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AustinDR

  • Joined Aug 10, 2017
  • 26

Shikimori's Not Just A Cutie is a pretty episodic series. It is a romantic comedy featuring the main couple Izumi and Shikimori. The gist of the series is: Izumi, being accident-prone, gets in trouble but his girlfriend saves him and looks cool from it.

So, nothing really happens, but that is to be expected. Since the manga is centered on Shikimori, of course, many of the episodes consist of her saving Izumi from getting hurt. It is a typical slice-of-life but isn't anything too offensive. Like I am amused that Shikimori is determined to keep Izumi safe at all costs, and that is admirable.

Izumi. I don't hate him per se, but he suffers from being the generic male MC in an anime series. He is accident-prone, so much so, I am always amazed that he never died even before he began dating Shikimori. However, his other flaw is unassertiveness, with him striving to be just as assertive as Shikimori is.

He does have his own good points such as being an eternal optimist despite him being a cosmic plaything, and he does save a girl who was floating down the river away from the other lake goers. But for the most part, he is bland.

Shikimori is arguably the more interesting character due to her being the focus. She is athletic and competitive. She loves Izumi despite all his faults...but that by itself can be somewhat troubling. One of the tropes I greatly dislike is when the girlfriend suspects their significant other is unfaithful or paranoid that other girls might try to take him.

When it happened the first time, it was funny. A second time? Slightly less funny, but not annoying. A third or fourth time? It becomes an insufferable running gag.

I swear any time she became jealous of some other girl I would imagine her transforming into Yuno Gasai 2.0 and going on a rampage. For instance, she accuses Izumi's best friend of trying to date Izumi even though that is clearly not the case.

Or another time during the beginning of their summer vacation and they decide to go to the lake, she becomes jealous of a poster depicting a woman in a bikini. Just because Izumi was staring at it.

Or how about when Izumi saved that little girl I alluded to and was rewarded with a peck on the cheek. She whines about it. My god, it was just a kiss on the cheek that did not mean that the younger girl liked Izumi the same way you do chill out. It's just a child.

It's kind of unsettling just how clingy she can be with Izumi when it is unwarranted. This is slightly mitigated by her revealing that she was much like Izumi and was unassertive when she wanted to date him.

As for the other characters, they are not given as much focus like the main couple. They are flat and sometimes forgettable. Kind of like how I fondly call Shu Discount Bakugo.

The animation fits the type of series this is, and the soundtrack is good if a smidge forgettable.

 

 

5/10 story
8/10 animation
7/10 sound
5/10 characters
7/10 overall

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Time2Binge May 22, 2022

I fully agree with your opinions on izumi. By the 3rd episodes I just started to predict his misfourtunes. It lost its funny-factor really fast... 

Nice review.