Review of Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku
"New workplace, new me. I won't let anyone find out that I am a hopeless otaku! Yes, I have changed my wallpaper to something normal." No, this is not you but our shujinkō(主人公) Momose Narumi who is a fujoshi or a yaoi fangirl. This story is about a girl who doesn't want her colleagues to find out that she is into BL even after becoming a part of working society. The twist is ,of course, when she mistakenly bumps into her childhood friend, Nifuji Hirotaka, who knows about her "hobby" in the same workplace. "First mission assignment, silence Hirotaka." And of course our Hirotaka is dense andemotionless which is opposite to Momose's personality.
The story develops into something more interesting in each episode and slowly they find other colleagues with same type of hobbies. They interact and become friendly enough to talk about it.
The story progression is somewhat special because rather than character development, what's more observable is that the characters are opening up to eachother which in my opinion isn't character development. Pacing of story is not to fast or too slow but isn't exactly comfortable either. It's something difficult to explain the pacing so watch for yourself to understand it.
The character setting is really fantastic. First, we have Nifuji, a game otaku.
Next, we have a fudanshi(though he never refers to himself as that in whole series), the guy who loves Yuri, Kabakura Tarou.
And lastly, a comrade of Momose, who's also into BL and a cosplayer, Koyanagi Hanako.
The best part about this character setting could be seen in later episodes when other people from workplace were shown and their views about them.
For me Kabakura-senpai was simply the best not because he and I share the same interest but because his VA is Sugita Tomokazu. Sugita-san is also VA of Gintoki.
The animation was what would be expected but it wasn't anything notable. Could say it was decent. The representation was somewhat appreciable since there were a lot of references from famous anime and to games both directly and also in background so look out for them in anime. I especially loved the scenes where they would play online games and their game avatars would look like them.
Special Mention
I truly liked the character Nifuji Naoya, younger brother of Hirotaka. His presence itself was heartwarming and his VA was just as amazing as the character.
This was my first office anime so I am not sure if I will find something better than this in genre but I truly enjoyed it and don't think it will change in future.
All in all, I really enjoyed watching this and would totally recommend you to watch this especially otakus who are contributing to society.