Review of Horimiya

I’ve been meaning to write a review for this for a while but, I just don’t know what to say. It’s hard to put into words because I have mixed feelings. Like I love it but there’s just a few things that are telling me it’s not perfect. Bare in mind I have not read the manga nor have I watched the OVA, so everything was pretty much new to me. This started of as a great romantic slice of life anime. You have what seems to be a unsmart/unnoticed boy (Miyamura) at school who actually is pretty cool outside of school and a pretty girl(Hori) who is popular and smart at school, but also has a lot of responsibilities at home.

The two Meet via Hori’s younger brother and slowly get to know each other, and fall in love. The side characters are also very interesting each of them have their own unique personalities. Hori’s Father especially was very entertaining. I also love the chibi animation style during the funny parts.

I think what kind of threw me off towards the end was how abruptly everything was wrapped up. Like there were so many builds up that never got cleared.

For example the weird love triangle between Yuki, Ishikawa and Sakura. Like Sakura was crying and I mean balling out over the fact that she didn’t get a chance with him and then in the end she was like it doesn’t even matter anymore.
Also I enjoyed Iura and his sisters relationship story but that never finished properly either, she just ended up finding out that her brothers actually a loud mouth at school, like what happened to her grades? did she get into the school she wanted?
Then poor Yanagi, (the blind boy) who asked Yuki out, gets rejected and nobody cares except Yuki’s sister like what, if anything he was best boy, like the prettiest and the most straightforward. I don’t see the point of creating these situations if they are not getting resolved and left aside.

Besides all of that, I did enjoy watching this, it was so close to being one of my fav romantic anime’s until the last 2 episodes. I love the opening soundtrack too. The animation and character designs are colourful and great quality. I do recommend watching it because it is a great slice of life show, it’s just that I wish there was more to offer and a better resolution to the some of the stories. I may also read the manga in the future if there isn’t a second season.