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medea10 · 4 years

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My Review of ORESUKI

(Short for: ORESUKI Are you the only one who loves me?)

How did I get into this anime? When the fall 2019 anime season rolled around, I actually had a few slots opened up for anime viewing. Oresuki just happened to be a random selection and so I randomly picked this one.

Heads up, literally everybody has a nickname and their real names are RARELY used. Just roll with it!

Amatsuyu Kisaragi (known to his friends as Joro) thought he was going to have the fantasy of having a girl confess her feelings to him. In fact, Joro constantly sees himself as the “main character” of this story. Unfortunately for Joro, things did not go that way (even though the setup was spot-on for that to happen). Joro was invited to hang out with class rep, Sakura Akino (Cosmos) for the day. And at the end of the day, she sits Joro down and tells him that she’s in love with Joro’s best friend Taiyou Ooga (Sun-chan). Don’t worry, it gets worse for this poor sap.

The very next day, Joro’s best friend Aoi Hinata (Himawari) took Joro around town for the day and did the same thing Cosmos did the day before. By revealing that she’s in love with his best friend Sun-chan! Then, Himawari and Cosmos force Joro to help them with getting on Sun-chan’s good side. Joro escaped that hell by ducking out in the library. There, he meets the class bookworm, Sumireko Sanshokuin (Pansy). And she decides to sit Joro down and tell him that, she likes him.

That’s right, the plain-looking bookworm is into him!

OH, BUT IT GETS BETTER! Sun-chan ends up doing the same thing to Joro, by sitting him down on a park bench to reveal whom he likes. And it’s Pansy! In just two episodes, this anime has managed to turn a love-triangle into a full-blown love-pentagram! This is one of the weirdest and interesting harems you will ever watch.

BETWEEN THE SUB AND THE DUB: Crunchyroll, HI-DIVE, and FUNimation have picked this up streaming wise. And licensing wise, it belongs to Aniplex! I know, right?! I’m amazed by how many streaming sites have picked this up. As for a dub, probably not in the cards in my opinion! If it does, FUNimation will probably do an English dub in the coming months. The sub has several recognizable names and ones I’m not so familiar with. So a good mixture of both! Man, Haruka Tomatsu was heard everywhere in 2019. Here’s what you might recognize these folks from.

*Joro is played by Daiki Yamashita (known for Goh on Pokemon, Deku on My Hero Academia, Umino on Sailor Moon Crystal, Sakamichi on Yowamushi Pedal, Narancia on Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Pt. 5, and Mitsuru on Food Wars)

*Himawari is played by Haruka Shiraishi (known for Asirpa on Golden Kamuy)

*Cosmos is played by Sachika Misawa

*Pansy is played by Haruka Tomatsu (known for Mina on Pokemon SM, Asuna on SAO, Iris on Violet Evergarden, Zero Two on Darling in the FranXX, Anaru on Anohana, Shinsuke on Inazuma Eleven GO, and Lala on To Love Ru)

MOVE OVER TRUCK-KUN: In the anime community, we love to give cute nicknames to certain objects. Truck-kun got its name after random trucks end up plowing anime characters unexpectedly. In this anime, we have “Bench-kun”. A plain, white bench seen in many shows and anime where two characters usually sit and confess their love to one another! But Bench-kun shows up in the oddest places and at the worst time for Joro. A girl would take Joro to the bench and tell him a confession and then it all just goes straight to Hell.

SHIPPING: Who would’ve thought that after the first 2 episodes that Joro would end up with so many girls after him? Believe it or not, this catnip expanded past the long-time friend, the senpai president, and…freakin’ Pansy! Yeah, Pansy has been a severe wild card since episode 1. She straight-up tells Joro she has a crush on him. And while Himawari and Cosmos came out and stated they love Sun-chan, they later started to be all flirty with Joro after we found out Sun-chan tried to screw his best friend. Then we add more girls!

Asunaro, a girl from the school newspaper put out a false report about Joro taking advantage of the three girls at the same time (making him a social pariah again). But this was so she can swoop in and take him for herself. Then you have another girl named Sazanka (complete tsundere btw) be a total bitch to Joro when the newspaper claim came out, but then turned into a little miss Blushy McIdiot after it was retracted. Then we add a new girl in school who knows Joro from a year ago for being extremely helpful to her family’s business. Although with Tsubaki, I don’t really sense much romance with her and she wasn’t a major player in the OVA finale. So I’ll kinda put her near the bottom of the potential waifu list.

AND THEN, we add yet another girl! Actually, Tanpopo was originally supposed to dance with Joro in the school’s flower festival (instead of Pansy). But because of the rumors flying around about Joro being a sexual harasser, she got spooked and quit the festival. Thankfully, she’s not into Joro…YET! Although her intentions kinda fall into a different category especially when it comes to Pansy’s love life!

ENDING: Every couple of episodes starts a new arc with this story (which is a little much when it’s only a 12 episode series). So the final arc of the season starts with a recap episode!

*facepalm*

Guys, NEVER DO THIS in a 12 episode series! Luckily, this was like a .5 episode so no damage done! After that mess, Joro is sat down on the white bench of doom with yet another girl. This can only end badly! Tanpopo wants Joro to help her hook Pansy and Sun-chan up. And if you remember early in the series, Sun-chan sat Joro down on the white bench of doom to tell him he’s in love with Pansy. But as we all know, Pansy likes Joro and her perception of Sun-chan is kinda soured after he screwed his friends over. That is until a person from Pansy’s past comes to her aid, throwing a monkey wrench in this twisted rom-com!

This boy, Hose also has a crush on Pansy, but Pansy really has no interest for him. No matter how much he smiles! Now Hose goes to another school and only shows up once he randomly meets Joro and finds out that her school plans on closing down the library (seriously?). Yeah, believe it or not, this school wants to close down the library. I don’t get it either! But with the help from Hose and his two girl assistants, they were able to help Pansy, Joro, and the others save the library. It’s just that Pansy feels uncomfortable in this situation because she knows Hose is going to ask her out and we all know that Pansy has feelings for Joro. So what does she do?

Sun-chan asks her out and she says yes!

What the actual fuck?

This guy? The same guy you cornered with his bullshit plan of throwing Joro under the bus?! The same one who had a crush on Pansy at the beginning? This guy! Fuck me!

Add insult to injury, Pansy tells Joro she no longer needs his help around the library. Thankfully, this was just Pansy’s plan to blow off Hose and get him away from her. But Hose decides to still confess his feelings for Pansy despite her choice of going out with Sun-chan. And Joro decided to grow some balls, become the arrogant, warped asshole he became at the beginning of the series and tell Pansy something important. He sort of lets out that he likes Pansy. But then it gets a lot more competitive!

It almost feels as though Hose gets a supreme upper-hand in his quest for Pansy’s heart. This followed up with all of Joro’s other interests not budging an inch in their quest for Joro’s heart. We end with the promises of this story to return with a conclusion! That’s where the OVA comes in!

Yeah, they announced after the end of Oresuki that everything will be settled with one OVA to be released at the end of May 2020. However, this ending might not coincide with the ending what the manga was going to provide. So we just have to wait until the end of May and we will get everything answered.

September 2020

Because of course it is!

Crunchyroll and FUNimation surprised fans in the west by airing the OVA on the same day as Japan’s release! The special is one hour and 10 minutes long (roughly 3 episodes in one).

OVA: So the OVA decided to pop in a little backstory on Sun-chan and how he first became a star in baseball, how he became friends with Joro, and how he first fell in love with Pansy. We see these side-stories throughout the special. Turns out that Sun-chan was the first victim to get heartbroken on the white bench of doom! And it does explain a lot with Sun-chan’s downward spiral with sabotaging Joro’s chances with any of the girls in the series. As it has almost been a year since watching the television series, I officially apologize for anything I’ve ever said about Sun-chan last fall. Because I didn’t know there’d be a bigger bastard in this series. I knew I couldn’t trust Hose’s bitch smile.

On the day of Sun-chan’s baseball game, there was a special task that would decide who Pansy was going to end up with. Joro or Hose! And there were so many rules placed that it would make it too hard for Joro to sneak away with an easy victory. Each girl was to give a hairpin to whichever boy they want to be with Pansy. And like I mentioned with the ending to the television series, things are not looking good for Joro. Hose’s friends are loyal to him and Joro’s girl friends don’t want to lose out to Pansy. If Hose wins Pansy, Joro can no longer speak to Pansy.

So fuck-face Hose decides to show his true colors to Joro and upping the ante a bit with this game! If Joro loses, he will not only lose Pansy, but all of his friends like Himawari, Cosmos, Asunaro, and anyone else who’s friends with Pansy. Joro did manage to get the upper hand at several moments of the anime when he did helpful tasks around the baseball arena and getting extra players to hand off their hairpins. And even when Hose got sneaky with that very same idea, Joro managed to squeak out a victory with a little help from Sun-chan and Tanpopo. So Hose better take his fake-ass smilin’ ass the fuck outta here!

So now comes the moment we’ve all been waiting for. The confession between Joro and Pansy! Pansy loves Joro. Joro loves Pansy. The end…Not quite! Joro continued to open his dumbass mouth and continue his love confession to every female around him. Followed by saying he will share all of them by dating each girl one day out of the week.

Seriously dude? Don’t be a greedy fuck-ass and don’t push your luck! You just got back on Pansy’s good side by kicking Hose out of the picture, why’d you have to say something stupid like that?

So who won in the end? I honestly thought Joro and Sun-chan were going to share a moment, but we closed the series off with Joro and Pansy walking together as the credits roll.

Come on, we all know who won in the end.

Bench-kun.

I walked into this anime last fall not knowing what to expect from it and came out not expecting all of that to happen. This puts a nice spin on the harem genre and what people normally expect when they see one boy surrounded by pretty girls. I mean, take your typical harem anime! The male protagonist is plain, boring, a slice of white bread with nothing on it! All of the charisma would go to all the females around him. Now Joro doesn’t look like a regular, milk-toast harem male protagonist, but his appearance isn’t one to scream and shout at either. But his fluctuating attitude has been fun to watch throughout the episodes. And from episode 1 on, it is just one surprise after another! The main boy constantly sees himself as the main character in life and we see him get slapped with a harsh dose of reality when the senpai and the childhood friend like your best friend over you and the girl that likes you is the class bookworm* (with an asterisk the size of Texas next to that description).

Pansy is an interesting character where people would have to double-take when they see Pansy with glasses, pig-tails, and her chest surpressed by ace bandages versus Pansy unleashed! Joro indeed never knew Pansy was the hot chick strutting a pretty white dress a year back. But since this is a harem, you’ve gotta have the usual trope of girls including the freaky chick, the childhood best friend, and everybody’s (un)favorite, the tsundere!

Now with the ending for the OVA, I’m unsure if this is the actual ending they went with when it came to the manga. I’ve never gotten around to picking up Oresuki as of yet, but I gotta say I was satisfied with this ending. If you’re looking for a good romantic comedy, I say go for this. I know it’s usually a long-shot for everybody to like a comedy. Comedies in anime are for the most part hit-or-miss unless they’re crudely dubbed. But I am one of those people who takes pleasure in other’s pain. Watching Joro’s misadventures were entertaining to watch. So I say, pull up a white bench and check out Oresuki.

If you would like to watch this anime, FUNimation, HIDIVE, and Crunchyroll are streaming all 12 episodes, plus the recap episode and the OVA sequel.

#anime review #oresuki #ore wo suki nano wa omae dake ka yo #sumireko sanshokuin #pansy #amatsuyu kisaragi #joro #aoi hinata #himawari #sakura akino #cosmos #hina hanetachi

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