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SOLSupporter

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  • Joined Jul 23, 2016
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      Chuunibyou Demo Koi ga Shitai!, also known as Love, Life, and Chuunibyou, is the type of moe anime everybody likes. I liked it enough, but with a caveat; I hated some parts of it as I watched it. Having watched all its episodes, I feel comfortable giving a full review. There are major spoilers ahead, so wait to read this until you have seen the entirety of the story. Don't spoil your fun with my opinion just yet!

       Let me start with what I did not like. First of all, the characters. Don't get me wrong; Rikka can be a fun character who lets her diseased imagination run wild, but her backstory is what is far more interesting about her. Anyway, I should mention the type of cute humor that Chuunibyou naturally causes is less of a cause of "~uwu~" moe humor to me than it is as just cringeworthy. There, I said it; even if Chuunibyou is a mental disease that is not simply aided, I disliked this imaginative style of comedy. Both Rikka and Sanae are completely overbearing and annoying, although Sanae is by far the worst. So when Rikka finally came around past halfway through the season, I breathed a breath of fresh air as I got to see a whole other side to her character development. Yuta and Nibutani's hard fought efforts to help Rikka where not in vain...or where they? Regardless, Rikka's character progression, especially as you near the finale, is fascinating and probably one of the biggest redeeming factors for me in this anime's fragile attempt at humor. As for the others, there was not too much room for improvement; Yuta and Nibutani have already curbed their chuunibyou long ago, which the anime reminds of us of constantly through flashbacks. Sanae is absolutely obsessed with Rikka's antics and is so immersed in the world of chuunibyou that she is pretty much insane. Kumin and Nibutani are potential love interests, but they pretty much end up being side characters once Rikka and Yuta's eventual relationship unfolds. Kumin and Makato's relationship that slowly develops was really quite aborable however; I couldn't help but to cheer for Makato as he attempted to romance the slothlike Kumin. Really TBH, Kumin is a pretty entertaining side character as the sleepyhead who ends up being pretty cool. Finally, the character with the least amount of progression in this story has got to be Nibutani, who sort of falls flat as a recovered chuunibyou patient who is like a tsundere. She barely did anything useful in the story, other than clobbering Sanae all the time. So to wrap up characters, most of the anime's plot revolves around Rikka (as it should), as she fights with her long past of love, hate, life, and of course chuunibyou. If you took Rikka out of the story, this would be a very boring anime.
    
             With the matter of characters explained more thoroughly, the story as a romance/comedy/moe anime is rather substantial and is good to hang onto if you can look past all the regular day antics of Rikka and Sanae. Yuta and Rikka's relationship is very involved and complicated due to the chuunibyou, as well as being condominum friends and school buddies. Again, their romantic character arc is very important to this anime, ending up being the backbone of the story. Maybe besides Makato and Kumin's cute side relationship, Yuta and Rikka is where it is at. I enjoyed the story's progression as their relationship started off as lighthearted and for Yuta, a chance at bringing Rikka eventually back to reality. This ends up opening ugly doors in Rikka's history which add a new flavor to the moe fun of this anime: a dark and foreboding past for especially Rikka, but embarrassment for Yuta. That dichotomy makes Yuta and Rikka's love relationship highly intriguing to watch unfold, where Yuta is treated less like a therapist and ends up realistically caring for Rikka. Rikka on the other hand, completely opens up to Yuta and this creates all sorts of conflicts that really boost the story forward. Again, in terms of story this does not really happen until the last five or so episodes of the anime. Somehow however, the earlier episodes do not feel like filler miraculously. Every episode manages to fit in some serious anecdotes and important flashback-understandings that makes the triviality of the humor a little less hard to swallow. In other words, the story progression is well thought out and practical; there is not one episode that will leave you saying that the plot effectively went nowhere.

            As for just production value, this anime does well. The sound quality, from sound effects with the characters and imagination-action scenes to music, is good and does not feel repetitive. The animation is top-notch and is really attractive to the eyes, and nowhere better than in the chuunibyou action scenes. This is not too say that the regular playout of the animation is not well-done either. The animators did a excellent job and not cutting corners or relying on gag animation too much. Also, the character's VA is pretty good in the English dub, which is something not all dubs can claim. Except for Sanae who has an insanely grating voice that is just awful, all the others have great voice acting, though none is more diverse than Rikka's. Someday I will have to rewatch it in subbed form for more evaluation on VA quality.

                One major spoiler however: I hated the ending. All the good parts that came up to the finale where soured to me when the random narrator guy explained Rikka and Yuta's evolving relationship. The narrator's explaination was that chuunibyou, regardless of the progression in the story, was what Rikka and Yuta was and what they identified with. This is undeniably true, but it gives the story a chance to totally reverse gears to when Rikka was immersed in chuunibyou, again. It is agitating to me, because all of Yuta's hard work ending up being a flop if she is not fully resolved, and this makes the story arc fold on itself. By the end of the anime, I was upset becasue it was counteractive, not forward-thinking. That is not how you end a story people! Then the specials had the guts to just return things to the way they where before, with Rikka and Sanae being annoying, although Yuta now has muted feelings for Rikka that keeps him faithful to her. I hate it; it is blatant fanservice and it is a completely stupid way to resolve the immense conflicts Rikka had earlier. So, one of my biggest conflicts with this anime is its ending; it is unsatisfactory.

              And I get it people - one of the most vacuum-seal draws to this anime is Rikka and Sanae's fun and stupid actions with each other. It is cute, it is action, it is dumb fun, and it is very moe. But to viewers like me that need a certain style of moe and/or a decent story, Chuunibyou Demo Koi ga Shitai! fails spectacularly in the humor deptartment. If you like that for what it is, than don't let my opinion influence you otherwise. Just keep in mind that the humor is (at least to me) shallow and the ending is just terribly counteractive.

7/10 story
9/10 animation
8.5/10 sound
6.5/10 characters
7.6/10 overall

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