Review of Horimiya

Note: This review will contain absolutely no spoilers. Horimiya is a 13-episode romance anime which primarily focuses on the two main characters of the story "Hori Kyouko" and "Miyamura Izumi" (Hence the name when combining the two). But also places a focus on the other characters within the story, which also end up in their own romantic situations. The anime takes place in your usual highschool setting, but with the combination of an interesting story, and lovable characters, it becomes a definite must watch for fans of the romance genre. Unfortunately though, while the anime is amazing, its 13 episode limitation resulted in a couple of issues, whichwill be mentioned in more detail below:

Story: 8/10

The story is pretty simple to say the least. However, this is not at all an issue, quite the contrary, there is a large growing trend of romance stories with very sad twists and turns, or really annoying cheating scenarios, and as such it is pretty refreshing to see a romantic story, which doesn't have any tear-jerking moments or characters which I want to punch through the screen.

My main issue with the story though is the pacing. While the pacing is for the most part extremely well made at the first half of the anime, I feel as though the constraints of having to fit this entire anime within 13 episodes, lead to the remaining half being pretty rushed. With some undeveloped stories for some characters, and a bit of an unclear ending for a very interesting subplot within the anime.

Art: 10/10

When considering Art, I consider both the Aesthetics of the anime (ie how the anime looks like), as well as the animation. With that said:

Without a single doubt, the artstyle within this anime is absolutely beautiful! There were no scenes within the anime which I felt weren't Aesthetically pleasing, and in terms of animation, everything was animated really well, with no noticeable issues or lack of movement.

Sound: 8/10

The opening and ending songs are honestly extremely well made, and for the most part the music always fits the theme of when it is played. With that said there however wasn't any really memorable soundtracks during the anime, so I believe a score of 8 is fair.

Character: 8.5/10

As I somewhat explained inside my introduction, the anime primarily focuses on the two main protagonists. However, it gives an importance to the other characters, and the show frequently delves into their stories, with the show featuring both a romantic subplot as well as a subplot about 2 siblings (I won't delve into this.)

However, as previously mentioned, due to the constraints of having to fit this anime within 13 episodes, there was a resulting issue of not really giving us a clear ending in terms of what happened to the other characters within the anime. Furthermore, with the rushed second half, it felt as though a lot of character development scenes got skipped, which resulted in some interactions that wouldn't really make sense unless we had previously seen some developments made by the characters.

Enjoyment: 9/10

Despite the rushed second half of the anime, I still always found it to be enjoyable to watch, and having watched it while it was airing, I always ended an episode hyped up and ready to watch more.

Overall: 8.7/10

Overall a great romance anime, which had it not been rushed, it could have become one of the top Romance anime available. Having finished the anime, I plan on eventually reading the manga and seeing how this story truly unfolds.