If what you’re chasing in the anime experience is to have your expectations defied in a good way, Makeine is pretty hard to beat. It may be time to admit this series is a unicorn. But I have a lot of scar tissue with LN adaptations. Whenever I let myself really like one, it hurts me bad. Hurts my feelings, like George Costanza’s dad. Except for those unicorns. And that’s exactly what they are. Unless we’re talking about old-school light novels from like 20 years ago – when the medium was totally different – the number of LN adaptations that have closed the deal with me is exceptionally tiny. Like one hand tiny.
Yet here we are. It’s a conundrum to be sure. I can’t deny what my senses tell me, which is that I kind of almost love this show. I’m giving it a category and adding it to the menus, which is the LiA equivalent of confessing. But I can’t say I’m not still worried. What assuages that a bit is that if nothing else, Makeine is likely always going to provide a visual feast. You can’t sell short how being this beautiful impacts your experience of a series – it’s huge. Imigi Muru’s characters are stupendous, but it’s everything – the backgrounds, the scene composition. Visually speaking Kitamura Shoutarou and his team aren’t putting a foot wrong here.
I don’t want to sell the show short, though. That wouldn’t be enough in and of itself, and the fact is, the writing so far is excellent. And that’s certainly the most expectations-defying thing of all. This is adolescent romcom with a sharp wit and a healthy dose of sensitivity. It’s also restrained where it needs to be (like with tropes) while still embracing absurdity with abandon. It’s not photo-realistic by any stretch, either in terms of plot or dialogue. But that’s fine, the screwball comedies of the 30’s weren’t either. They were going for a style, an experience, and trying to use humor to illuminate affairs of the heart along the way. And I think that’s what Make Heroine ga Oosugiru! is trying to do (and damn well so far).
Komari confessing to Shintarou at the end of Episode 3 showed that the series wasn’t going to be a Groundhog Day kind of thing gnawing on girls being frozen out. She tried, as hopeless as it was. Sadly for Komari all she accomplished, really, was pushing Shintarou into Koto’s arms. Shintarou may be a senpai but he’s clueless – so much that he goes to Nukumizu-kun for advice. He says he confessed to Koto over Christmas and got turned down, which makes her slap rather puzzling. But as it turns out it was an epically bad confession. While I don’t condone violence in romcoms, I can see why Koto was pissed off.
Because all these girls are doofs, Remon decides to cheer Komari up by catching her a stag beetle. And she decides to cheer herself up by noodging at Nukumizu. The narrative is not going to ignore the elephant in the room, which is obviously Nukumizu and Anna’s relationship, and I consider that a positive development. They don’t have to get together, but we shouldn’t just pretend this isn’t complicated. Anna in fact is rather enjoying being Kazuhiko’s gal pal, but he’s growing uncomfortable at the rumors about them. Mainly, it seems, as he believes the nattering nabobs when they say she’s out of his league (really?). Thinking he’s doing her a favor, Nuk-kun credits Yanami-san’s account ¥2867 for a cucumber sandwich and breaks up with her.
Except, of course, they aren’t going out. But that doesn’t mean he’s not thinking about it – he just doesn’t know how to think about it. Instinctively he realizes he shat the bed here, and tries to apologize, but she’s having none of it. Then Sousuke turns up to chat, and both Nukumizu and Chika assume he’s about to get rolled for cash. Instead, Sousuke wants to tell him how happy he is that Yanami is seeing someone. Because, you know, now he doesn’t have to feel guilty. Nuk-kun tries to do her a solid by clueing him in on her feelings (he knows anyway), but then Yanami shows up, having been alerted by Chika that Kauzhiko was being bullied, and the shit really hits the fan.
This climactic scene (feels like the climax of the prologue) worked for me. Sousuke is being a total asshat here, and I give props to Nuk-kun for trying to stand up for Anna. He was clumsy about it, but he did his best. Anna standing up for herself (finally, but still) was good to see as well. As for what happens between the two mains, it says a lot about Kazuhiko that “friendfessing” was that monumental for him. Because he’s such a loner, it’s hard to know for sure if asking someone to be a friend was just that traumatic, or he meant something else and couldn’t say it.
That “two or three years” comment was the best, too – such a loveable loser, this kid. Even if the two of them just stay friends, I’m cool with that – friendships last longer than romances at that age anyway. Nukumizu and Yanami are good together, whatever they are. There’s a level of perceptiveness about teen relationships here that I can only call surprising, given the source material. Most romance manga couldn’t match it on their best day. I’ve seen too much not to remain cautious – four episodes is four episodes. But with four episodes this good, it would be an injustice not to celebrate them.
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