Review of Horimiya

(TLDR at the bottom, thanks for reading.) Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou (often referred to as kare kano) is a 1998 rom-com anime from Gainax and J.C staff, it ran for 26 episodes but fell into production hell after episode 18 due to director Hideaki Anno leaving the production. On an unrelated note horimiya is an adaptation of a manga which in turn is an adaptation of a webcomic. Have you ever watched a romance anime, maybe you have watched more than 1 romance anime? In that case, you have seen horimiya. It is the culmination of every other romance anime that has come before it and becauseof this is completely creatively bankrupt. Even some of the less common trope horimiya uses don't affect the story in any meaningful way. It's great that Hori and Miyamura get together early but this doesn't make the anime any better, it's not really a surprise either because the title just gives it away, because after they get together the anime just becomes a slice of life and focuses on other characters. Do you remember earlier that I said that this anime is based on webcomic? It was not a normal webcomic, it was a 4-koma manga, meaning that the show doesn't aim to tell a story but to be an entertaining slice of life rom-com manga. But the manga adaptation tries to be a normal romance series while still being faithful to the webcomic, the anime tries to be both of these. It doesn't tell a long cohesive story because it wants to be a slice of life but it isn't an entertaining slice of life rom-com because it wants to long cohesive romance anime, it tries to have the best of both worlds but in the end get neither.

For the visual the show is pretty standard because it is a romance anime there isn't much animation but the characters designs all look aesthetically pleasing. Although in some episodes the camera refuses to stay still, often slowly moving across the screen while characters are just talking, I appreciate that it is trying to make the anime more visually interesting but it just takes you out of the experience. I honestly have no clue what to say about the ost because I'm struggling to even remember if it exists (outside of 1 or 2 scenes) but aside from that the anime sounds fine.
I'd be lying if I said horimiya wasn't at least some what enjoyable, what it has is fine and why my score is a 5 and not a 1.

TLDR: Horimiya is just like every other romance anime that you have seen but changed in the most meaningless ways.