Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions! - Reviews

My anime reviews are always simple, short and straight-forward and is 100% spoilers-free.

Genres: Comedy, Drama, Romance, School, Slice of Life

Additional Info: An anime with a good mix of comedy and drama with lots of kawaii moments and heart-warming romance.

Ending Rating: 90% (2nd Season)

Short Review:

An outstanding school romance anime. The anime has a really nice blend of comedy and drama. The romance is also a very big plus and the animation is something to be commended. This is truely worth everybody's time, electric bills and mobile phones batteries.

Great overall, before the main characters became too much of a pushovers from the sequel.

This is a hard one to judge, it's quite boring until the last few episodes, but then has certain charming points to it. Much of this anime can be summarized easily as "do you enjoy watching a girl who is constantly in Roleplay mode"? Along with a school life theme. There is very little comedy as it relies on you being able to enjoy that roleplaying thing and find it amusing in the first place. The romance aspect never takes off (in this season) either. There isn't much of a story or purpose till further in. There is a purpose and reason for Rikka though for all that she does. She is the one character who gets the spotlight and has the character development. While cute and having a unique personality, her constant roleplay mode is a turn-off and hard to really get into.

If there ever was a love/hate anime, this would be it. Some of the characters are interesting enough to make you want to stick around, along with the potential the anime has. Then for a good portion of the time, the roleplay gets incredibly boring, but then when the anime progresses further around episode 9, it is more interesting. It gets frustrating again when the romance piece is obvious, but it never really gets addressed much.

The exaggerated combat scenes are kind of amusing, good music and visuals.

Season 2 looks far more promising based off the first episodes, and what this season should have been focused more towards. If this season isn't your thing but you are still curious, give Season 2 a shot instead. 

I'm still wrapping my head around the concept of chunibyou.  As a teacher who experienced his share of eighth graders, I had never seen anything of a 'second-year syndrome' (eighth grade or middle year of middle school in Japanese education system) where 'delusional feelings of superiority or displays of supernatural power' cropped up.  Bullies, prima donnas, jocks, geeks, nerds, and the generally clueless ... yes.  But someone who'd I'd call 'chuni' ... I would have remembered that.

But I have been entertained by the antics of Jurai in When Supernatural Battles Become Commonplace.  And Yoshinko (Yohane!) of Love Live! Sunshine! was basically harmless in her version of annoying.  So, it was natural to take on the approach of trying to understand the 'ailment' in one of the most intelligent treatments of this oddity of youth ... Love, Chunibyo, and Other Delusions.

The premise of the story rotates on the characters of Yuuta and Rikka.  They will meet in the first days of high school.  Yuuta had been a terrible chuni in middle school, being the Dark Flame Master ... the source of embarrassment for him.  He is happy to leave his chunibyo life behind and start clean in high school.  But he runs into Rikka, the Wicked Eye whose occult ravings upsets Yuuta's plans to stay clean and sober.  The class offers many characters who would have a say in this conflict of delusion versus reality.  Shinka is a pretty, popular girl who, like Yuuta, has left chuni behind her, but has some embarrassing mementos which still crop up to discomfit her usual poise and good sense.  Sanae is Rikka's friend who joins her in her bizarre adventures into the dark realms of their imagination.  Kumin is a second-year who is unmotivated in either direction, preferring napping to anything else.  This explains the name of Rikka's newly formed Far East Magical Napping Society, a school club with dubious, if not non-sensical, goals.  In for the ride is Yuuta's friend Makoto, a boy who rates girls by cuteness and is punished ever so severely by Shinka (#1 babe in Makoto's book) by having his head shaved.  Fun and games in the high school scene.

The turning point in the story is Yuuta discovering that Rikka’s chunibyo is a coping mechanism.  Rikka has been disturbed at her father's death three years prior.  The whole family was prepared for father’s dying, but Rikka was ‘too young to understand.’  She now feels betrayed by her family and now is on a quest, searching for the 'invisible boundaries.' If she finds them, all this is Rikka's attempt to encounter her father and have some better closure.  But the new wrinkle comes with the second delusion ... love.  Rikka seems to come out of her chunibyo when she senses some affection for Yuuta.  Yuuta saved Rikka’s life, and, in calming her down, embraced her.  He liked the feelings.  But it is hard to get anyone to confess to liking or loving, neither Rikka nor Yuuta, who come close, but never cross that emotional line.  HIDIVE offered the 'Slapstick Noel' OVA as extra episode 13 (no review planned), and it confirms this non-committal attitude of the pair who do hold hands … but nothing much beyond this.  In fact, it is there we learn that Rikka's chunibyo was inspired by Yuuta, when Rikka saw the Dark Flame Master in action as she visited her sister who happened to live in the apartment above.

I do have some criticism for Love, Chunibyo and Other Delusions.  The fantasy worlds verge ever on the demonic … and yet one of Rikka's accessories is a cross worn at her waist.  A superstitious trifling over a matter of faith … which some people take seriously.  But, in dealing with Rikka’s delusional behavior, Rikka's family runs the gamut from absolute hostility from grandfather and playful discipline from her sister, whose favorite weapon is  a well-played ladle to the noggin.  The tension between delusion and reality can become extremely tense, if not overplayed.  The highpoint of the drama comes when Yuuta insists that Sanae's chunibyo is pure delusion, a fact that Sanae knows too well, admitting this in tears before running off.

The worst aspect of the series comes with the close of episode 12 where the narrator shows up and closes by stating that we all labor under our own delusions and some of the best happiness comes from them.  I always felt that Love, Chunibyo and Other Delusions was a compelling argument against deconstructivism, where we all develop our own truth-systems.  But if one states that this all in the end is delusion ... isn't it the case that the assertion itself is delusional as well.  Thus, the narrator's point is a self-contradictory statement.  Some element of reality ... truth ... must exist, and it is to one's benefit to find it.  Especially if it exists outside ourselves.  this calls for harder lessons than what was served up in L,C & OD.

Philosophy lesson over ... back to the fun.

You have to love the animation, in particular the spectacular chuni-battles between Rikka and  her sister or Sanae.  As surrealistic backgrounds bubble about the combatants, vivid streaks of light and darkness swirl about as mammoth hammers and weapons are employed.  The music, especially ‘Inside Identity,’ sets a fine tone for exploring the emotions of girls at this formative age (the shattering of the apple with a bullet … a fine touch of expressive animation technique).  As Rikka and Sanae (and to some extent, Yuuta as well) struggle with their imaginative views of life and how it edges out the essential hurtful truths of realism, you can understand how Rikka can still embrace her chuni even after she makes peace with her father's death.  Does she make peace with her feelings for Yuuta?  Hey, there’s a reason for season two.

Even if you have a low opinion of chunibyo (or still can't understand it), you will appreciate the thoughtful examination of why some get caught up with the spirit of personal delusions of grandeur.

Nice show with good plot but can be slightly confusing and/or depressing. some episodes require tissue if your a emotional person. good comendy tho :)