Rikei ga Koi ni Ochita no de Shoumei shitemita – 01

This one was pretty far off my radar heading into the season, but I rather enjoyed the premiere.  It was utterly preposterous of course, but I don’t think the intent was ever to pretend otherwise so that doesn’t necessarily pose a problem.

The premise of Rikei ga Koi ni Ochita no de Shoumei shitemita is pretty straightforward – two grad students working in the same science lab fall in love with each other, and their extreme awkwardness with that notion prompts them to try and explain the whole matter scientifically.  Himura and Yukimura are the two in question and seem to be the central focus of the story, but with multiple lab members (only one and change of whom were introduced in the premiere) we may see the theme extend beyond them.  For now, the besotted pair re-enact a series of romance cliches in order to try and quantify the experience and determine whether feelings of love are actually causing accelerated heart rates as their kouhai looks on with increasing irritation.

There are some funny bits here – like Yukimura-kun trying to offer up premature menopause as an alternative explanation – and there’s a somewhat surreal interlude where “science bear” Rikekuma gives an explanation of the null hypothesis.  Not every gag works by any means but for the most part the first episode is more charming than not.  There’s no indication that Rikei ga Koi intends to follow the course of Wotakoi and address its topic with relative seriousness, so the question would then become whether this gag has the legs to go the distance.  Or if not, if the series has enough others on tap to make up the difference.

Boku no Tonari ni Ankoku Hakaishin ga Imasu. – 01

What is it with anime’s obsession with chuunibyou lately?  More and more often these shows (this one is based on a manga) seem to be set in high school too, which rather puts the lie to the name of the disorder.  But at least the boys in Boku no Tonari ni Ankoku Hakaishin ga Imasu. actually are second-years, even if it’s not the chuuni it’s supposed to be.

Boku no Tonari would definitely fall under the category of a guilty pleasure if it ends up being any kind of a pleasure at all, because the ludicrousness is definitely turned up the 11 here.  But I didn’t hate it – in fact I sort of enjoyed its unreserved idiocy.  The only way it would ever not be ridiculous for Sakurai Takahiro (especially) and Fukuyama Jun to play high schoolers would be in the sort of series where slapstick is the order of the day and no attempt at realism is made whatsoever.  It’s dumb for them to play guys this age, but there’s a certain amusement in hearing the two of them camp it up.

In reality, the character who most amused me was neither of theirs’ but Tsukimiya-kun, the one played by Kimura Ryouhei, who I assumed was supposed to be a minor character.  I grow more and more impressed with Kimura every year – there are no throwaway roles with him, and he has an endearing quality that makes every character he plays likeable.  Tsukimiya and Sakurai’s Hanadori-kun (he’s the chuunibro) are basically tasked with making Fukuyama’s tsukkomi Seri-kun miserable, and they’re very good at it.

All in all Boku no Tonari ni Ankoku Hakaishin ga Imasu. is quite silly, but it certainly makes no pretensions otherwise.  If you laugh it works, if you don’t it doesn’t – and I laughed enough at the premiere to watch again next week.  From there, we’ll see.