Review of Horimiya

Horimiya is another slice-of-life, comedy, rom-com romance anime that failed to produce anything significant after the first four episodes. While the series initially tried to stand out by subvert expectations, it ultimately went back to the generic and cliche form. Hori, the main female lead, and Miyamura, the main male lead, discovered each others’ ‘another’ personality after a fateful encounter. Hori was initially perceived to be a popular girl in school with a shitty personality, but she’s actually a kind girl and has house duties because her parents were not always home. Miyamura was perceived to be an anti-social otaku, but he’s actually thecomplete opposite. Now, this part was interesting. It means we get to see how their relationship playout. But the show had their feelings and relationship solved quickly in the beginning: They discover each other, understand each other’s compatibility, and fall in love. That is it. The show never delved deeper into their relationship because it just kind of ends. It never explored the more interesting aspects of their relationship because it wanted to be “different”.

In episode 3, Hori and Miyamura subconsciously confessed their feelings for each other. This was meant to be an impactful moment for both Hori and Miyamura. But the show brushed it over quickly, not giving the viewers enough time to process the abrupt half-hearted confession.

I also blame this particular problem on the pacing. To put it simply, many moments that needed to develop a deeper understanding of Hori and Miyamura’s relationship were either presented very simple and rushed, or they were just completely cut from the manga. Viewing this anime from an anime-only perspective only leaves a bad impression, and I’m not going to dispute that fact.

Since the main couple’s relationship is resolved rather quickly, that’s where the show had no choice but to go the cliche avenue. The relationship explored next in the show was a love triangle between the supporting characters: Yuki, Tooru, and Sakura. And as you can guess, it’s the same trite anime formula of a love triangle where eventually, one of the characters will win and the other losses. The one that lost is the character who tried her hardest to get her love interest, and the one that won is because of her special connection to the love interest.

However, I will say that the character that won had a more interesting personality and dynamic with her love interest.

The characters in Horimiya are just simply not interesting or particularly stand out. The supporting casts serve a set of personalities, and that’s what they are. They are forgettable because they only have one purpose to the narrative: To be categorized into different love circles and relationships. Whether that be Sengoku and Remi, or Tooru and Yuki, their relationships are never thoroughly explored. The show tells you that they have feelings for each other, but it never delved deeper than that. Without any evolvement of Hori and Miyamura’s relationship, the narrative and characters’ captivity fell apart quickly.

The artistic style used for its characters is the bare minimum. There’re no details added to make the aesthetics stand out. Its background settings are barebone art too, which is fine. It’s a rom-com romance. Don’t expect anything outstanding and substantial. However, the technique that annoys me the most about the show was when it uses chibi art for jokes--those jokes aren’t even funny. It’s repetitive and adds nothing to the enjoyment.

I was well aware of the drastic changes that were going to happen since I’ve read the manga. Still, the anime did a poor adaptation of the little moments that cultivated the relationships between the characters--especially between Hori and Miyamura. Those moments were either rushed or were completely cut from the anime, which had a detrimental effect on my enjoyment. Even for an anime-only, the faults can still be detected. Unless you have seen worse romcoms, Horimiya is not worth investing your time in.

Score: 4/10