ZeroMajor12

When you have accumulated enough experience or watched enough anime, you begin to see a pattern where most season will often have their share of anime so that every part of the demographic is fulfilled. Casuals and action fanatics got their meal with the 2nd course of Jujutsu Kaisen S2, fans of heartfelt drama are present with the all-new Sousou no Frieren and The Apothecary Diaries. And then you have your usual palette of romance, varying in quality though since everyone has their schtick on it. Naturally, there will be various types of anime to provide to any anime fans, even fans of run-of-the-mill romances.By that point, it's obvious that Kimizero is another anime catered towards romance suckers. Without wasting any time, let's jump into it. First, the production value is nothing short of bland mediocrity at its finest. Who would expect anything good from ENGI after the abomination I had to witness like The Detective is Already Dead? The character models sometimes go off-model, they are mostly still in every shot, and whenever they have to perform movement, it just looks awkward. What would you expect when they adapt another crappy romance light novel? Yup, there's nothing else to comment on other than the word "bad" plastered. Even their main promo picture looks like it was made by an amateur. When I comment about bad anime, the majority of them would be a lack of character detail or inept storytelling from the author, and this anime is no exception. This anime is filled with tropes that pathetically tried their hand to subvert tropes, only to be for naught. Kashima is a socially awkward otaku who got forced into dating the most fake gyaru ever written. It never tries to develop layers beneath their persona, since the anime is intent on only focusing on the cute romance scenes that don't feel earned whatsoever. The awkward guy in love with an extroverted girl relationship has been tested and succeeded multiple times by different anime like Hyouka or Bokuyaba, but whatever this relationship built up to has been squandered by the mediocrity of the author's capacity to write a compelling romance story. Then you have the most generic friends just to remind you that they have friends, where you're forced to sit through supposed yapping about online creators, trends, or anything just to appeal to the young demographic, but it feels like some old man throwing gestures without understanding the meaning behind it. It just wants to include Gyarus and Otakus for the sake of it. What's worse about the storytelling is that the premise is not all that bad. Of course, it is generic with the usual relationship, but it had an interesting node with Luna's past suggesting that she was mistreated by her past boyfriends, but never proceeded to expand that hook after Episode 1. It has been used plenty of times before like in other anime, however, it would have made Luna into a more interesting character other than this fake, robotic, and insincere character who just acts nice to everyone she meets. And the anime expects us to believe she's sincere and empathetic to everyone she holds close? It doesn't try to suggest that maybe Luna was a victim of abuse, doesn't try to show that Luna was traumatized by it, or have Luna somewhat push people away from being afraid of being hurt. No, instead you get Luna being too nice that she's willing to let go of people and somehow that's good enough. Then what's the point of the multiple boyfriends then? You could throw away that detail and the anime would work just as fine. With this statement, Luna Shirakawa is the epitome of an AI girlfriend who has no flaws to be explored and made up drama for the sake of its romance. Luna was such a bad character that even Maria, the supposed love breaker, is more well-written than the main love interest, and that's saying something. Before it decided to make Maria suddenly submissive and willing to let Luna win, she had actual grounded motives and feelings, though it's pretty stupid if it happens in real life, but it's still something that can be understood. A girl trying to get back someone she rejected, only to realize she squandered her chance with a potential boyfriend. Her character is easily the most interesting and holds actual drama behind it. Even the bad boy had more presence than Kashima, who had most of the show's screen time. I get that introverts don't hold a candle against these guys, but when you have the main character and his otaku friends just spouting about streamers and FPS games all the time without any actual meta-reference, it feels like a cheap throwaway just to attract younglings. I have made my point clear enough. Thank you for reading.

Ionliosite2

There’s almost always one random anime that will get some controversy no matter if for something that is minimal or stupid yet will become the center of criticisms about the show, and in this case the series that got this treatment was KimiZero. For some reason, the main girl made some people go crazy with part of her gimmick, which in this series is that she already had relationships with other boys in the past and even had sex with them. That’s all, and as it was proven in the past by series like HigeHiro where you could complain about basically anything like bad writing,bad animation, badly written characters, etc, but instead people ignore them and whine about a completely unrelated thing, as the main complain there was also that the girl in the cover wasn’t a virgin. Some people will say that the writing of this series seems like it was made by an incel, and I have to disagree, after all, that kind of people are the most likely to complain that the girl had sex before. In fact, I can’t comprehend how such a simple series like a romcom got so misunderstood, the memo that you get from here is not that having multiple relationships and sex with literally anything is good, no, the series paints this in a negative light and Runa regrets it because it happened due to her bad decisions on how to make a significant relationship. The fact that this simple fact gets over so many people’s heads is surprising to me, as it is something very easy to pick up from so many episodes, the one in the festival in particular is extremely blatant about this. This series at least tries to make sense, as some people will have a sexual life earlier than others, and they might regret it later if it isn’t with someone that matters to them in the first place. But now, is KimiZero a good series? Of course fucking not, as much as I want to side with the fans of this series, that simply isn’t possible for me. At the very least, I think this series is commendable for actually having the main girl who is super popular and beautiful interacting with boys, and having had relationships in the past, because in most romcoms God forbid that the main girl has ever interacted with any boy except the MC. The series obviously suffers from average romcom and light novel writing, nothing actually exciting happens, and when it does, it is written like a Mexican telenovela, like, do people think that the twin sister of a girl faking to be her is not something ridiculous? As it happens, the MC is also bland as hell and the relationship came to be in a completely unnatural way, it happened because Tanjiro asked Runa to become his girlfriend after he lost a bet with his friends and she simply accepts like it was nothing, no one in their sane mind would see this and think it isn’t forced, and even if some moments between Tanjiro and Runa were fine enough, it isn’t enough to see this series and think it was anything meaningful. I can stand the telenovela tier writing because I grew up watching a lot of them, so that’s why most romcoms are not something that bother me at all, and this one is not exception, this series is simply boring most of the time and not much more, it isn’t actively annoying, and it was a good enough joke when a character started talking about something they are very passionate about and the other was completely lost without understanding anything. Nicole acting like a bitch towards Tanjiro was always something weird, she constantly told him that he shouldn’t do anything bad about Runa, when he looks so inoffensive and his personality is literally “I’m nice”, I can only wonder if she was doing the same for previous Runa boyfriends or if she saw Runa being hurt so many times she started being overprotective coincidentally with him, I want to believe the second one, especially because Runa seems to ignore a lot of her advices, but there’s nothing to tell me that she isn’t like this because the current guy is the protagonist and apparently she must annoy him. There’s also other romantic relationships happening in the background with Tanjiro’s friends and the other gyaru, but they go nowhere and fail miserably at it. And Maria is probably the side character that is most important, her deal is really weird, she is also in love with Tanjiro and he even confessed his love towards her in the past but she rejected him, so why is she seeking for his love now even after she rejected him before? Is it just to have more drama in the show, as it happens she is jealous of Runa, but at the same time wants to be more noticed by her because of their relationship? She acts like a bitch half of the series and then victimizes herself, she clearly has problems in her, and it all revolves around Runa and Tanjiro. As it stands, KimiZero is basically just a generic romcom with more drama than it should have, but at the same time has a female MC that seems more plausible than other girls from other romcoms, thanks to her not being an untouchably pure virgin. I seriously cannot make an effort to be on either side of the conflict about the series, since I for one think that anyone can have any relationship with anyone they want, so I cannot agree with the haters, but I also disagree with the people saying this is a wholesome show, as nothing about it stands out as actually meaningful or even cute. Thank you for reading.