I’m guessing that Tada-kun wa Koi wo Shinai is going to prove something of a litmus test for today’s anime audience.  By that I mean that in addition to the fact that it’s pretty much a throwback generally, it’s also the sort of series that tests your cynicism.  Today’s anime romance rarely follows this sort of template – this is a fantasy, straight and true, and a lot of irony-addicted viewers are probably going to reject that.  Last week the comparison I drew was to a 90’s Hollywood romantic comedy, and I didn’t see much here to change my mind.

If I were to make note of an anime this show reminds me of (I do that a lot this time of the season) it would be another original romcon, Ano Natsu de Matteru.  I don’t suspect Tada-kun is going to be quite as good overall, and I think it’s going to be considerably less dramatic (at this point, there are no signs of any shipping wars, for example).  But there is a vibe to both shows – the idyll of youth, a group of kids discovering their passions in life together, focus on visual medium, a lot of scenery porn.  I think one could argue Ano Natsu ended up being more about adolescent friendships than romance, and I won’t be shocked if Tada-kun goes in the same direction.

Somewhat unexpectedly (at least for me) this second episode went unabashedly into club comedy mode, introducing us to a spate of new characters.  It all stems from class rep Hasegawa Hinako (Ishigami Shizuka) telling Teresa and Alec that the school requires everyone to join a club (some do, some don’t – “Go Home Club” is apparently not an option here).  After a whirlwind tour they end up at the cramped quarters of the Photography Club, just in time to here its president Sugimoto Hajime (Umehara Yuuichirou) – better known as Pin-sempai – wax poetical on the historical merits of artistic depictions of female nudes.

The Shashin-bu is obviously going to be the fulcrum around which everything in Tada-kun revolves.  There’s never a doubt that Teresa is going to insist on joining, or that Alec will resist and eventually cave.  There’s also the fact that Hinako has joined the club – ostensibly to keep it from being disbanded, but obviously because she has a thing for Hajime-kun (osananajimi vibes here).  There’s also the fact that Hajime has a thing for gravure idol Hina (Hina – HINAko – hmm…).  The very observant Alec immediately makes the connection – but does she notice something else here, too?  Perhaps only that the two girls bear a striking resemblance…

The final member of the club is “Yamashita-dog” (Shimono Hiro, at his most Shimono Hiro) a first-year who acts like a dog for some reason and provides general comic relief.  He has another role in the story, too, as it’s later revealed that Tada’s younger sister Yui (Minase Iori) has a thing for him.  That leaves the pairing pretty much settled, it would seem – if you assume the Alec-Kaoru (we’re definitely seeing the full range of Miyano-san’s roles this season) odd couple becomes a thing eventually.  Again, not much drama there – but I don’t think that’s going to the point.

I would guess this episode – a very entertaining romp featuring the Photography Club’s photo contest ritual (quite a clever one, at that) is probably going to be pretty close to the general tone of Tada-kun Doesn’t Fall in Love.  It’ll get serious in the end, as most light-hearted romps do, but the accent will be on silliness and light-heartedness.  There are still some interesting mysteries to be untangled – hints that there’s a connection between Teresa’s (royal) family and Tada-kun’s (you can pretty much watch Alec’s face as a general foreshadowing monitor), which may allow the series to show off it’s darker side.  But my sense is that if you liked these first two episodes (I did) you’re probably good to go, and if not you’re probably out of luck – I don’t expect a whole lot to change.