

Cell phones occupied much of the humor this week. The biggest player being Guri’s new smartphone, which is full of romance-specific apps as well as a weather report for the afterlife. However, Aino’s flip phone makes an appearance to deliver a gag that Guri has sent him undressing pics of Akane with the subject line “Present for your personal pleasure.”

Otherwise, much of the humor focuses on Yuzu’s foolish personality and the phone’s “Compatibility Barometer” which shows the various one-sided romances in the four way couple. Unsurprisingly, from a humor stand point, Yuzu and Aino would make the strongest couple, even though neither would be happy to admit that…

The Gist: Renai Boukun is all about great gags and subtle details. Yuzu’s family fountain is full of Piranhas, the unexplained app icons on the phone featuring art for each of the show’s characters, rescuing Yuzu from an extremely shallow stream, great audio cues and timing like Yuzu’s rejection noise and face — it’s all hilarious!

Renai Boukun also took a risk this week. Going dark with Shikimi — really dark with a sadist dry humping a torture victim — spins our soft and care-free expectations of the show on their head. It says boldly that anything can happen. Except, that’s not really want anyone should want from a well timed comedy is it?

Renai Boukun – 03

The Gist: Akua meets Guri officially, Akua and Aino work out their troubles, Guri’s love note book gets burned up, everyone is worried their relationships have fallen apart, Tiara-san is introduced, the trouble with the notebook is resolved, everyone is happy ever after. (sorta)

So much wacky goodness happens this week and basically none of it matters in detail. Sure, Akua is chased by a rapacious demonic penguin that cemented her relationship with her brother long ago in their childhood. Sure, Guri’s notebook is burned during a hilarious gender-role-reverse-expetation fight between a bad boy and a squad of scorned ladies. Sure, Tiara-san is one trashy former cupid that god knocked up and her phone has now replaced Guri’s book as the prop of the show.

But the joy of Renai Boukun is just in the timing of all these absurd happenings. The penguin could have been pedo-bear or an 8 bit character or anything random as long as the joke remained that it talked with its eyes. Guri could have lost the notebook in any number of ways — or the relationships could have become at risk through any number of megufins — as long as she basically showed no concern while all the other characters freaked out. Tiara-san didn’t even have to exist — they could just have written ‘love note’ on a new book and had everything else play out the same.

But, despite the lack of importance to any detail, all the precision in how those details play out in sound, framing, gesture and timing works very very well. Giggle on the floor blade sticking out of your head wonderfully well.

“It’s okay! There’s steam and mysterious lights. So people can see anything important.” – Guri, nude in the bathroom

The Verdict: Love Tyrant is almost the complete opposite of QZGS in so far as Love Tyrant doesn’t look special at all and doesn’t try to be cool either. In fact, if the comedy were not so tightly orchestrated, I wouldn’t even think it was trying hard to do that.

In short, Love Tyrant doesn’t take anything seriously in it’s search of fun. Laugh with it as it laughs at anime in general, and the romance genre specifically. Laugh until you puke. And love it!

Renai Boukun – 02

The Gist: Aino’s sister Akua has come home early and she clearly is frustrated with her brother. However, the real meat of the show is Guri and Akane’s sister getting into weird antics to fulfill their roles as cupids.

Ultimately, they stumble on a sensei and class rep who they want to put together. On the surface, the class rep doesn’t appear to be a willing participant (treating the sensei like he’s her younger brother in need of constant help and scolding).

However, after the class rep (and Guri) are taken hostage during a bank robbery gone wrong (which just so happens to line up with Guri’s plan to take the class rep hostage anyway) it’s revealed that the love is mutual. The class rep had always planned on waiting until after she graduated to let him confess and accept him.

Of course the bank robbers are completely embarrassed and infuriated by how calm everyone is and how much they are being ignored. They even shoot at Akane’s sister and Aino takes the bullet in her defense…not that any of them can die due to being angels now.

Regardless, Akane goes full yandere upon arrival and the police watch on in terror. All is well with the happy ending, though Akua watches on unobserved (and frustrated) at the fringe…

The Verdict: Love Tyrant has a Master Level-sense of timing and breaking our expectations and being sly while doing it. The class rep just oozes a malicious grin at the end of all this, since she’s known more or less all along what’s going on and what she wants.

But there’s also a lot of heart right along side that comedy. The class rep truly wants to experience the ‘work’ of being in love, and not just the realization. It’s a charming sentiment that plays off against the silliness around it. It also makes for a good contrast to the hot (and somewhat automatic) love that’s going on among the love rectangle. Sure, Aino ‘saved’ Akane’s sister, and Akane saved the day herself, but it’s all so jump-first and think later teenager love that you can imagine it all burning out and/or stumbling over itself as different parts of the rectangle fall in and out of love with other parts.

Over all, it didn’t quite hit the same level of surprise as last week, but how could it? The humor is still there though, and it works great. The accidental real hostage situation, the interrogation in the announcement room, and the requited love reveal at the end all worked great. Neat! Go watch it now!

Renai Boukun – 01 (First IMpressions)

The Gist: A mysterious girl appears on Aino Seiji’s doorstep with warnings of his impending doom…unless he kisses someone in the next 24 hours. Magic is involved, as are the heavens, but the only girl Aino has an interest in is Hiyama Akane, the most popular girl in school, who probably doesn’t know he even exists…

Stop reading this review right now and go watch Renai Boukun because it’s fast, clever and expertly timed comedy. It pokes fun at conventions left and right and it’s utterly hilarious. But you have to watch it right now because the humor relies on unexpected twists and complications and almost any forewarning will ruin it.

The Verdict: While RB is a subpar looking show, from the terrifying human-faced house cat, to the fate of Aino’s parents, to the recurring gag about cosplay, the sheer joy of its antics quickly won my heart. Go watch it now—and I promise to talk about it in greater detail next week!