My Little Monster

WellChild May 15, 2015

0.1

I tried to watch this, really. I'm honestly surprised I got as far in as I did. But oh god the lack of a plot, or any redeeming quality for that matter. Absolutely nothing made any sense to me and I could not even pretend to believe that this story was realistic in ANY WAY. This is the last time I listen to anonymous reccomendations, let me tell you. Like, I'm actually pretty mad about this. I'll explain my reasoning: Story: The story is impressively bad. The first episode has a very sudden love confession between the two main characters, which is a pet peeve of mine already. But the one in Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun has absolutely no context. Broken down, it would look something like this: Bring school handouts to delinquent classmate who doesn't come to school Receive a rape threat (!!?) from said delinquent and go yell at his "friends" for using him. ???? Romance! And then they switch places. A lot, judging by the other reviews written for this anime. I didn't stick around to find out, but apparently nothing gets resolved romantically (even for the side characters, which is pretty sad). Oh, and the forced drama. Some.....thing happens with delinquent's family and he hates his brother and dad and he lives with his cousin to go to school but his dad wants him to quit school and come home and his brother comes to retreive him but his brother wants him to go to school and this apparently makes him evil and adukhdyftukseutierlatorwgjnjkfdhgdf. This is the part where I gave up. They tried to create tension and instead made everyone look really, really stupid. But yeah, story sucks. NEXT! Animation: The animation is pretty decent, all things considered. It's probably my favorite aspect of the anime overall. The drawings are quite consistent. I think I only noticed a handful of derpy faces during the 5 episodes I saw. The actual drawing style itself is quite nice, not moe at all, a delight for those purists out there I'm sure (wink wink nudge nudge). Honestly, everything seems pretty standard to me, but then again I was kind of distracted by the glaring faults that are THE STORY AND THE CHARACTERS, A.K.A. THE MEAT ON THE BONES, SHALL WE SAY. Sound: Pretty much the same story with the sound as with the animation, pretty average. I'm notoriously bad for not really paying attention to the sound quality/soundtrack of anything ever. Like, it has to be good, Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt good, before I'd notice a thing. However, I did note that the voices did not seem to fit the stereotype of the characters they were protraying. Whch is good? I think? I mean to say that they did more for the characters than the writing did, they made them feel 1.5 dimensional rather than just 1 dimensional. No whiny "Oniiiiii-chan!"s to be heard! Characters: Wow, after writing all this I almost feel bad about being so negative. Almost. The characters of Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun basically took the weird storyline and made it difficult to explain to sane people (and on top of that you have to explain why you're watching it, too!). I don't even know where to start about the characters. Time for more handy bullet formatting! The protagonist: a cold highschooler who has no emotions and is therefore automatically a horrible choice to cast as a main character, you would think, right? As expected, she is impossible to understand and relate to. The only thing more impossible than her personality is the concept that someone fell head over heels for her in one episode. How. The delinquent: some guy pretending to have a troubled past and for some reason impulsively picks fights with everything ever. He friggin' hits girls, you guys. That alone makes him, yet again, a questionable choice for the romantic male lead. They tried to pass off his childishness as endearing, but it just came across as bratty and dumb. The "normal" girl: I didn't really hate her, but that didn't save her from being super boring. Apparently she can't make friends because every guy is in love with her and girls are jealous. Or something like that. Some other guy: yeah this guy has no purpose other than to fill up the weird hairstyle quota. And probably for side plot romance. The rooster: yep, a rooster. I think his name's Nagoya, and that's the only name you get to know because he's the only character that matters. He's a cute rooster that lives on the school grounds in a coop built by the humans. 10/10 best character. and also there's a student-council-glasses-girl-shy-type too, but that's not surprising at this point. Overall: I don't really have anything left to say at this point. Obviously, I severly dislike this anime, but I hope my super opinionated "review" doesn't sway you from watching this if you really want to. With that being said, feel free to commiserate with me in the comment section if this review moved you to tears, that finally, someone understands the emotional pain that is Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun. Now, I stayed up waaaay later than I intended to just to vomit angry words onto the internet, so I'm going to lay my sad soul to rest now. (I've never written one of these, can't you tell?)

Demelza Jan 2, 2013

4.5

My Little Monster, yet another romantic comedy in a season stuffed full of anime trying to fit into that genre, the sad thing in My Little Monster's case is that it isn't strong enough by any means to hold its own against the other, arguably better, shows it was put against. Even if it hadn't fallen into a season like this, it's still quite weak for its genre. We have our lead female character, Shizuku, and our male, Haru. Shizuku mets Haru after being asked to get him to come to school (he's the type of guy who gets into fights and generally isn't liked all that much, and thus has decided to stay at home). Shizuku succeeds in what she sets out to do, however after spending so much time around her, Haru quickly falls for our young student and all madness breaks out. But this is really where the show begins to struggle, the first couple of episodes work up to the big moment where Haru tells Shizuke that he loves her, to which she turns him down for the moment, and then things go very slowly. It's clear the two characters have some feelings for one another, but not a lot of progress is made in their relationship, which isn't really helped by the fact the two just don't seem suited to one another, and Shizuke would much rather study than get too involved with Haru. The show seems to hope that the comedy it offers will make up for the lack of real romantics, but it tends to get old after the first few episodes and can't continue to hold your interest as much as it may have done at the start. So what does the show offer to keep viewers? Well, it has to be said that Shizuke actually is quite an interesting character. Watching how she works through problems, such as why she gets so hot and bothered around Haru, or what it's like to have friends, is always amusing and she feels very real in what she thinks and feels. Of course, the fact she'd rather look after herself and study hard can only be looked on as a good thing too. That said, one interesting character doesn't really make a show and nothing else will grab you off the bat and the rest of the side characters, while interesting in their own right, aren't enough to grab your interest. A rival for Shizuke's love is introduced halfway through the series, and while seeing Haru's reaction is highly amusing, the move backfires on itself because again Shizuke is just not interested in a relationship with either of them even if she does have feelings for Haru, to have her really act on them seems to be asking a little too much of the show. But then, summed up that is the show; a slow moving love story which never quite gets there in the end. The characters, setting and story are an interesting idea, but it just can't hold its own against the better shows out there, especially once its comedy loses its charm. The ending is suitably cute and touching for what the series set out to do, but again it isn't quite enough to make it feel like the story was worth bothering with. When it comes to animation the show actually is quite nice. More attention has been put into character designs than it has any scenery, but that isn't too much of a bad thing as it tends to suit the overall feel quite well. The animation doesn't feel as lifelike as other shows of the genre, but that too works in its favour offering fans of the genre a nice change if they want it. Where music comes into things the show has a very nice opening and ending theme which suits the overall fun feel of the show quite well. Anything used within the episodes tends to feel overused (even if it isn't the same piece of music, they'll often feel alike), and certain tunes feel just a little bit too soft for a show which is trying so hard to be a somewhat crazy comedy, but it doesn't ruin things by any means. Overall the show tries its best, the romantic side of things may feel quite lost, and the comedy gets quite old fast, but if you can overlook that and become fond of the many characters it isn't an awful show, just one which got a bit lost on its path and feels like it would have suited just being a comedy perfectly well, at least then enough focus could have been on that side of things where it could have worked really well for all 13 episodes.

YuiYui Aug 10, 2014

8.5

Warning this review may contain spoilers: So this is my review for 'Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun' or in english 'My little Monster'. This story is quite close to you typical high school story but at the same time it's not, weird right. The story is basically a developing love between the main two characters Haru, who has a past full of twists and turns and fights, and Shizuku, a study nerd who can't leave studying. Along the way a bunch of other characters who come in to surround these two and each had their own part to their love story. The story is actually quite well developed and there is room for a second series. I think they brought each character into the story at the perfect times which in the end helped to create a very good anime which might now be in my top 10. The animation was just spot on, I didn't see any problems and like the manga had a very detailed art. I liked how they stuck just about to how the manga was; the story is quite similar in this way.  The music, I loved the opening had a fast tempo and fun to listen to. The ending I listened to a couple of times just to get to the previews or I would of forgotten about watching them (which made me laugh every time). The voice acting was spot on I think that each voice was quite different and fit each character pretty well. To me the characters were varied and there wasn't really one character that you would hate, each character seems to grow on you even the ones that are meant to be the bad guys. This is a great feature in my opinion. So in conclusion this is not your typical high school anime, the story as amazing and I personally really enjoyed it. And if maybe it was 25 episodes or in the near future we get a second series that Mark might go up. So that ends this review here, thank you for reading! ~AngelBeatsYui~