Review of Horimiya

As someone who was originally reluctant to watch this anime, I can admit that I'm surprised by how good it is. The artstyle is pretty and aesthetically pleasing to the eye, the soundtrack is good, and I genuinely did enjoy the anime at first. It's later on in the story that I started to get a little... iffy about it. I won't spoil anything too major, but there are a few things I'm kind of upset about. The story itself was very rushed. Some elements of it were sloppy as well, unfortunately. The way it was at first seemed very promising, but at the end you cantell they ran out of ideas and tried to milk the concept as much as they possibly could.

At some point, they make the main male character show parts of a very lonely backstory, but then they do nothing with it. You can tell they tried to make these scenes emotional. The music was sad, the scene was sad, but the very next moment everything is back to normal. It seems like the director kinda just shoved the sad parts in there so it could resemble the manga a little more.

Then, again with the main male character, they make him completely change his appearance and everything for no reason. Even the love interest is a little unsettled by it. It kinda enforced the stereotype that males must have short hair or they're too feminine for love.

Side characters were decent, but their stories were glossed over and there's so many scenes with them that you feel like they should have more screen time. But at the same time you can't even connect with them because, again, they're very rushed and just shoved in there because they were in the manga.

Overall, the concept is good but the ending is kind of trashy. Hopefully there's a second season that makes up for it and gives us an insight on the past of characters we should have felt bad for.