Review of Horimiya

Horimiya's a series that was recommended to me when it was finished airing. I was immediately drawn into it a few episodes in and never looked back. Story: The basis for Horimiya is pretty simple - its about the interactions between Kyouko Hori and Izumi Miyamura. These two are high school classmates with very opposing characteristics. They end up meeting up, by chance, outside of classes and eventually start dating. Due to their differing personalities, we do get very different interactions than we might otherwise expect. The school setting is used in spurts, but they do mix it up with scenesat differing places, which helps keep things fresh.

This romance / school / slice of life is pretty light in the fact that it doesn't take itself too seriously for more than a few minutes at a time. This is somewhat different than other romance anime where they have more serious themes, but as someone not particularly adept at watching slice of life, I can say that this never detracted from the story, overall. We watch this more for the "aw" moments, not the dramatic ones, and I love them. Much of the first half of the series is focused on how our main couple first interact, then eventually start dating. The whole dynamitic is what I was interested in and I really enjoyed it.

The story structure is a little different here in that the back half of the series takes episodes at a time to focus on our side characters. While this will bug some audiences, I actually welcomed it here, because it was well executed. Understand that this anime, at its core, is a romance anime, so some of the side character's own stories do feel somewhat similar at times. The big thing is that they all live their life differently than the others and introducing their friends or love interest to that life spawns some pretty amusing moments.

A lot of the interactions between Hori and Miyamura are really touching, especially the final one. You do kind of wonder if they could have used another episode or two because the last bit did feel slightly rushed, but it was still solid. Miyamura's personal life wasn't explored too much so you might've liked to see it touched upon a little more. (8/10)

Characters: There's so many characters to cover, but overall, they were all really solid. Hori's exceptionally outgoing, smart, athletic and popular. By stark contrast, Miyamura's very introverted and finds he'd rather not interact with others. He does hide a few things about himself, but he displays so many positive aspects of being a boyfriend, that you can't help but envy them. They both develop as the series goes on, though in very different ways. The pairing together creates some really touching moments, especially with some of the changes we see in Miyamura. One thing that may go unnoticed by some is that these two roles are often swapped in more traditional series - the girl is the quiet, shy one where the guy is the one who brings them out of their shell a little. To see it reversed is quite refreshing.

As previously mentioned, the side characters do get quite a bit of love in the back end of the series, even though it's only thirteen episodes long. They all have their quirks and goals, but are mostly different that you feel like you're getting enough of a side story that makes them feel right at home in this anime. Remi's probably one of the more fun classmates that we get to see. I didn't love Sawada's inclusion here as I didn't feel like she added enough.

Aside that, Hori's family is explored a fair bit since this series does have substantial screen time at her place, but while her dad did provide some comic relief, he was pretty annoying at other times. Miyamura's parents weren't mentioned much so we don't really get an idea of how they are other than they work pretty long hours. All in all, the characters were solid with us getting to know the side characters a fair bit. (8/10)

Art: The art style is certainly different in that they really emphasize the comic-looking feel a lot - which makes sense since the anime itself wasn't too serious overall. It didn't have much of the polish that we come to expect of a lot of modern anime, but that's perfectly fine - it's a matter of personal preference. Overall, it was fine and I can leave very little in the way of complaints here. (9/10)

Sound: The anime as a whole sounded alright. I've noticed that more and more into these romance anime, the sound doesn't tend to take centre stage much. And that's okay. However, where this anime can falter a little is the casting for Hori. Marisa Duran doesn't have a huge resume to her name and it unfortunately shows a little bit here. The touching moments could have been done a lot better and its here you do tend to miss some of the other voices you've listened to in the past. She pulls off the more angry moments decently well but otherwise, she wasn't exceptional here. Most everyone else was well done. Bill Butts (Hori's dad) and Jaliza Delgado (Remi) were probably the best of the bunch with Alejandro Saab (Miyamura) and Johnny Yong Bosch (Yanagi) being solid overall. (7/10)

Overall enjoyment: Overall, Horimiya was an excellent watch. They kept things pretty light and the art and sound matched it, for the most part. You don't always love Duran's work with Hori, but that's something you can look past, especially if you're one of the crew to stick to the Japanese audio anyway. There's a fair bit of school-romance popping up and if you're trying to choose, you could do a lot worse than Horimiya. It's a little unique in that it gives its side characters large chunks of screen time, but I welcomed it here, since it was done quite well. If this is your thing, then give it a try! (9/10)