Review of Horimiya

Alright this is a weird one. It has to be one of the most overhyped show I've seen in a long time, don't understand where the love comes from. Honestly I can't give it less than 6 cause it wasn't THAT bad to watch, it wasn't good either but it's something that is supposed to be very lighthearted and aimed at a younger audience and honestly it does that exact job pretty greatly. HoriMiya is totally random, sometimes funny, sometimes ridiculous, mostly generic and never surprising but more than anything else it's weird, surreal even. It gives some Sakurasou vibes without an interesting setting... andcast... and the incredible 23rd episode of that. I can't shake off the feeling that the beginning (especially pace wise) could have lead to something vastly better than what we ended with. I feel you manga readers, I can tell that this is a poor adaptation without ever reading it. Many points for the OP, by far the best thing in the anime. This review is spoiler free.

Story: 3
What story? The first few episodes are very promising, not gonna lie. After that though, oh my... there's no progress in any significant direction, the main storyline actually gets almost completely dropped, so many plot hooks open up in interesting ways and none of them leads anywhere, if ever even actually developed. There are so many different instances in which you get this feeling that something is gonna completely subvert your expectations and turn the whole story around into something actually compelling but it never happens. It kind of felt like a much less ridiculous Reality Show and with that also not as funny to watch. What a shame, this could have been so much better but it stood true to being a lighthearted comedy romcom/SoL and that's commendable if somewhat boring. Once again I find myself thinking that if you want this kind of experience, Sakurasou just does everything better, it may be slightly less heartwarming to some but that's definitely not my case.

Art: 8
I mean, it just looks beatiful. This is one of those shows in which you can pick a random time of a random episode, pause it and it's likely that you're gonna look at a wallpaper worthy frame. Aside from this, some background effects really make some scenes funnier while making others a bit more intense, it's a nice addition but maybe they treaded too much upon it. All characters look extremely pretty, especially the main female lead Hori, she's just one of the prettiest female characters I've seen in a while. Sadly they had to ruin even the best thing they did. The absolutely ever present overexaggeration of facial expression grows old very very quickly. I won't tell that it isn't funny sometimes but gosh darn it of course it is once in an episode if you use it 40 times in twenty minutes. Trust me, watch one episode of this and you're gonna understand exactly what I mean. After the 10th episode honestly I stopped paying any mind to it cause I was just so used to it that it didn't even make a difference to me, that's how many of those weird face things there are in here. It's a very cheap way to create funny situations expressing exaggerated human feelings and it doesn't shy from saying "hell yeah I'm cheap af" and I don't mean it as a compliment. Thank God at least it's pretty. Again gotta give it 8 instead of 7 just cause good gracious the intro is amazing.

Sound: 7
Did I already say the OP is amazing? Cause it is, the song is incredibly catchy. Can't really say the same for the generic ED but whatever it's fine. Everything in the sound department is fine, it's just never amazing, it does its job egregiously. You can tell that the background sounds are high quality. You can tell that the music, while being rare and generic, is placed at the right moments and it's nice to hear. You can easily tell that the VA all did a good job for the characters, no one sounds bad or out of character, big ups really. It's just not memorable, that's it.

Characters: 4
Once again, what a shame. There's a ton of characters which are actually interesting that are never developed. Even the main couple is set up as a potentially complex relationship between two different yet so similar complicated human beings. Instead everything is dropped back into a blatantly generic cast of characters who don't feel real at all. Some dynamics between them are actually intriguing and very funny at times and that's the only saving grace of this anime. Characters and their relationships are the most important thing in this genre and honestly it's unforgivable to just give up on their development. Sometimes a new guy is introduced in a very interesting and mysterious way and then it gets dropped into a generic archetype, it hypes you up for something only to let you down. This feels almost done on purpose to the point I felt like HoriMiya wanted to be something dramatic but then decided to be a parody. Whatever.

Enjoyment: 6
When something is bad, it doesn't mean it's not funny to watch anyway. The hope of something better carried me to the last episode and that something never happened. It started pretty strong tho, maybe it was a cheap way to get things started but it's not even remotely one of the biggest flaws of this show. Comedy is half the times executed properly and gets a smile out of you, occasionally it can even make you laugh but this show never manages to enthrall you in any significant way. I never felt like I was disgusted, at most I felt like the show was robotic (this is such a complex thing to explain that I'm not gonna bother you guys sorry, think you get what I mean if you watched this). It wants to be lighthearted, funny and heartwarming and I think it does all those things, it's just too generic in achieving these goals.

Overall: 6
Well the best parts are Sound and Art so you know what the summary is: You get the best experience of this anime by watching the intro and by looking for it on Google images. I may be harsh but this is not necessarily a bad thing, sometimes you just want your anime to be pretty and sound just right and they did this thing exactly, while adding up some funny comedic traits, expressed mostly thanks to a couple hilarious characters dynamics. My harshness comes cause this show could have been something much much better on every single thing it tried to do. Don't even get me started on the amount of things HoriMiya didn't even bother with that actually deserved attention. Watch this if you want a good laughter to a surreal show with no purpose but the one to be average and lighthearted. If you're into more serious stuff stay as far as possible from it and if you want comedy in a SoL romance then watch Sakurasou if you haven't already, it's this but miles better.