Review of Horimiya

"Horimiya" is just...very nice.The animation is good,the color palette is bright as can be and the dialogues though cheesy at times,are good enough.However,the show has nothing new to offer.I got baited by the hype around the show and the high MAL rating.I have no issues with the show though.It's easy to understand why the show is so popular.At a time when humans have been forced to be cooped up,faced with harsh economic realities and so forth,"Horimiya" offers a nice escape.It almost restores your faith in humanity.Even the 'bully' has a conscience. Unfortunately,the anime works hard to stay away from dark subject matters.It touches upon or suggestssome dark matter but shies away.As an example,early in the show Hori's mom seems to be a single mom: always bogged down with work and unable to be at home enough.This puts additional burden on Hori.However,all this amounts to nothing as one fine day Hori's dad shows up quiet nonchalantly.There is no explanation given whatsoever of his lack of responsibility.Why does Hori have to get all the groceries? Why does she have to do so many chores? Why does she need to pick up Sota everyday? And there is no animosity between them or even between Hori's mom & him! "Horimiya" always runs away from such serious topics after briefly touching upon them.So why touch upon it in the first place? As others have noted this seems like a hollow attempt to give more depth to the characters.This attempt fails because the show just moves on to the next light hearted moment.All characters are nice,no one is plotting or scheming,no one holds grudges and everyone is quiet uncomplicated.Thus,there is very little complexity or depth in the premise.As I mentioned even the bully is supposed to be a decent guy.There are many 'tsundere' moments which exist only for laughs & don't seem to be character moments.Hori is a masochist but as usual that is also glossed over.Some nods to bisexuality & homosexuality exist but they are also soon forgotten.The backstories of many characters seem inconsistent,it's just incoherent with their personalities(Remi is ditzy enough to forget about budget papers & asks them to be thrown even without checking again.However,she is a big bibliophile) The show ends on a romantic high with Hori shown in her full glory and Miyamura having overcome his past.

Seen episode by episode,the anime is like the nicest thing ever.But seen back to back or just with some memory of the incidents in previous eps,the anime starts to fall flat."Horimiya" is like a pleasant fever dream,the type the more you think of it the less pleasure you get and the more strange it seems.Watch it if you want an escape.