Review of Don't Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro

Nagatoro is one of those series where I went into it with very low expectations, had them pretty much met in the first episode, then had them exceeded a good bit with every episode I watched, and ended up having a pretty damn good time. The premise is very simple: A young boy named Naoto Hachiouji meets a girl a year younger than him named Hayase Nagatoro that constantly picks on him, but he kind of likes it because it makes him feel less lonely, and they slowly form a friendship throughout the series. And that's pretty much it. In my opinion, the series doesa good job at developing the friendship between the two, while also not slacking on the comedy portion of it. Comedies like this are easy to mess up, either by making something too realistic, or to silly, and this series finds a good balance.

One thing I will say is that the first episode is a little too harsh on the bullying. This is a very common complaint, and I do agree that the bullying is just straight up mean. However, it gets a lot more tame in literally the second episode, so if you watch the first episode and find that the bullying is too mean, try making it to the second at the very least, and make your decision on whether you'll continue or not from there.

Overall, my rating for the first season of Nagatoro is really a 7.5, but since this site doesn't do half scores, I'll give it an 8, because that's what I'm leaning towards.