Review of Kokoro Connect

Hi, this is my first review at MAL and I have some observations to do. This review WILL have spoilers, as will my next ones, because I feel more comfortable writing this way and I like reading reviews that talks about specific events, so I'm doing the same. I won't go deep at any technical terms or factors, I will just talk about what I liked in the anime and what it could've done better (better for me, so you can disagree if you want) And last but not least, I will mainly be doing those reviews to train my English writing, since I'm anative Brazilian, and that could be a problem, because I won't be able to express myself that much, but I'll try.

Then let's start
At first glance, I didn't have any hype at all, just starting what I thought it would be another normal anime. A lot of people say that they got hooked up on the show owing to the switch of personalities thing, for me, it wasn't a big deal, being honest, I didn't even like it that much at first, but after a few episodes I was almost fully immersed in the anime, and for the first time in ages I really didn't know why, it was just that all the characters were being developed so well that I just started being friends with them, and this doesn't happen often with me.

By the show goes by and the "magic phenomenons" changes, I value the characters more and more, and especially one that is probably the favorite among the enjoyers, but we will talk about her later. The thing here is that I wasn't expecting a character development that was this good, for me, they would just be dealing with those problems but in a more relaxed way, considering they weren't too surprised by the appearance of a person who can control their body and their wills in a world where there is no magic, but well, I was wrong.

Starting with Aoki and Taichi, they were the characters that have the least development between all the protagonists, specially Aoki, I thought he was going to be the guy with "pretending to be happy all the time" problem, but... he was not into the drama at all, I thought he would have the problem of pretending to be happy, or the problem of Yui always rejecting him but the only thing that happens to him is that he questions his own love for Yui and needs to fix it, but it takes like 2 episodes, and it is done, surprisingly I did not hate him or the show because of it, maybe he was just the most mature of them all and knows how to maintain the form and the emotions right.
Taichi was another case, he is the main-main-main character, and he actually has one of the most generic and default personalities that a protagonist could have, like Inaba said, a crazy altruistic, but, this personality of him is explored as well and got "searched" from another angle, since he is an altruistic he can do anything for other people, but, doesn't he do this just for ego and self-promotion? That is the Taichi's drama (at least for like 5 episodes) and after that he only keeps trying to make the right choice in the love triangle.

Yui was actually pretty boring when they explore more of her traumas. In the start I was liking it, she almost got raped and because of that he is afraid of men, that is a plausible reason, actually, I was excited about the resolution of her problem, but then basically... Taichi switch bodies with Yui, and he kicks his own testicles 🙂. There, that is the resolution, then she thanks him and I thought it resolved the problem but then the thing that bothered me a little in this show happens, the exaggerated lack of confidence between the characters.
This happens especially with Iori (that I'll talk more deeply later) and Yui, and please, note that I said bothered a LITTLE, because I know that their traumas where actually really 'confidence-related' ones, but they go on more than it should, instead of kicking testicles and making it the resolution, why do you make it look like it's all sorted out only to have the same drama come back after two or three episodes? See, the problem here was the order of the occurrences, for both Yui and Iori, with Yui we got pretty confident that she was getting better from her traumas, but then suddenly only because she accidentally kicks off some butts at the school she gets 100x worse, and yes, if she did that conscious it could be a good reason for her to feed more her fear of men and her actions, but what happened was that the MAGIC PHENOMENONS at this time made she did it, and they even talk about it later in the anime: "In normal circumstances we could've held back" and that is ABSOLUTELY true, what is the problem in she desiring that the men who were harassing their female colleagues be punished? It is totally normal, but they over-dramatized it, and then she kept like 3 episodes locked in her room thinking about that, but no problem, it was not bad to watch, and I just realized that after thinking about the anime.
Oh, yeah, before going to the next topic I absolutely love the relationship between Yui and Aoki, it is just so cute.

Now the polemic one, the "main plot" of the series even if it happens in the OVA (that I hope you watched it because it is literally a sequel)
NAGASE IORI:
She IS the example of what could've been with Yui, instead of assuming that she is now totally okay, there were always some hint or anything that made it seem that she was not. When they try to resolve her problem for the first time, it goes wrong because she proves Taichi can not recognize her when she is pretending to be another people, when they almost resolve it with Iori almost dying or when we were close to the end of the anime where she gets a chance to restart her life, and she denies it, we still see that it is not alright.
The main problem with Iori was the masks that she wore (yeah, actually SHE is the "pretending to be happy problem" one), and even after everything we still saw that she was... hm... "over-happy"??? I don't know if I can put it that way, but you are getting what I'm saying, so, since she is still pretending to be happy we can conclude that she STILL has her problem and is traumatized, by the way, I didn't see it this way when I was watching, I actually was pretty pissed with Iori and thinking of her a pain in the ass, but when I finished everything and reflected about it, I noticed how bad were my thoughts.
But well, when the OVA starts we see that Iori changed completely and yes she gets dull af, cold and insensible, and it remains like that for quite a long time, but again, after reflecting about it a little we can see why she did it. Looking back, Iori's problem was the worst, like Inaba, her problem was mostly life-long, but her trauma was so much worse than Inaba's, HER problem was a good reason for staying locked in her room, HER problem was a good reason to not talk to anyone and HER problem was the reason that gave this show the final piece of development, unlike the traumas of the other characters, in the OVA even the spectator don't know what Iori is actually thinking until episode 15 or 16, and it gives the viewers a lot of emotions, be it anger, empathy or even sadness, we are in the other protagonists place, we don't know what Iori is really thinking in the start and because of that it was so interesting (and gave me anxiety hAHA), and it turns out so good, she still takes time to think after the conversation with Inaba and Taichi and draws its own conclusions, conclusions that SHE created and SHE thought using the previous events and conversation, and this character maturation was amazing, the best one of course. And don't worry, you probably were really mad by the way she was acting, but I was too, lol.

And last but absolutely not least, Inaba
Inaba is a really personal case, if I'm going to be direct I would say that it is because she is the most complete character, she has all the sides, she can be angry, cute, intelligent, rational, irrational, and what made me like her so much, she can be HONEST, thing that most of the characters of this show can not. Of course, she makes mistakes and even being honest it is not 100% of the time, but I just feel so comfortable when she was on the screen, the group of protagonists resolved her problem that actually was not that big of a deal and after that she is there to help everyone, not for her ego or anything but just the pure innocence of not having any friends before and trusting everybody. Now you ask: YEAH, BUT HER TRAUMA WAS NOT TRUSTING ANYONE LOL.
Yes it was, but when it's settled she starts trusting everybody, and she can do it that easily because she never got her expectations high on anyone, so she doesn't know what that feeling exactly is, and it gives her the permission to trust they this much and be this lovely character. Not trusting anyone made she trust everyone. Or I just wrote this whole shit for nothing, and she was just love-blind, who knows.

But that was my Kokoro Connect review, as I said, I like to talk about specific things, but I need to make clear that this anime is amazing, one of the best dramas I've seen, and I hope you liked it too, see you in another review :).