Review of Horimiya

Man! It's tough being the coolest, most beautiful girl in class. With all these boys chasing after me, and even some girls, some might even say I'm in a privileged position. Little do they all know, that deep down, I actually live a secret double life! Yep, while I'm in class, I have stunning flowing long hair and an air of coolness surrounding me, but as soon as I go home... I tie my hair up and do chores! I know, I know, embarassing right? There's just one thing missing, I really need a boyfriend who will be super mysterious, he's gotta be living adouble life, and living with some amount of trauma (but not too much, I need to be able to fix him!). Yep it would be awesome if I found the most loving and kind boyfriend ever, he could even be an older brother figure to my kid brother! Yep I think we would be best friends for a while, until suddenly he would be unable to hold his feelings back! Then we could date and kiss and make love on a rainy night at home, then when it comes to Christmas time, he could propose to me! I really want someone to propose to me in high school!

What did that sound like to you? A self-indulgent fantasy? The kind of wattpad fiction written entirely as a self-insert fantasy? Well that's exactly what Horimiya is! Yep, this anime, supposedly the 'highlight' romcom of the season, might try to make you think otherwise, but the story is just garbage. For a show called Horimiya, like Hori and Miyamura, it certainly doesn't spend a lot of time waiting for feelings to become palpable. The romance plays out as if it was always meant to happen, like it was destiny, and that makes sense seeing as the romance is in the title. There's no feelings of doubt and it takes no time at all for the requisite romantic feelings to be developed in our main couple.

While other, plebian romcoms might take 4 episodes just to establish that the characters are beginning to feel something between them, Horimiya has them already dating by then. It's a rare thing in anime for the main couple to already have been formed before the halfway mark, it's even rarer when they fuck at the halfway mark. Maybe you can tell, I don't like HoriMiya's relationship. Because the pacing is too fast, it feels like the relationship development is forced. Not to mention the characters themselves are inconsistent and Hori is kind of a Mary Sue character and Miyamura is written to be kind of a revenge fantasy on school bullies.

So, our main characters are supposed to be two people living double lives, and when they discover each others they can finally be themselves around someone else and they fall for each other. Of course, Miyamura's double life of being a hot, emo bad-boy is significantly more impressive than Hori's supposed 'secret identity' as a responsible older sister. Hori seems to be the author's self insert vehicle. She is beautiful and cool, everyone likes her, all the guys want her. She is maybe kind of a tsundere but just a little, and this is never viewed in a negative way, she is also tough enough to scare and bruise delinquents who might try to harm her epic bad boy bf (some kind of dominance, protector fantasy). Similarly, she uses Miyamura to indulge in some kind of masochistic fantasy in public, thank you HERO, very cool! Miyamura is some nerdy loner who becomes an epic bad-boy, he is also an extremely nice guy who is tolerant of just about anyone. He was an outcast in middle school and had some pseudo-bullies. Luckily however, after he meets Hori he gets totally fixed and then has almost absolutely no trouble slipping into a clique and apparently becoming a magnet for other people. He becomes super popular and wouldn't you know it, even his old bullies want to apologise and befriend him! After this he just becomes funny generic protagonist who plays a straight-man role in the comedic sections, he genuinely feels like deadweight on the screen sometimes. Speaking of deadweight, about halfway through the series we start getting to see less of our main couple in favour of other side characters.

I thought to myself one episode, I'd rather watch this series through the point of view of Kono Sakura than I would HoriMiya's. Not that I think that means much, I'd rather watch this series through the perspective of just about any other side character too. My favourite character was Yoshikawa Yuki! Her whole thing with Toru was pretty good right until it became detached from any kind of logic or momentum. Anyway, a lot of the side content gets introduced, first scene happens, then they forget to follow it up, then on episode 13 we get a quick little update. For example, we get Sawada introduced, a handful of short scenes with her and Miyamura, one significant scene, then she disappears. Similarly, we get Iura's sister, introduced, handful of short scenes, one significant scene with her and Hori, then she vanishes until the last episode. It's just okay for most of it but its still more interesting than the central relationship in this series is, which really serves to illustrate how very mediocre this series is.

Well there is one positive to this series, frankly its the only reason I'm going to give it a score as high as I am. The series is actually pretty funny! Not only does it have solid visual gags every episode, we get funny conversations and interactions between our characters. I found myself having a good laugh maybe twice an episode, which is great to see. I also found myself laughing at things that werent meant to be funny, like the proposal as well as during other moments that were meant to be emotional, but a lot of it was just that corny. Like on episode 13, there was a super gratuitous montage of what would have happened if Hori and Miyamura never met, apparently none of their friends would have ever met? It's so dumb, because it feels like the meeting of those two had so little impact on the world around them, its a huge stretch to say them meeting was just that important.

So, anyway. Horimiya! Best romance anime ever? No! Best romcom ever? No! That throne still belongs to Toradora (fight me). A good romance? No! Its just about okay, like not even as good as Plastic Memories. Is it funny? Absolutely! Should you watch it? Well, first of all, I'd tell you to save your time, but if you want some mindless romcom fun it can certainly fill that role. Overall this is a below average romance with some above average comedy. 5/10.