As summer quickly dies and shoves fall into our faces, I am reminded that I am terrible at staying on top of animes. One such anime titled Ore Monogatari!!! was one that I’d highly anticipated as I am a big fan of the manga. Of course, I was a bit late to the party but HEY, better late than never~
Oremono follows a high school freshman named Takeo Gouda and the relationship he has with his first ever girlfriend Rinko Yamato. The two are as opposite as they come in stature, but seem to be on the same wavelength…most of the time… Their misadventures are often if not always witnessed by Takeo’s life long neighbor and friend Makoto Sunakawa, the mysterious and most handsome dude anyone has ever seen in this universe.
What I absolutely love about this series is the uniqueness of its story and, though I’m not certain it’s the first of its kind, how much it strays from the typical shojo romcom in that the couple’s struggles are ones that in this day and age seem incredibly innocent. Over the course of the series, the two slowly become less oblivious and learn bit by bit how to work through their issues within this relationship.
All of my gushing over this show aside, the uncertainty I held before its premiere is one I’d like to address. If you’ve seen the Youtube video I reference in my response post or even if you just know about the relationship between manga and anime, you’ll be aware that anime adaptations of manga are common. In my opinion, consuming these sorts of series should be done so with a grain of salt, taking into account all the makes one form of media good and what makes the other good without crossing them over to directly compare them to one another. I was incredibly impressed with this adaptation as it is almost a carbon copy of the manga while still being something I could watch without being bored of already knowing what’s to come. I’d put quite a bit of thought into what may have made this so successful and my only conclusion is that the voice acting and background sound effects are well directed and boost the atmosphere the original creator put so much work into the original. Another piece I always found myself enjoying was the inclusion of dialogue outside of the chat boxes you typically see in manga but not in anime. Keeping this between medias was an excellent idea and did a lot to add to the comedy of the show.
It’s so cute and fluffy and, at times, super manly, that I would definitely recommend this series to anyone who is not deathly allergic to romance.
Sakamichi - It's all Uphill from Here 