My Love Story!! - Reviews

Having watched a bunch of rom-com over the past few years, I find Oremonogatari (My Love Story, MADHOUSE, 2015) one of the most intelligent studies of young love.  I caught this from hearing the opening theme 'Answers.'  The first two words are the identical Japanese verbs in differing conjugations.  I can't catch up ... I want to catch up.  This pretty much sums up the budding relationship between Takeo Goda and Rinko Yamato.

My Love Story takes vengeance on the premise of Lovely Complex, where the girl is a half-foot taller than the diminutive boy.  But this is done to extremes.  Rinko is petite and shy.  Takeo is mammoth in proportion, a towering 6'9" with the physique of a gorilla.  But the intimidating hulk is a soft-hearted sweet old lunk.  This is where we start. After saving Rinko from a groper, Takeo is just clumsy in relationship building.  He begins by believing that Rinko is falling for his handsome friend Makoto.  This lasts for about three episodes till Rinko convinces Takeo that she likes him.  The magic of slowly deepening love gets tempered with any variety of prospective love triangles and entanglements.  Makoto's older sister Ai has had this crush on Takeo, but the college freshman retreats quietly without Takeo ever learning of 'big sis's' true feelings.  Clumsy Takeo believes girls are repelled by his hulking form, but he has a natural gallantry that could attract a girl or two.  Makoto rejects girls mainly for their ridicule of Takeo, but he has a secret admirer who has dreaded a failed love confession ... ever since kindergarten.  How to resolve this when the girl quakes in fear of certain rejection?  Finally, Rinko gains her own admirer who forces her to choose, and Takeo to doubt if he is the best match for Rinko after all.  Petite girl and towering giant ... how unlikely is this?

The animation superbly supports the emotional turmoil in the cast and takes special treatment of Takeo, whose martial arts training made him renounce his own feelings for the happiness of others.  And so, we can meet him as a fiery, red-eyed monstrosity to a mushy marshmallow in love.  If I had a dollar for each time Takeo said, 'I love her,' … wealth unimaginable!  As for the musical support, I've mentioned 'Answers.'  I was not surprised that My Love Story did not change up the themes at mid-season ... the selections were marvelous!  It reflected well the uncertainty of people who've never experienced falling in love, and then through all the doubts and fears of unrequited love, the hope for the real thing.

This was the impact of polite Takeo moving slowly as he referred to his girlfriend as Yamato-san, Yamato, to that last act of courage for that overly large freshman in high school ... Rinko.  Love triumphs at last.  Watching how it all develops ... priceless.

For a video review, check out my Youtube channel. Link on my profile page.

WARNING: SLIGHT SPOILER!

When I saw this anime on Anichart for the first time, I was doubting if I was going to watch it because the cover looked very over the top girly and I didn’t know if it would be something for me. Luckily this anime surprised me by being a lot better than I anticipated.

Positive

*So in my intro I said that Ore surprised me. The biggest factor in that was the comedy, this was such an hilarious anime. Main source of comedy in this anime is Takeo. Takeo took the word dense and gave it a whole new meaning because Takeo is dense as fuck. He's like always 5 minutes late in noticing what is happening or takes things way to literally. His actions made me have a lot of laughs.

But there were also other characters who lifted this anime to a higher level like Takeo’s mother who was an amazing character. Takeo’s father was kind of weird to look at but to me the best character of the anime was Sunakawa. He was like the voice of reasoning in this anime. Because let’s be honest Takeo and Yamato aren’t the smartest of people but Sunakawa always kept his cool and constantly helped Takeo and Yamato in their relationship.

*Second positive point was the romance in the relationship between Takeo and Yamato. If you’re into pure Shojo anime’s than you’re going to love their relationship because it’s a very lovey-dovey sometimes a little bit over the top relationship. The end of their storyline was kind off predictable but we mustn’t forget that Ore is a pure Shojo anime so it was the end that I was expecting.

*Although Ore is a pure shojo anime, I liked how it didn’t follow certain clichés when it come to this kind of anime’s. Clearest example of this was the little Sunakawa-AMAMI arc towards the end of the anime. I and I think almost everyone that was watching this anime thought at that moment that Sunakawa would get together with Amami. 

I was convinced that that would happen because that’s just the way these anime’s usually go and I also liked the bond between them. So I was completely baffled when Sunakawa rejected Amami and how they never became a couple. Bravo to Ore for having the balls to do that. Bravo to the writhers for taking the risk of not giving us a relationship we were expecting. Even though I was a little bit sad about it I still have to give props to the anime for breaking this cliché.

Negative

*Now I’m immediately going to start with the thing that bothered me the most in this anime. Surprisingly that was the relationship between Takeo and Yamato. Now don’t get me wrong I liked the romance in their relationship but the problem was that nothing happens in their relationship. Takeo and Yamato become a couple in episode 3 or 4 I think and from there on nothing exiting happened in that relationship anymore, they just remain lovey-dovey till the end with a little bit more suspense in the final 2 episodes. 

I felt that it had the same problem as Hibike! Euphonium: it had a lot of chances to become interesting but it didn’t take them. There were multiple occasions where I thought that something was finally going to happen like: Yamato’s ‘secret’, the thing with Sunakawa’s sister, the arc resolving around Saijou… But every time that chance was shoved to the side. 

The arc that I just talked about in the spoiler part was way more interesting. There was actually something happening in that arc. So it’s a real shame that the main relationship of the anime didn’t had that.

*A second negative point that may also be a surprise was our main heroine Yamato. Again don’t get me wrong I didn’t hate Yamato, not at all. But one of the most important things in a romance anime is the main heroine. She has the grab the viewer immediately and almost make him fall in love with her. And that’s something I didn’t had with Yamato, she never grabbed me. I started to like her more the further we got into the anime but yeh I just never felt it with her.

*And a last negative point was that sometimes, not too often, the animation lacked a bit. In some episodes the animation of Yamato in particular could have been done better.

Conclusion

So as a conclusion, Ore Monogatari!! was one of the better romantic anime’s to air this year but it could have been a lot more interesting if it had taken the chances it had been offered. So I’m going to rate Ore Monogatari!! at 3,5 stars. If you’re a fan of pure romance shojo anime’s definitely give this one a watch.

Waow I have waited so many years and now I can finally watch it! It is just what I imagined it to be... Exept for one thing I actually thoght that Makoto and Rinko were siblings (twins to be exact) but that dosn´t matter the anime is still good!

(I am writing this after only wathcing the 1. episode)

Waow episode 4 was really good!!! Kakkoi!

(And am I the only one that want to see this anime in a BL version with Makoto X Takeo that would be so cute!) <333

Love this. Story line is creative and very realistic. The characters are very well expressed. The animation is adiquite very simple. Sound is pretty good the voices sound like they would fit the real characters. Takeo's facial expressions are histarical. The story line is really cute so are the jokes in this series. Definitly will recommend this. 

It is so cute! I don't care what anyone else wants to say. Personally I LOVE all the effects they used and it was overall really good and funny!

Only thing that bothers me is what happened to Yukika Amami and Sunakawa. it really bothers me how they didn't show us how it ended with them :(