Well, it’s over. And to some extent I’m not sure what I just watched. Maybe that’s not surprising, since Horimiya isn’t exactly a typical manga. It’s a long series based on a short series, and one which radically changes direction after a fairly early climactic moment (pun intended). But now that the anime is over, I can’t shake the feeling that it was an adaptation that looked at all that and just sort of punted. There doesn’t seem to have been much effort put into making this show a cohesive whole. And the question I find myself asking now that it’s ended is, am I glad it exists at all?
I’m going to use the buffet analogy again, but sorry – it fits. When you go to a big buffet (they call them “Viking Buffets” in Japan, for strange reasons that tie back to the old Imperial Hotel in Tokyo) you have a couple of options. You can try to eat as many different things as possible, and only a little of each. Or you can focus on what’s really good, and fill up on that. The advantage of the first approach is of course that you don’t “miss out”. But you also fill a bunch of your precious stomach space with food that’s not the best the buffet has to offer. If you limit yourself a little and focus on what’s really good, there’s no wasted space in your gut.
It’s pretty clear which approach Ishihama Masashi decided to take with this adaptation – for better or worse, and I would say mostly worse. Horimiya is indeed a series with a big spread of options, but Ishihama loaded up on too much dry chicken and stale bread and left the carving station and waffle iron sadly underutilized. What’s more, it’s like he went to the dessert station midway through and then went back for appetizers, then entrees, then back to dessert. If there was science behind this plan of attack, I have a hard time seeing it now that the check has been paid and the Alka-seltzers popped.
As for the finale itself, it wasn’t quite what I expected (which I guess is sort of fitting). I mean, there is a graduation in the manga but it’s the culmination of a lot of development. And it frankly feels like overkill after the events of last week, at least at 15 minutes plus. And there’s one particular two-chapter passage at the end that, after Episode 12, I was reasonably certain Ishihama-sensei was going to adapt this week. Wrong as usual, though – it, like everything else after graduation, may as well never have happened.
This is somewhat symptomatic of the larger issues with the adaptation, to be honest. Just like one could almost believe that Kyouko and Izumi never had sex based on the way it was ignored in the follow-up events (apart from one badly adapted passage with Souta), it feels like Izumi’s confession last week never happened. The manga isn’t totally immune from this, but it’s not nearly as big an issue as with the anime. It seems like a very odd approach to adapting the material – but then, the choices involved in this series have me scratching my head more than not.
I would apply that to the characters as well. In effectively treating Horimiya as a school comedy (dry chicken) the anime has marginalized Kyouko’s family and especially Souta to the point where they disappear from the story for weeks at a time (and yes, Miya’s family does have some small presence in the manga too). Even the first part of this finale was a meandering ten minutes devoted to the side cast, and frankly it was a slog to get through. If you view Horimiya as a school comedy I suppose it makes sense to end on graduation, but I would argue that this is a pretty major misread of what Horimiya is as a series. Or an attempt to recast it based on what’s perceived to be commercially marketable (which is almost worse).
The best part of the finale was that it did at least end on Izumi’s perspective, and that’s as it should be if you’re going to focus on what the anime did. His character arc was the spine of the story much more than Hori’s, but the issue is that his emotional journey was too intermittently highlighted for the ending to have its theoretically possible impact. It was good, but it should have been more. And that, really, is about how I would describe this adaptation generally.
One interesting element is that the Hori-san to Miyamura-kun OVAs – different studio, director, and cast – are going to have two new episodes, the first in two years, releasing next month. The OVA was always a pretty unsatisfying take on the manga largely because it was so brief (only four episodes) but maybe it starts to look a little better in comparison now. I suspect the two new OVA eps are going to highlight some of the material the anime short-shrifted, so in a funny sense the TV series has helped to carve out a place for the OVAs in the Horimiya landscape.
I hate to end on a down note, because it’s not as if Horimiya wasn’t a very good show. It’s hard to ignore the unfulfilled potential when you know it’s there, but the TV series did some very good things. Ishihama is unquestionably a brilliant director and he delivered some signature moments, and the central relationship here is one of the more interesting anime romances we’ve seen in a long time. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t hope for more – a lot more – but what we got was still a good series intercut with moments of brilliance. I hoped for better, but anime certainly delivers a lot worse.
John
April 4, 2021 at 1:39 pmAw, I’m certainly glad it exists. I wish they’d been able to get a second cour or had just made stronger adaptation choices in the second half, but the brilliance definitely outweighed the befuddling for me. Though we’ll see how much that changes when the manga’s finally back in stock…
Do you happen to know which chapters you were expecting to see this week? I’d be curious to check them out. Also, my understanding is that graduation *is* where the manga ends, at least the manga that just ended 2 weeks ago. I’m guessing it’s the original web version that keeps going?
The complete lack of a follow-up to the proposal was strange and the beginning side cast segment was frustrating, but I was happily satisfied with the rest of the episode. I found the “What if?” sequence in particular pretty exceptional, but Miyamura’s rooftop reflections and ending monologue also hit for me. I’m sure that stronger setup would have helped them hit even harder, but I definitely prefer this episode as a finale to last week’s.
Thanks for sticking with this one even when it let you down, Enzo! Always looked forward to reading these reviews each week. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of competition this gets this year for best romance anime.
Guardian Enzo
April 4, 2021 at 2:03 pmWell – 120-121, but please don’t talk about the content in detail here, as I would consider those spoilers given where the anime stopped.
John
April 4, 2021 at 2:10 pmGot it, thanks!
Haraga
April 4, 2021 at 5:34 pmCan we be sure it was the decision of the director to adapt it like this and not the committee or the publisher enforcing it?
Guardian Enzo
April 4, 2021 at 5:56 pmBased on Ishihama’s AMA, it definitely seems like it. I mean, he had to act within the confines of 13 eps but what he chose to populate them with sounds like it was his call.
Proto
April 5, 2021 at 8:57 amI am glad the anime existed if for no other reason that it made me aware that there was an excellent manga behind it.
Guardian Enzo
April 5, 2021 at 9:13 amIndeed, in hindsight it’s basically another “read the manga” infomercial. And like I said, it ironically sort of carves out a place for the OVA’s.
Dein
April 20, 2021 at 8:30 pmI picked this up randomly after a having a pretty long break from anime. As is tradition for me, if I’m watching a show that already wrapped up, I always go back to read your thoughts after each episode. Thanks for covering it, Enzo!
I’ll be honest, after starting it off incredibly strong, the show ended in such poor fashion, it became instantly forgettable in my mind. Even as an anime-only viewer, the 7th episode was shocking left turn off a cliff and it feels like it never quite recovered.
The 12th episode montage that focused on the side characters and “what could’ve been” lacked any emotional weight for me. The characters themselves, and their friendships weren’t explored in any meaningful way, so it was hard to feel moved seeing a world where they haven’t befriended each other. That in itself wouldn’t be the biggest issue, but the main couple got such a raw deal as well. They were left on the back burner for much of the screen time, especially in the second half. As a viewer, I didn’t really see any development or intimacy between these two after a certain point. Aside from the half-baked Hori BDSM kink, the nature of which the anime never really tries to take any stance on. It’s almost like the show itself was uncomfortable with the subject, so every scene had to end with a comedy gag to diffuse the situation. It’s just a prank, bro. After so many episodes of that or their total absence, it’s very hard to take the ending monologue seriously. The show just didn’t put the miles in.
Izumi himself was the biggest problem, though. The whole premise was these two build an intimate relationship based on their real personalities, which almost nobody else is privy to. And while Hori gets at least a little bit of attention in terms of her personality quirks, Izumi literally, physically, gets turned into a generic, sweater-wearing “Anime Protagonist A” and we never look back. Izumi, I think, had the most signs dropped about the depth of his backstory, but we barely get a glimpse. So when the show abandons his personality quirks and gives him a makeover, it feels doubly frustrating. Not only because it’s like the original character just never existed, but the entire foundation of his relationship with Hori got lost in the process.
Sigh. All in all, while it was good – it was *very* good. But being very good means it’s that much harder to swallow when things go bad. I’m not much of a manga reader, but I might just check it out, at least to get some closure. Or at least to find out who the phnatom little girl was in the end there.
Guardian Enzo
April 20, 2021 at 8:41 pmBelieve me, it would be well worth your time. It’s a much fuller version of the story from the main couple on down.
Oh translate
September 23, 2023 at 4:04 pmI’m so sad to see Horimiya end. It was one of my favorite anime series of all time. I’m glad that the series was able to conclude in a satisfying way.