Ore wo Suki Nano wa Omae Dake ka yo Review

Harem anime shows are a dime a dozen and are usually predictable and boring. It’s the same girls with trope-like personalities fawning over a male main character who is completely oblivious to everything happening around him. Some shows have tried to spice it up by adding some sort of hook or niche to the genre… such as mechs, for instance, but no matter how you dress it up, it still the same harem stuff we’ve grown accustomed to seeing. This was why I completely ignored OreSuki when it began airing because when I read through the synopsis of a show each season to see which ones I’ll pick up and watch, OreSuki just felt like another harem. Then, for whatever reason, I read the thoughts from others on the first episode and I raised an eyebrow. This show was daring to do something different so I decided to give it a chance. What was the end result of that decision?

Let’s go!

The Story

OreSuki centers around a boy named Amatsuyu Kisaragi, also known as Joro. He’s your typical cute little shounen boy with a sweet-as-honey personality who happens to have a crush on both his childhood friend, Aoi Hinata (aka Himawari) and the student council president, Sakura Akino (aka Cosmos). Both of them ask him out on dates where they confess their love for his best friend, Taiyo Ooga (aka Sun). Instead of asking Joro out on a date, they ask him to help set them up with Sun.

It is here that the twist happens… Joro is revealed to have a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde personality. Joro’s true nature is one that is perverted, lecherous, devious, and scheming. He admits to working the sweet, innocent personality in order to build up trust in his love interests in hopes to bag one of them for himself. When he finds out about their love for Sun, his plans change. Now he wants to help one of them end up with Sun and grab the other one off the rebound… however… that’s easier said than done because Sun is in love with the library’s aide Sumireko Sanshokuin (aka Pansy). Joro ends up meeting Pansy when he can’t take this whole love set-up thing and hides in the library during his lunch break.

To make matters worse, Pansy doesn’t like Sun… she likes Joro but not the sweet, innocent Joro. She likes the devious and lecherous Joro! As the show goes on, we get introduced to even more characters; however, aside from their nicknames, all of them just have secret crushes on Joro with the exception of the introduction of Hose. They try to replicate one of the earlier storylines with him with a different character but it just seems like filler more than anything… until we discover that it plays right into the non-ending of the show.

So, I will typically avoid talking about the ending to a show due to spoilers but I think I get a pass this time around because there was no ending… at all. So, Hose loves Pansy but Pansy still loves Joro. Sun asks Pansy out if his baseball team makes it to the finals and Pansy accepts. Pansy tells Joro to go away but it’s all a secret S.O.S. signal so that Joro can swoop in and save her from Hose, whom she doesn’t want to go out with. Joro finally gets all the advice he needs and swoops in, challenging Hose to a punishment game… except the outcome is unknown as Episode 12 signs off. We’re not going to find out the true ending to this show for another 6 months (as of the time of this writing) as the single-episode OVA will not air until Summer 2020 (it us currently December 2019).

So, instead of making this a 13-episode anime and just being done with it, they end the show on a non-ending and make us wait 6 whole months for ONE. SINGLE. EPISODE. This isn’t God Eater with 4 episodes, this isn’t Hi-Score Girl with an extra 3 episodes. Nope. This is ONE EPISODE. SINGLE. THE LONELIEST NUMBER.

WHY!?

So, I can’t spoil the ending to a show where the ending hasn’t even happened. So, with this in mind, I included it in the review so you guys can make an informed decision. You can decide whether or not you want to marathon the 12 episodes and wait 6 months or you can choose to wait until Summer 2020 and then marathon all 13 episodes. The choice is yours but this non-ending ending left a really sour taste in my mouth.

The show’s story in and of itself had some ups and downs. There were some episodes that just seemed to drag on and on and I felt that there were way too many characters in this show…. More than what the show actually needed.

The Characters

Oversaturation of characters can be a bad thing as there are obvious problems with a large cast. Look at Assassination Classroom for example. That show had so many characters that it was impossible for them to focus on any one of them for any length of time to make them seem important. Sure, most of them would get their day in the sun but that’s it… it was just a day in the sun. Once their spotlight had moved on, they typically just became background noise.

Here, OreSuki lets you get used to the main cast of characters then just throws character after character at you to the point where I couldn’t remember half of their names. Add in the fact that each character has a real name and a nickname and that made it even harder to follow along… especially when the characters sometimes refer to each other as their real name. It was fine with it was limited to Joro, Cosmos, Himawari, Sun, and Pansy. I can easily recall their nicknames (although I can’t recall half of their real names without a cheat sheet). I can barely recall any of the other characters’ names or nicknames outside of Hose because he played a dominant role in the finale of the show. That’s not good.

This may be a long section so I’ll just be brief with each one.

Amatsuyu “Joro” Kisaragi

Here’s your main character in the show. Honestly, Joro is the main star of this show and why this show is so interesting to begin with. His split personality is fresh and new and brings new life to the harem genre. His ability to break the fourth wall at times brings a unique brand of humor not often seen in anime. I think they knocked it out of the park when it came to his character and he is easily my favorite out of the entire lot!

Sumireko “Pansy” Sanshokuin

The second-most unique character is Pansy. As the librarian’s aide, she loves the evil side of Joro. She’s also an admitted stalker of Joro’s and keeps trying over and over again to get him to go out with her. She also seems to be the glue that holds the entire cast together. She’s always stepping in to help resolve issues for them and seems like a great character. Her true beauty was something Joro fell in love with but for whatever reason, he refuses to give in and date her. It’s a bit puzzling when you think about it… especially given Joro’s nature. Still, a very solid character!

Aoi “Himawari” Hinata

Joro’s childhood friend. She has a very bubbly personality with some tomboyish tendencies. I wouldn’t say she’s a complete tomboy, though. It’s like a switch that she can turn on and off… such as when she meets Joro every morning and either tackles him or slaps him hard on the back. Outside of this, there’s really not much to Himawari from a personality perspective. I actually found her more annoying than cute.

Sakura “Cosmos” Akino

Sakura is the Student Council President and has your typical low, monotone demeanor… at least at first. There are moments where she breaks out in nervous fits that show a change in her personality which is good because that is the saving grace for her character. Those little nuances add depth to an overplayed anime trope and prevent her from just being another one of “those characters.” Still, I didn’t really find her all that interesting, either.

Taiyo “Sun-chan” Ooga

Taiyo is Joro’s best friend and a member of the school’s baseball team. Taiyo loves Pansy and even almost turns on Joro in order to get her. We see this replayed in a different light towards the end of the series but when Taiyo isn’t being a dick, he’s that dependable guy that is always there for Joro… so much so that there were a lot of Sun x Joro ships among the anime community! Still, Sun was a fun character that had his moments on screen and when he does, he pretty much shines… just like the sun.

Hina “Asunaro” Hanetachi

First off, shoutouts to Wikipedia for helping me remember just who these characters were! Asunaro is a member of the newspaper club and begins to investigate Joro when he’s in the middle of helping Cosmos and Himawari hook up with Sun. She accidentally prints a story that paints Joro in a negative light and ends up having to retract the story and apologize to the students for her error. Ever since then, she was filled with regret. A decent character that was good for an arc then just kind of fades away. This is a recurring trend.

Chiharu “Tsubaki” Yoki

She transfers into Joro’s school and works at her family’s skewer restaurant. She fell in love with Joro when he bought her entire supply of food from her one day. When Joro is in dire straits, she ends up giving him a job. There were some actual cute moments with this character but once the spotlight was off of her, she just became more background noise.

Asaka “Sasanqua” Mayama

She was one of the people who believed Asunaro’s story and criticized Joro. When she realizes the error, she goes out of her way to try and make up with him… but she’s a tsundere so she does so in an awkward and confusing way. She even goes as far as to dye her hair which makes her disappear almost completely in this growing cast of characters. Like some other characters, I found her more annoying than anything.

Kimie “Tampopo” Kamata

She’s the manager of the baseball club who ends up playing a part in the finale of the show. She wants Pansy to have a boyfriend because she’s in love with Hose. Hose loves Pansy so she figures if she hooks up Pansy with someone else, Hose will be hers for the taking. Sound familiar? It should because this is just Sun X Joro X Himawari X Cosmos repeated. If Joro got one of them to go out with Sun, then the other would be his for the taking. Slightly different circumstances… same story. Had this not been the set up for the finale, I would have just yawned and moved on.

Yasuo “Hose” Hazuki

Speaking of Hose, he’s the library aide for a rival school. Joro just meets him one day out of the blue and the two become friends. When the library is in danger of closing, he turns to Hose for help. Hose knows Pansy from their past and he has a crush on her. I think you see where this is going based on everything I’ve said so far. Hose is a typical nice guy persona… basically a carbon copy of Joro’s good side… but that’s all there is to him. He’s nothing more than a last-minute love rival for Joro.

There’s other characters like Momo “Cherry” Sakuraba, the student council president from Hose’s school, Luna Kusami, Hose’s friend, and Keike Kisaragi, Joro’s mother, but they don’t really offer much of anything except extra lines of dialogue from time to time.

Art, Animation, and Sound

Everything about this show from this standpoint is rather average. The main characters stand out but with the addition of such a large cast (as in the case of Sasanqua), some characters just bleed into others. As unique as Joro was from a personality standpoint, his design is also rather plain and uninspired. He just looked like a typical shonen boy.

The animation was your typical average fare as well. Then again, a slice-of-life show like this doesn’t need a huge budget or fancy 60 fps CG scenes. What you get here ends up getting the job done and that’s all that matters.

For the sound, just like the majority of slice-of-life anime, the soundtrack was completely forgettable. It was background noise that helped with the story at times when it needed but it was only there as a background enhancement rather than something that sticks to your mind. This is one soundtrack you can particularly skip as there wasn’t much of anything to get excited about.

Overall Thoughts

The show was pretty decent. Did it do its job of setting itself apart from other harem shows? Yes… yes, it did but it doesn’t mean that the show was perfect by any means. I felt the show went downhill with the introduction of so many useless characters. If Hose and his two side chicks were the only ones introduced, I think it could have had the same impact without all of the fluff in between. Also, with the introduction of so many characters, I felt that the show began to lose a bit of its identity. I was even shocked when the initial storyline was wrapped up so early. I thought that it would have been dragged out and displayed for the entire season but I was wrong.

Moving from arc to arc in a series with only 12 episodes caused me to lose a bit of interest. There is only so much Joro can do to carry a show but some of the episodes were just flat out boring and a slog to get through. It was something that I don’t think was needed for a show of this length. Of course, the non-ending ending also hurt the show because here we have an average show at best trying to keep watchers in suspense for 6 months to see the actual ending. Some Summer, I’m probably going to forget that the OVA even came out, to be honest.

All-in-all, it was a good effort that could have been something special but the show went from a hot start to just a simmer in the end.