Review of Ao-chan Can't Study!

This show is a romantic comedy with a focus on ero, but surprisingly without much ecchi. It is about Ao-chan, the tsuntsuntsundere daughter of an erotic novel author, who wants to live alone for university and thus needs to study hard. But, a kind handsome fellow in her class has fallen for her, and is distracting her from studying. The majority of the show is basically one long misunderstanding. Ao has deep-seated psychological problems. She misunderstands and/or makes assumptions about her courter (Takumi) constantly, is usually wrong, and never learns from it. Furthermore, she assumes that he is thinking a certain way, repeatedly castigates himfor it (wrongly and incorrectly), and YET in multiple situations, she EXPECTS him to act/think that way - and castigates him for NOT doing so. Essentially, she is a classic tsundere, but with an extra dose of hypocrisy and an inordinately impressive ability to avoid expressing her actual thoughts/feelings. You just feel pity for the poor man: his behaviour is almost entirely above reproach, and yet he is constantly being rebuked and rejected. She wants to reject and throw him away - and then she wants him; she wants him to leave her alone - but then gets unhappy when he does; she wants him to make a move on her - yet reacts negatively when he does; she clearly likes him and he has clearly stated his feelings for her - but she refuses to express her feelings in spoken words. This is asylum-worthy behaviour.

Separately, some people seemingly found the dad annoying, but he was alright. Certainly less annoying than the WTF behaviour of his daughter. Why is he a micro-chibi gnome-like creature (a fact that no one seems to comment on)? No idea. As for the male man, I actually liked him; he seemed like a nice guy. I even sympathized a little with Ao's friend-enemy rival, who directly tells her how annoying her behaviour is (lol), though she is kind of a weirdly cardboard character. It kind of felt like she was there just to make Ao feel superior (since Ao can have everything she wants, with no effort - but doesn't even care about it).

Anyway, here's my classification:
- Moe: sometimes Ao is a kawaii but this is drowned in instability and tsun
- Comedy: moderate
- Drama: plenty
- Action: none
- Romance: that's the story
- Harem: none
- Ecchi: little

I will say that there were plenty of moments where I laughed, so the comedy is not a complete fail. And, if Ao actually acted like a reasonable person to the poor guy, she could have been a very likable character. Her art and design (and basically nobody else's) were very well done, I think.

I've placed the drama high because the story introduces characters to get in the way of the mains (partly via misunderstandings of course), and just generate jealousy between them, in addition to Ao's unpredictable moodiness. One thing that surprised me was the lack of ecchi - calling this a shounen, ecchi anime (as MAL has placed it, genre-wise), is honestly inaccurate. Just because a show has erotic themes and premises, or discusses such subject matter, does not make it an ecchi show: ecchi usually implies light-hearted visual fanservice, and erotically but not emotionally charged situations. Adult anime with straight-up $ex scenes are not necessarily ecchi anime, for instance. While this show does have some ecchi elements (mostly in Ao's fantasies, which she wants to come true but also doesn't[??]), they are usually extremely short-lived scenes or even just briefly flashed, literal still images. Ao gets into a bikini and a tight "teacher's cosplay", but this fanservice is quite short. I think it would be easier for this show to go a bit further and simply be a hentai, than it would for it to be classified as ecchi, to me personally. But no doubt many would disagree. (I might just be spoiled by all the great ecchi fanservice shows I've seen over the last several years.)

I should also mention that there is significant character and relationship progression during the show, especially for Ao. However, she never really fixes her severe personality flaws (of which at multiple points in the story she herself is aware). The male main doesn't change much, though our perception of him does.

Overall, while this is an amusing show with nice art that I got a few laughs out of, I wouldn't rewatch it. Ao's tsun personality, her forced drama-inducing behaviour, her constant unpredictable emotional seesawing, her borderline abusive treatment of someone who loves her... I suspect this show is either written by a woman or aimed at women who like to fantasize about having a kind, handsome man who only cares about her and doggedly pursues her, no matter how much she rejects and slaps him away (even while other, less abusive women aggressively pursue them). There's nothing wrong with that, of course, it's just that you should know what it is before you watch it! It is certainly not the simple ecchi comedy I was hoping for. It is closer to a romantic drama with a female high-tsun-low-dere main, plus some comedic elements. I also noticed the show tries too hard (especially near the beginning) to be "realistic", raunchy, and edgy, which was as cringy as the forced drama and teen angst to me. I guess I just don't find that kind of thing interesting or funny, but I suspect there are many who might enjoy it.