Review of Don't Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro

Before I went into watching this I assumed Nagatoro was going to be the annoying Tsundere girl that spent 12 episodes belittling the generic main character, typical run-of-mill Rom-Com anime stuff. Butttt it actually pleasantly surprised me. Nagatoro is the star of the show and is the main reason it works, she definitely messes with the main character (who is called senpai all show, like I still don't actually know this nigga's name), but in a far more teasing-cutesy sorta way than a "nigga how can anyone stand to be around you". In the beginning she comes off as an absolute dickhead, but you begin tolike her more as she eases up throughout the show. Her expressions are also pretty, well... expressive, and can be some good visual humor. I also think her general confidence/extroversion is a nice change of pace from the regular shy anime schoolgirl formula, without going too far into tsundere territory.

The other nigga, or Senpai, is a way more passive and reserved character, but grows to be an interesting protagonist as he gets used to Nagatoro's teasing and stops being a *complete* pansy.

The interaction between these two characters is the meat of the show, Nagatoro teases senpai endlessly for his nerdy qualities and virginity, but will slip up and drop the façade at points, revealing she is not quite the gigachad she pretends to be. Likewise senpai sometimes gets the courage to express how much he likes Nagatoro, and has to go outside his comfort zone to hang out with her. These moments are the highlights of the show, where both characters are honest with each other and you get a UwU big blushy cutesy anime moment.

The teasing and comedy is still fun, and is necessary to get that romantic payoff, but can vary in quality. Most of the time it's pretty entertaining to see how Senpai deals with Nagatoro's varying antics, and how Nagatoro finds a way to still get under his skin; but sometimes the humor falls back into tropey anime "aaaa booba" which loses me.

There are of course some side characters but aside from a gag or two they aren't really worth mentioning. I liked this anime alot and I think it can be really good if it cuts some of the more meh humor in season 2.

Also the theme song goes so hard. Like actually Top 5 anime theme 4 me no lie