My Mental Choices Are Completely Interfering With My School Romantic Comedy

“He’s already seen my panties twice, and even touched me there… I’ll just have to marry him…” (ep. 9). Ore no Nounai Sentakushi ga, Gakuen Love comedy wo Zenryoku de Jama Shiteiru is easily the #1 anime of Fall 2013. A lot of people would love to disagree with that statement, but let me explain. You need to have refined tastes in order to fully enjoy Ore no Nounai Sentakushi ga, Gakuen Love comedy wo Zenryoku de Jama Shiteiru. If you're a heretic who cries at every instance possible to complain about boobies and panties, well... this anime will be making you cry. On theother hand, if you watch anime with a laid-back attitude and you soak in all of the nuances that it has to offer, you will definitely like Ore no Nounai Sentakushi ga, Gakuen Love comedy wo Zenryoku de Jama Shiteiru. The crux of Ore no Nounai Sentakushi ga, Gakuen Love comedy wo Zenryoku de Jama Shiteiru's plot is its comedy (well gee, it's not like the title gave it away or anything). The story revolves around Kanade Amakusa, a boy who carries a curse. His curse is that, at random moments, a God-like entity will come into his mind and force him to say embarrassing things or commit heinous acts. Thus, his "mental choices completely interfere with his school romantic comedy". Not to worry though, as although Kanade acts like a nut in every other scene, the truckload of girls that surround him are just as ridiculous. Every single female character in Ore no Nounai Sentakushi ga, Gakuen Love comedy wo Zenryoku de Jama Shiteiru is fantastic. How do you say "extremely varied cast" in Italian? Because that's exactly what was present in this anime. No two girls are similar, no girl is generic, and all of the girls are cute. God it just makes you want to hug them all. Chocolat, Furano, Reikadou "Silicon" Ayame, the Super Imouto, the Seito Kaichou... there are too many great girls to list in this anime. I tried to limit only one female character from Ore no Nounai Sentakushi ga, Gakuen Love comedy wo Zenryoku de Jama Shiteiru to put in my Favorite Characters list, and let me tell you; that wasn't easy. In fact, a quick interlude---let me give you a sample of what this anime's all about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifKK8fjk3tI Ore no Nounai Sentakushi ga, Gakuen Love Comedy wo Zenryoku de Jama Shiteiru is extremely ridiculous, as can be seen in that video (that video also happens to be my FAVORITE scene in the entire anime). However, that is also why it does so well. The comedy is so on point, so clever, and most important of all, so NATURAL. Never does Ore no Nounai Sentakushi ga, Gakuen Love Comedy wo Zenryoku de Jama Shiteiru try too hard to be funny. You can tell the producers had a great time with this one (think back to the Erabe-god's laugh; god that was amazing). Technically Ore no Nounai Sentakushi ga, Gakuen Love Comedy wo Zenryoku de Jama Shiteiru follows Kanade Amakusu's quest to get rid of his "Mental Choices" curse; however, let's be real. The "story" is a pile of crap. Instead, the producers use that as quality comedy-fodder. From his mental choices, hilarious situations ensue. Just from reading the synopsis I could already tell Ore no Nounai Sentakushi ga, Gakuen Love Comedy wo Zenryoku de Jama Shiteiru was going to have a stupid plot. Fear not, as Ore no Nounai Sentakushi ga, Gakuen Love Comedy wo Zenryoku de Jama Shiteiru doesn't mind that it doesn't have a plot, we as the viewers shouldn't either. Just sit back, relax, and soak in the comedy of this anime. You want to know how an anime qualifies as "perfect"? When it makes you laugh your ass off every episode; that's how. Ore no Nounai Sentakushi ga, Gakuen Love Comedy wo Zenryoku de Jama Shiteiru single-handedly made my Wednesdays something to look forward to, and it was the only Fall 2013 anime to do so (I would usually put off the other simulcasts until I had more time to watch them, but not with this anime). And now, you too have a choice to make... to watch Ore no Nounai Sentakushi ga, Gakuen Love Comedy wo Zenryoku de Jama Shiteiru, or not to watch Ore no Nounai Sentakushi ga, Gakuen Love Comedy wo Zenryoku de Jama Shiteiru? p.s. If you picked the second option... well, the Erabe-god will be laughing at you too.

Note: This review may appear quite long, but its structure doesn't force you to read everything, so please give it a fair try (; -1- Imagine a life where nothing happens... Imagine unspectacular schooldays, getting up early, disputing with your little sister at the breakfast table, chatting with friends about trivial issues, learning stuff you won't need to consider ever again in the future, going shopping on the way home, and finally fall into bed utterly exhausted as if the world has changed, but in reality you just repeat the same cycle over and over... Escaping this kind of monotonous life is not as hard as you might believe,but one ability is indispensable in doing so: the ability to make choices. First off, everyone can swim along with the mainstream, not choosing anything on their own, and therefore repeating their everyday life. You have to realize all the possibilities to make choices which directly affect your future, most of them not even noticeable and done basically automatically. To stress the importance of choices even more, you will begin to recognize their relevance just by reading this review. Have you heard of "game books" before? Providing a formidable way to directly influence the course of the story, you will find this review having the same option to choose your own course. Why do I start with this explanation about choice-making, and how does it influence the actual anime we are talking about? In order to start, read on at -5-. If you aren't fond of making even the first choice here, and you also have the guts to defy this anime's god, the master of choices, proceed at -10-. -2- Typical for newer anime, the art consists of detailed and distinguishable character parts and overall colourful backgrounds. The animation is rather ordinary, but that's fairly normal for the genre at hand, so there's no problem to get accustomed as viewer. All in all the characters keep their moe-looking appearances and please our eyes in many ways. To change into the Sound part, head for -4-, otherwise continue at -6-. -3- As is often the case with RomComs, we have an above-average popular guy trying to keep his life in order while also having to deal with the distinctive cast of females around him. In this anime the guy's name is Kanade Amasuka; a boy who would actually possess a rather boring and average personality if it wasn't for the curse of "Absolute choice": a list of possible choices appearing right in front of his inner eye at the most inconvenient times. If you are familiar with visual novels, you will recognize this idea's origin at once. And guess what, these choices practically always force Kanade to perform highly embarrassing acts in front of his classmates. So why doesn't he just ignore this choice-making? Well, there's this peculiar being called "God" causing him immense pain upon not deciding. The same God also provides the only way for Kanade to cure his curse, namely by completing missions. Does he choose to fulfil them all, regardless of what consequences it may have for his future social life? To stress the romance part of the anime and in order to get Kanade more sensible on this matter, these missions consist of dealing with various girls in not too normal ways. If you want to know more about the female cast, venture forward to -7-, for just a small summary go to -12-. -4- The sound as well as the music are neither memorable nor anything special, rather simply the usual light-hearted tone suited for any school comedy. OP and ED are standard as well... but at least the handstand performance sticks out. The seiyuus are performing their assigned roles without apparent fault, and although they sometimes miss the final spark of emotion, I enjoyed listening to their diversified voices a lot. That's it for sound, so either change into the Animation part (-2-), or continue at -6-. -5- Ah, welcome. You've just done the first step in order to get to know this particular anime. Don't be confused by its exceedingly long name, "Ore no Nounai Sentakushi ga, Gakuen Love Comedy wo Zenryoku de Jama Shiteiru" (engl. "My Mental Choices Are Completely Interfering With My School Romantic Comedy"), usually shortened to NouCome. Adapted from a light novel of the same name, the title is summarizing the plot quite well actually. Therefore, you can expect a solid RomCom with a main character suffering over having to deal with all kind of choices he has to make. If you aren't fond of RomComs or students doing embarrassing and crazy stuff, you can either try to sit through and change your mind about this genre, or you cut a long story short and skip right to the conclusion at -15-. Otherwise you get acquainted with the main character at -3-. -6- The enjoyment watching this anime won't reach any limit, if and only if you can cope with the general idea of visual novels, RomComs and don't mind fan service in a measurable, but not immoderate way. Coming this far through the review, you are most likely getting along with this idea and will eventually enjoy NouCome to the same great extent I did. See, to mark the occasion, god just decided to eliminate the second choice, so there's only one way to go on... that would be -15-. -7- As with every good RomCom, you need to have a multifaceted bunch of girls providing a diversified view of the romance aspect. This cast consists of three main heroines and roughly the same amount of side characters. Within Kanade's class, we have the white-haired Yukihira Furano, a shy and more silent type who doesn't miss a chance to call him by insulting names. She has a strange kind of humour, and doesn't show it nearly as openly as Ouka Yuuouji, the class' cheerful airhead who is constantly participating in every joke and acting quite frankly around Kanade. "There's no point in doing something boring."... a statement that would describe her life fairly well. Kanade, Yukihira and Ouka are also part of the so called "Reject 5", a group of the school's oddballs due to their overly antisocial behaviour. Since Kanade is forced to be in this group by the deeds of his curse, you can assume that he wants to escape his fate and therefore has a reason to complete his missions. The curse also provides him with human help in form of a beautiful sweets-loving girl suddenly falling from the sky upon him choosing it. She names herself Chocolat and causes Kanade to change even his life at home in many ways. Since she lacks some common sense, his life doesn't get that much easier even with the help of her knowledge regarding the curse. All in all, these main characters deliver a lot of fun throughout the whole anime, and the curse provides the needed freshness to get hooked immediately. If you feel that you haven't read enough character outline yet, go on to -11-, otherwise you may also proceed with Animation (-2-) or Sound (-4-). -8- You defied god, your fate's 'bout to change And no one dares to enter your range There is pain up ahead And no mercy instead Your surrounding's slowly getting strange With your senses going on decline Barely managing to see a shine Of a more blurry life Nearly devoid of strife Only one way remains, go to -9- -9- Decisions can save a lot of time But only ones not including crime You have to seize the chance Which promotes the advance Like I did when deciding this rhyme The whole world of anime just right Within your comedy-yearning sight With NouCome on top Not your average flop So now head to -14-, keep the fight -10- So, you regard yourself special enough to defy god and the world's rules? I will give you one last chance to correct the taken path by turning round, now aiming for -13-. Otherwise fasten your seat belts and continue at -8-. -11- More about the characters, eh? If you read these lines, then there's no denying you are already quite interested in this anime. A picture is worth a thousand words, and there's nothing inhibiting you to start watching it right after you finished reading this review. Female side characters include a little sister type, an abnormal teacher and the student council, and everyone gets enough time to come into their own. Experience them for yourself. Story and characters define an anime, but without the framework of Animation (-2-) and Sound (-4-) they couldn't support themselves properly. So choose... -12- Eh... so you really thought that short summaries are sufficient enough to describe women? Don't get any false impressions of life. If you are now ready for the "normal" female review, turn to -7-, otherwise you may continue with Animation (-2-) or Sound (-4-). -13- There's no fault in trying to swim against the current. Sadly though, nearly every world in confined by rules, and therefore you mustn't quail if a choice doesn't bear fruit. Other choices are awaiting you in your life as well as in this review, so turn your attention to -5-. -14- But regardless, there's one thing to mention Some time ago, you turned your attention To anime and more And that's the perfect door To be able to grasp the dimension And so I hope for you to forge ahead To escape this loop, conquer your dread choose anime once more don't care about the score you've got time, head to -9-, relieve your head (Only read the following lines if you have completely understood the poem's intention, otherwise head to -9- as described!) The first version of this review wouldn't have contained any escape routes out of this loop. But after getting the possibility to contemplate your actions, there isn't any easily understood reason for you to not deserve a new chance to use your power of choice. You may start into the actual NouCome-review now by going to -5-. -15- So, how does it feel? Ready for a romance apart from the norm concerning its premise, exhilarant characters providing nice jokes while the poor guy gets embarrassed and the constant recall about the consequences of choices? I have to admit: recently there are lots of anime about romance stories in a school environment... but the simple difference which distinguishes NouCome from the rest is the actual concept of these hilarious choices Kanade has to make, reminding ourselves of the importance always accompanying choice-making. And hey, this anime just has ten episodes! At least trying it won't cause any problems. The final choice is awaiting you, probably being the most important one in this review... read on at -16-. -16- Although you are bathing in this review's aftermath now, there's a high possibility that you will encounter at least one choice directly impacting the environment around you at least for the rest of the day. Maybe you choose to watch this very anime, "Ore no Nounai Sentakushi ga, Gakuen Love Comedy wo Zenryoku de Jama Shiteiru", and suddenly your little sister bursts into the room, discovering your secret anime crush and in the end becoming your discussion partner for the newest shows. Life is a series of choices. But one thing's for sure: you won't advance if you don't choose... So here's your final choice: • Rate this review 'Helpful' • Rate this review 'Not Helpful' (feedback is greatly appreciated) • Just bid farewell

How we can comprehend something inherently dumb and insipid in shows such as these are let loose into the anime medium has always made me wonder what drives us into having such a thing as guilty pleasures. When you imagine a show with those two terms in your mind, could you ever imagine a show like that trying to consider deep themes of free will and choice? The answer to that question would be yes and no. Yes, because something like Ore no Nounai, and no, I refuse to spell out the absurdly long title, could've been thought out by writers just like in any creativeprocess of writing out ideas for shows. On the other hand, no, because it would be impossible for an absurd RomCom like this to try to implement these themes perfectly, or at least it would take the skill of a talented writer to pull that off. This skill, sadly, isn't the case for Ore no Nounai; but that's not to say it doesn't have its charming moments in some areas. The primary emphasis that the show wants to drive its plot towards is how our lives are often being created by ourselves through the choices we make in them. Since this is a RomCom, our bland perverted protagonist is confronted with many options that threaten his social status from girls, hence the title. Already the logic thrown at us is beyond erratic and not given much thought to how the "Absolute Choice" works precisely. For comedy's sake, there is an unfortunate lack of wit to the humor these choices give to the audience: Why are there only two choices? Most of the options shown to Kanade aren't very imaginative or creative for the record. When you have this opportunity to think of what you want the humor to go through, you need to bring out the big guns, or it'll become tedious. The comedy works through some of the character interactions that do not involve the choice system. The chemistry between the girls and Kanade isn't the greatest because the girls don't leave a lasting impression. There are exceptions to this, them being Yukihira and Chocolat. Yukihira does come across as a bland dandere character until she finally comes out of her shell. We get to see what she is thanks to the surprisingly well-done performance of newcomer Yui Kondou, who gives Yukihira a funny mood swing-type of vibe to her archetype that works quite smoothly. Chocolat gives a larger-than-life personality to Ore no Nounai, despite her cliched nature when she is first introduced. While not as unique as Yukihira, her presence provides some nice, needed wholehearted fun to the comedy and story. RomCom protagonists generally considered entertaining or not annoying are a rarity, and Kanade is no exception. Not everything that he does or says is immediate eye-rolls. There are a few notable moments where he is pretty humorous. Still, he eventually does go full force into bland, stereotypical protagonist territory, where he acts incredibly against the odds of how a typical teenager in the real world would react. This kind of thing would be done good in a comedic sense if the jokes weren't stuff that we have already seen on countless shows like Ore no Nounai and don't do anything with them, then copy and paste them into the narrative. Inevitably, the artwork tries its best to make the girls look the cutest and sexiest that they can be. They succeeded in this domain by giving a lot of emphasis to coloring the characters, making them very easy to identify and helping us remember a particular part of their design. The blushing skin was nice in escalating the sexual tension from looking at the girls and their cute blushing faces. The sporadic animation helps in giving the humor some significant traditional face reactions that we are used to in anime. However, there were moments when CG was used in some car scenes that looked dreadful, but thankfully, there's not much to be remembered in infamy. The quality of the music can be construed as underwhelming in the actual show itself with your typical synthesizers. However, the opening delivers a great song to showcase the show's tone. Even though the OP is quite lazy in how it was choreographed, the song at least fits well with the things going on in the opening. However, I found myself perplexed by how the ending song was produced for Ore no Nounai. It didn't fit very well to the tone in that it felt like it was more suited to an action show than a romantic comedy. Ore no Nounai is a strange attempt to milk the high school comedy genre into new territory. The result wasn't as fulfilling as the creators' initial premise before being released, but that shouldn't suggest terrible quality. There isn't anything inherently offensive or needlessly degrading to anyone's intelligence or the people who try to think too hard about it. It is convoluted in its subject matter and doesn't even bother to push it any further than it generally tries to be another ecchi comedy. Even talking about how we look at ecchi comedies in anime in a different spectrum is at least a hopeful note in the future. Grade: C

Have you ever wondered about how your daily life would be if your choices were to be dominated by some supreme random choice-generating entity? I haven’t thought about it all that much myself, but apparently somebody else did, and, upon obtaining enlightment, wrote a novel based this profound reflection, and thought that publishing it would be a good idea… Kasukabe Takeru is the man, and Ore no Nounai Sentakushi ga, Gakuen Love Comedy wo Zenryoku de Jama Shiteiru (NouCome for short) is the result of his introspection. There is not much to say about the designs and animation, as they range from mediocre to subpar for theyear 2013 and never excel compared to countless other series. There is slight censorship in the TV anime version so you might want to check out the BDs for more exposed nipples and pantsu, but the fanservice is hardly ever that explicit anyway. Ostensively, NouCome is a comedy. As such, it presents itself by employing quirky characters, some light ecchi and build-up scenes that lead to absurd conclusions. There is a story as well: MC has to clear ridiculous “missions” so that he won’t be the target of the random choice thing again, but you will realize it is all irrelevant very early in the series anyway. There is no real beginning to the random choice thing, as neither the time and circumstances in which it started, nor are the reasons are ever explained/specified, and there is no real conclusion either, as it simply never happens, and the random choices continue after the series ends. Maybe the OVA will fix this, but I have my doubts, and it’s not like a real conclusion would bump up my opinion of the series that much, to be honest. The comedy itself is mostly a miss as well. For something with such a ridiculous premise, the jokes are pretty bland and uncreative, and get repetitive after a while. The whole series could be summarized in one sentence: “ERABE Boobs or do something dumb.” * And really, that’s all NouCome is about. The premise is just a pretext for mindless fanservice, the comedy is an excuse for either more mindless fanservice, or bad and unfunny jokes, the characters are all generic and unimportant: an excuse for even more mindless fanservice. The concept becomes a gimmick after a while since the conclusion is very predictable (afterall, you know he’s going to clear the missions without fail in the end), and for that reason the series is not able to build any tension around jokes. The build-ups are very long (usually lasting one entire episode) and very diluted with random “moe” and mindless fanservice, the jokes are really random without being weird, quirky or well thought-out and always end on the dumbest note… there is just so much that is wrong with this series that what actually HAPPENS in the series cannot be described with just a few paragraphs. As far as the characters are concerned, they all exist for comedic relief, mindless fanservice and are unimportant to the course of events. The main character doesn’t contribute to the story in any way, he is just a victim of it and, in the end, a tool with no personality existing only for self-insert. The rest of the cast is all female, and is composed of tropes that couldn’t be any more generic, bland, and poorly portrayed. Furano is the (tsundere + emotionless) /2 girl with personality disorder (not actual illness, of course, just sudden changes in personality to maximize the “moe” effect...) , Ouka is the genki childhood friend that secretly has feelings for MC, Yuragi is the loli that wants to be everyone’s imouto (yeah let’s not talk about it), Seira is the student council president, Ayame is the rich ojou-sama (am I the only one who finds her “secret” slightly disturbing, considering she’s in high school?), but the biggest offender of this sack of crap is the main girl Chocolat, which pretty much acts like a puppy animal whenever she is provided with kibble (sweets in her case). There is one episode (the 7th) in which she regains the memories of her past after hitting her head and starts acting “normally” and explaining unimportant shit to MC to help him with his problem. I guess you could call this “character development”, albeit contrived and poorly placed, if only she didn’t hit her head at the end of the episode, lose all her memories one more time, and ultimately go back to her dog-like personality. I guess that if there was one character I enjoyed, it would be Yawakaze Konagi… she’s still useless and her jokes unoriginal but at least her design is pretty cute and her moments are among the “best” in the series. NouCome is among the worst Japanimation has ever produced. There is really no content here… just ten episodes of void over average computer art 2D designs. It’s not the first time anime has produced something like this, and it’s hard to pinpoint exactly why this is more insulting, more cancerous, and more impossibly worthless than countless other series that have been made in this vein, but it is. Avoid at all costs. * (this quote is courtesy of a wise friend of mine.)