12-Days of Anime, Day 8: Ore Monogatari
You know, I’m not sure that watching 2 romantic-comedy-anime in a row is good for your heart.
W/e, I brought this upon myself.
Alrighty, let’s see, what do we have here….
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……………………………..ok.
What’s up, everyone, my name is Ken, fromthebuttonsmashers.com, and today, I present to you Day 8 of the 12-Days of Anime, featuring my immediate two-cents on another rather different shoujo show that features the same romantic-comedy tropes nonetheless: OreMonogatari (My Love Story).
The story follows a man named Takeo Gouda, a hulking massive beefcake of a man whose looks have outputted many a love interest, much to his dismay. One day, he saved a girl on the train, Rinko Yamato, from being molested, and as such, they developed feelings for each other. The catch? Neither one acknowledges their feelings, with Rinko being too bashful to admit her love, and Gouda thinking that Rinko has feelings for his best friend, Suna Makoto.
This year must be the year of shoujos that have stories that stray away from the norm.
Yesterday, we had the manga-centric “parody” of shoujo-manga tropes that was Monthly-Girls’ Nozaki-kun.
Today, we have Ore Monogatari, a show that, in face-value, is rather different. And that shows with the characters themselves.
First off, our main protagonist isn’t really the stereotypical “ikemen”, but instead he has this build which makes him rather intimidating upon first impression. However, that’s not necessarily the case, as Gouda is actually quite the affable gentleman. This, in turn sets up a nice little dynamic with his best friend Suna, who is considered the ikemen in this situation, but oddly enough he hasn’t had much luck with love either, despite his good looks. And then, there’s Rinko, who has taken a liking to Gouda, but unfortunately the man of her dreams is too much of a blockhead to figure out that she likes him and not Suna.
SO where am I going with this? Well, for starters, the story is rather fun to watch. Besides the comedy (which is not bad), the various antics that the trio get to involving romance is quite the entertaining popcorn-material. Of course, the show is still quite slice-of-life-ish, but the uniqueness of the characters and the whole situation that they’re in really gives this show a bit of a kick, hence why I mentioned the characters first. Also, the romance aspect itself is quite amusing to watch, as it has this sort of realism to it, but also has this frustrating way of delaying any further developments because the characters just misunderstand EVERYTHING, but it makes for good comic fodder.
I can talk about the animation and the soundtrack, but as far as shoujo anime go, they’re rather standard and fir their job descriptions well. The animation nicely reflects the light-hearted nature of the show, using plenty of colours but keeping them to a light degree, making it very easy on the eyes. The soundtrack is nice and bubbly itself, really enhancing whatever scene it is used on.
