If what you’re chasing in the anime experience is to have your expectations defied in a good way, Makeine is pretty hard to beat. It may be time to admit this series is a unicorn. But I have a lot of scar tissue with LN adaptations. Whenever I let myself really like one, it hurts me bad. Hurts my feelings, like George Costanza’s dad. Except for those unicorns. And that’s exactly what they are. Unless we’re talking about old-school light novels from like 20 years ago – when the medium was totally different – the number of LN adaptations that have closed the deal with me is exceptionally tiny. Like one hand tiny.
Yet here we are. It’s a conundrum to be sure. I can’t deny what my senses tell me, which is that I kind of almost love this show. I’m giving it a category and adding it to the menus, which is the LiA equivalent of confessing. But I can’t say I’m not still worried. What assuages that a bit is that if nothing else, Makeine is likely always going to provide a visual feast. You can’t sell short how being this beautiful impacts your experience of a series – it’s huge. Imigi Muru’s characters are stupendous, but it’s everything – the backgrounds, the scene composition. Visually speaking Kitamura Shoutarou and his team aren’t putting a foot wrong here.
I don’t want to sell the show short, though. That wouldn’t be enough in and of itself, and the fact is, the writing so far is excellent. And that’s certainly the most expectations-defying thing of all. This is adolescent romcom with a sharp wit and a healthy dose of sensitivity. It’s also restrained where it needs to be (like with tropes) while still embracing absurdity with abandon. It’s not photo-realistic by any stretch, either in terms of plot or dialogue. But that’s fine, the screwball comedies of the 30’s weren’t either. They were going for a style, an experience, and trying to use humor to illuminate affairs of the heart along the way. And I think that’s what Make Heroine ga Oosugiru! is trying to do (and damn well so far).
Komari confessing to Shintarou at the end of Episode 3 showed that the series wasn’t going to be a Groundhog Day kind of thing gnawing on girls being frozen out. She tried, as hopeless as it was. Sadly for Komari all she accomplished, really, was pushing Shintarou into Koto’s arms. Shintarou may be a senpai but he’s clueless – so much that he goes to Nukumizu-kun for advice. He says he confessed to Koto over Christmas and got turned down, which makes her slap rather puzzling. But as it turns out it was an epically bad confession. While I don’t condone violence in romcoms, I can see why Koto was pissed off.
Because all these girls are doofs, Remon decides to cheer Komari up by catching her a stag beetle. And she decides to cheer herself up by noodging at Nukumizu. The narrative is not going to ignore the elephant in the room, which is obviously Nukumizu and Anna’s relationship, and I consider that a positive development. They don’t have to get together, but we shouldn’t just pretend this isn’t complicated. Anna in fact is rather enjoying being Kazuhiko’s gal pal, but he’s growing uncomfortable at the rumors about them. Mainly, it seems, as he believes the nattering nabobs when they say she’s out of his league (really?). Thinking he’s doing her a favor, Nuk-kun credits Yanami-san’s account ¥2867 for a cucumber sandwich and breaks up with her.
Except, of course, they aren’t going out. But that doesn’t mean he’s not thinking about it – he just doesn’t know how to think about it. Instinctively he realizes he shat the bed here, and tries to apologize, but she’s having none of it. Then Sousuke turns up to chat, and both Nukumizu and Chika assume he’s about to get rolled for cash. Instead, Sousuke wants to tell him how happy he is that Yanami is seeing someone. Because, you know, now he doesn’t have to feel guilty. Nuk-kun tries to do her a solid by clueing him in on her feelings (he knows anyway), but then Yanami shows up, having been alerted by Chika that Kauzhiko was being bullied, and the shit really hits the fan.
This climactic scene (feels like the climax of the prologue) worked for me. Sousuke is being a total asshat here, and I give props to Nuk-kun for trying to stand up for Anna. He was clumsy about it, but he did his best. Anna standing up for herself (finally, but still) was good to see as well. As for what happens between the two mains, it says a lot about Kazuhiko that “friendfessing” was that monumental for him. Because he’s such a loner, it’s hard to know for sure if asking someone to be a friend was just that traumatic, or he meant something else and couldn’t say it.
That “two or three years” comment was the best, too – such a loveable loser, this kid. Even if the two of them just stay friends, I’m cool with that – friendships last longer than romances at that age anyway. Nukumizu and Yanami are good together, whatever they are. There’s a level of perceptiveness about teen relationships here that I can only call surprising, given the source material. Most romance manga couldn’t match it on their best day. I’ve seen too much not to remain cautious – four episodes is four episodes. But with four episodes this good, it would be an injustice not to celebrate them.
Guy Thompson
August 4, 2024 at 5:31 pmIt’s surely pretty well adapted, but mood in some key scenes feels less intense then in manga version or LN (maybe a deliberate choice to not over-complicate already complex production).
If they keep up the pace of 4 episodes per volume there will be quite a few nice moments ahead in this season. And even enough material for S2, which promise to be more dramatic at times (in a good sense) then S1…
Brian Guy
August 5, 2024 at 3:58 amAt the anime’s current pace, the LNs are already into generating a third season’s worth of material (V7 dropped recently). The studio clearly loves this project (picking it up for adaptation on the basis of the pitch alone), so I wouldn’t be surprised to see at least that much go to air.
Haraga
August 4, 2024 at 6:52 pmI wasn’t as sold on the show as you before this episode, now I am. It helped that it had less LN wackiness and more genuine and thoughtful perspectives, maybe something I couldn’t see beyond the tropes and you did. I especially appreciate that it is an LN romcom that at the same time doesn’t undersell and oversell the importance of romance. For someone like Nukumizu having a girl friend at this point is much more valuable than a girlfriend, and it contrasts nicely to the points at the beginning of the show that teen romance is fragile and your point that school friendships are more likely to last for years.
nadavu
August 4, 2024 at 10:51 pmI’m still worried over the shed-scene and the ecchi teacher and nurse, but all that put aside, this episode was awesome.
I’m starting to really like Anna. She came off as a 2d klutz in the first episode, but she’s got depths and she’s essentially a good person. I think this true about all the characters, and is perhaps the secret of their allure – they’re all screwups in their own, idiosyncratic ways, but they essentially decent and well-meaning. Sousuke, too – sure he wants to be ridden of the Anna-guilt, but there was nothing mean about him. It makes Anna’s feelings toward him based on reality, and I appreciate it.
Even the prez of the lit. club, although we found out later what a screwup he is, acted in commendedly when he told Koto “That’s betweem Komari and me” when she asked him why he didn’t reject her outright. In the end, everyone has their dignity intact. That’s respectful writing – both to the characters and to the viewers.
Just no more shed scenes, please.
Guardian Enzo
August 4, 2024 at 11:11 pmThey’re all doing dumb stuff inexperienced kids do. Not malicious, just dumb. That’s why the character side is working for me.
I really didn’t mind the shed scene TBH. Those were some of the best tan lines in anime.
sonicsenryaku
August 5, 2024 at 5:57 am@Nadavu
I thought the shed scene was fine; it wasn’t like it was a some utterly tasteless demonstration of sexualization or anything like that. Teenagers are in an awkward stage in their life and a bit of absurd sexual awkwardness is par the course. There was just enough absurdity during the scene and just enough levity with the aftermath of it for me to take the proceedings as a jovial way to illustrate how an awkward bonding moment between two characters led to the formation of a genuine friendship going forward. Not saying that you’re not allowed to feel some way about it, just offering a different perspective as to why i thought it worked
Nadavu
August 5, 2024 at 11:41 pmI dunno, Kazuhiro spraying cooling spray on a bare-chested Lemon as she’s screaming in pleasure went far and above what I would call tasteful absurd sexual awkwardness. It felt like a scene out of Kissxsis or something. I do get that it’s part of being a teenager (heck, I’m pretty sure I was one, once), but I would have preferred it done better, like without Lemon undressing in a heatstroke haze and without the spray. I mean, it can be done. I have feint memories of Nazo no Kanojo X pulling it off admirably. And in all other respects, the show has so far done a marvelous job of not going for the trashy side of LN-dom. Point in case: You can say that girls slapping boys is a tired and overplayed trope, but when Koto slapped the prez, it wasn’t played for laughs or done in a way to make me groan. It was true to the characters and to the situation, and regardless of how I feel about people getting slapped, it was a good cinematic moment. Personally, I hope the shed scene was mostly a way to pay lip service to the obligated fan service, and was done as early as possible as to get it out of the way. Not that it’s a deal breaker for me, but I do expect a show that’s otherwise this good to do a better job with the awkward hormonal stuff.
Anyways, just my personal take. I appreciate the added perspective.
Joshua
August 4, 2024 at 11:25 pmTurns out that having just a tiny bit of self-reflexive humor (not too much) goes a long way because when used right, it can reveal more about the characters who do use it to hide who they really are when they finally do crack, compared to a work that uses an excessive amount of meta self-aware “comedy” to try to defend *itself* from criticism and insisting that they aren’t self-serious (meaning the joke is on the viewer for being so serious), but comes off as self-satisfied and glib in the process when the emotional waterworks come in.
Makeine was a good demonstration of the former basically. A lot more sincere than many other LN and LN-adjacent works that I’ve seen in recent memory that only seek to self-deprecate without actually taking these characters seriously (a fine line between “serious” tone and serious approach to its characters while still having jokes).
sonicsenryaku
August 5, 2024 at 7:18 am“It’s not photo-realistic by any stretch, either in terms of plot or dialogue. But that’s fine, the screwball comedies of the 30’s weren’t either. They were going for a style, an experience, and trying to use humor to illuminate affairs of the heart along the way.”
This right here. I think you’ve absolutely nailed why this show rocks and why it’s not cut from the same cloth as other LN’s despite its association with the medium and its use of meta commentary here and there. Speaking of which, I appreciate that the meta commentary is done sparingly and isn’t so in-your-face about it most of the time.
Like, Kazu may be genre-savvy, but he’s not always narrating or pointing out every single trope in an attempt to demonstrate to the audience just how self-aware/knowledgeable he/the story itself is about its subject matter. The writing also does the smart thing of letting Kazu’s genre savviness lead him to incorrect conclusions in a way that feels conducive to fleshing him out with flaws. Kazu thinks he knows how things will go sometimes, just for him to be proven wrong, making it very clear that he can sometimes be too quick to jump to conclusions. It’s not because he assumes he knows everything due to the many stories he’s read; but because in the real-world, you’ll sometimes get shit wrong, especially if your self-esteem gets in the way, if you don’t have enough real-world experience, or if you’re not always confident with interpreting the cues people give off to you. The meta is used simply to establish that Kazu has a penchant for recognizing tropes, and Makeine elevates that past being a lazy excuse to be self-referential or “on-brand” by contrasting and muting those tropes/meta commentary through cinematically demonstrating the reality of being a teenager within a web of relationship drama, succeeding at this by almost never feeling the need to point out its aim. Reality is much different from the tropey stories and teenagers are more down-to-earth (even with some of the more absurd characters) than how LN’s portray them. For all the LN’s that brag about how they understand the difference between the tropes and reality, Makeine actually puts its money where its mouth is
I think this fundamentally plays into why the series feels as organic as it does in its dialogue a good portion of the time; and why the characters behave in a way that’s grounded in the truth of adolescent interactions. As you put it, Enzo: “There’s a level of perceptiveness about teen relationships here that I can only call surprising, given the source material. Most romance manga couldn’t match it on their best day.”
Beyond that, Kazu is a pretty down -to-earth kid whose perceptive of how people interact and is low-key super considerate of the feelings of others. He seems like a loser, but you can depend on him to have your best interest in mind, coming to ask you if you’re okay when no one else will
Speaking of perceptive, Anna is really keen when it comes to Kazu’s character, as you can pick up on this by seeing just how much she pays attention to the way he moves with people (an example of this when they’re in the literature club following the resolution of Koto, Chika, and Shuntarou’s on-going dynamic). Anna is also the one who clued Lemon in on the fact that Kazu is really reserved when it comes to interacting with others and can’t always pick up on certain bonding cues despite being so considerate of people, hence why he fumbles the little bonding exercise Lemon was trying to have with him in episode 3 (which she then affirms what Anna told her) and why he sometimes gets flustered with something as small as giving Anna a friendly fistbump. If a romance does start brewing, Anna is probably gonna be endgame: even with the chill vibes Lemon shares with Kazu or the kindred spirits familiarity Chika has with him; as of right now, Anna is the one that can make him feel vulnerable in a way the other ladies can’t, at least at the moment
Guardian Enzo
August 5, 2024 at 7:59 amI don’t see harem here. If a romance for Kazuhiko does become plot-forward, I think it’s Anna or bust. Remon has huge gal pal vibes. I will say, though. I kind of feel like Chika is going to develop a crush on him at some point.
Rob Barrett
August 5, 2024 at 1:20 pmI am looking forward to more Makeine, but I also feel like we got a lovely four-part story here. If this was it, I would be satisfied. So we’re heading for bonus territory now.