Aharen-san wa Hakarenai

This is easily one of the funniest anime I have come across in a while. It is a little funny that I like this so much because I wasn't the biggest fan of the series when I first picked it up. Something about watching this made me realise just how great Aharen-san wa Hakarenai is. It's a gag comedy about two strange people doing strange things in the most normal way (there are other strange people too). It's hilarious. The number of times this anime can create a scenario for the main two and elevate it into surrealism is seemingly neverending. I do find myself laughingat a lot of things, but Aharen-san is a little different, with it being able to make me laugh more than other comedies have made me do so. The contrast between everyday life and just downright nonsense is not to be underestimated. Like, who the hell thinks doing a spider-man in the corner of the classroom is a good idea? But it is funny because no one seems to give one, as well as it being in the array of choices for these two. But wouldn't you know? They are strange people in gag humour. Lol… I'd imagine people would be *very* quick to point out how this is generic or some "criticism" like that. I'd argue that is not (entirely) the case with Aharen-san. Sure, the usual plots used in episodic anime do find their way to the anime, but it's not like Aharen-san then became devoid of what makes it good in the first place. It just uses its skill to create something with a touch of itself. So even if it did indeed lack plot originality, the quality of this show is simply amazing anyway and it still feels like you are watching Aharen-san wa Hakarenai instead of some rip-off of a 2015 school comedy or whatever. The main two are something that I like quite a bit too. The relationship doesn't have a bias on one of the two, you know the one, the whole "everyone cares about her more than him" sometimes vice versa, or in other words, one character being more interesting/important than the other. We have Aharen, the one with terrible distance comprehension, and Raidou, the one who overthinks literally anything beyond belief. The chemistry between them just goes through the roof. In addition to making everything, they do way funnier and more enjoyable than the norm. It's a relationship that makes sense, one that you want to see bloom into something more meaningful and more wholesome because these two are simply meant for each other. Who doesn't like sweet stuff like that? A little on the side characters, whilst the attention isn't focused on them, I did find it that they are respectable people too. For example, Ishikawa and Satou behave like genuine people in this moderately strange world, to the funniest of the lot Toubaru-sensei (bless her) who, well, does the most amazing gags. So hey, there's more to love here. I don't really have much else to say honestly, I've said everything that needed to be said. The story of this whole thing is just well… everyday life, an absurd one at that. This is easily the best thing in the season of Spring 2022 too, so another good feat to point out if you want to go and watch this. It's nice to see this get a pretty good adaptation too although I guess everyone anticipated this would happen soon with other similar titles getting the anime spotlight.

Romance between two kuuderes spliced with deadpan British-style humour. It’s eye-rollingly common for slice-of-life/comedy titles featuring a guy MC and at least one girl to get piled on by toxic rom-com audience for the sin of “lacking progress” regardless of how irrelevant and non-existent the romance aspect is in that particular series (e.g. Dagashi Kashi, Komi-san, Nozaki-kun). Aharen-san seemingly comes as an answer to such sentiment. The entire content of the show from its first to its last second is absolutely nothing but a progressing romantic relationship. The caveat is, it's not an anime rom-com kind of progress, but rather a real-life-romance kind of progress, muchto the bafflement and dismay of the rom-com crowd. A guy and a girl meet in a formal setting and strike up a conversation, then they talk some more, then they start hanging out together in their free time. Eventually, they introduce each other to their friends, and then - to their families. Over time, they progress to being a bigger and bigger part of each other’s lives, becoming closer and closer emotionally, until a realization comes that they live rent-free in each other’s heads, so they formally state their feelings to each other and inform their social circle that they are an item. Which isn’t treated as a “mission accomplished” moment like in a typical anime rom-com, the only thing that changes is now they are a tad more open in showing their physical and emotional affection, and also they start considering their long-term future plans with being together in mind. As most people outside of their mom’s basement normally do. This is what Aharen-san portrays. One of the most important aspects of a real committed relationship, by the way, is communication - and the show shines in driving this point home. The full title is “Aharen-san Is Indecipherable,” the fact is, both leads are eccentric “indecipherable” weirdos with a tendency to jump to conclusions. Dozens upon dozens of misunderstandings arise throughout the course of the story - and they all get solved within minutes by talking things out like normal human persons do. Another rarity in the realm of anime romances. Speaking of, the male lead has an outstandingly unique personality, and *his* antics are the main driving force of the series’ plot and comedy, in contrast with a typical rom-com template of a blank straight man reacting to the quirkiness of a female lead. The comedy of the show, as mentioned above, is of the distinctive British sitcom variety. Weird people being weird while other weird people refuse to acknowledge anything weird is going on because they don’t want to make a scene. I can easily imagine seeing Simon Pegg’s and Edgar Wright’s names in the credits. Again, it’s almost the exact opposite of the usual boke-tsukkomi, where exasperated calling out of the weirdness is the whole point. As a source manga reader, I can tell that the adaptation does everything right - streamlines the early parts of the story to give it a more deliberate direction that matches later developments, connects isolated chapters to frame them as a continuous narrative, casts all the right VAs for the roles, goes for a tonally perfect for the intended atmosphere visual/audio design, and ends the season on a right story beat. Also, this show features the second-best dog in all of anime (the best one is Dog from Aho Girl). Also, it makes fidget spinners look cool. 10/10 for an objectively perfect rom-com.

Aharen san is a strange anime, When I talked to my friends many of who have seen more anime than me, half of them really hate this anime, and the other half love this anime. As for me, I personally did enjoy watching this anime, it's nothing new, a semi-slice of life combined with a gag manga type of show full of pop culture references! The anime has more references to other pop culture and JOJO (obviously.) than I have seen in a long time, they are hard to spot but always random and funny af if you can spot them we got Ooshiro spoderman , Aharenhairstyle of Shinobu, Jousuke, Katzosky kicks Aharen, Gojira, Beyblade, Aharen Arale from DB universe and many more! The central part of the show is Straight face / absurd comedy, you know the chunnibyou kind, Raidou has the wildest of fantasies and sometimes they turn out to be true! Aharen and Radiou do some wild shit and/or Radiou has the weirdest and the most insane premonitions. It will either make you cringe hard or do a Mutley laugh, there is no in between, the comedy is very very subjective and if it doesnt click for you, I’d suggest dropping it. Me, personally? I do Laugh out loud at fart sounds so well, I am pretty easy to please. Review time *clap clap* Story (6/10) It's a gag manga, most of the plot is straight-up ripping off the most recent trends xD, Be it Beyblade, Fidget spinners, Rap battles, Demon slayer, JOJO, spiderman, etc. There isn't to find in terms of the story that can be found here and it isn't A CGDCT either. There are hints of romance and a bit of a serious arc towards the end (which wraps up rather quickly and is quite wholesome and realistic). Characters (7/10) Obviously the main part of any gag manga but in This case, it is a hard topic to elaborate on so ill just make it as simple as possible. The characters will either be a 0 to 2 /10 or 8 to 10 /10 depending on the person and their sense of humor, this is very subjective, for me they are quite fun and a 7/10 but if you find yourself not being able to enjoy the characters this show is gonna be a hard sell. Sound and VA (7/10) The general OSt is standard and forgettable. The op and ED are pretty incredible however but the art in them is rather weak. Art and animation (6/10) Standard Loli with standard straight man is what it feels like at first, but there are some good scenes where you can see the animators clearly having fun with their characters. A bit of CG that looks awkward here and there. Give the first few a shot! If you enjoy them it'll be a great ride, if not consider dropping the show because what follows is just more of the same.

*Kan sits down with the male lead to talk about this show* Me: OK, So Raido, tell me what your show is all about. Raido: Domo (Hello), I'm Raido Matsuboshi, and this is the rom-com story (well, mostly SoL chill comedy) about me and my aloof classmate that is Reina Aharen. The things she does can set me overthinking about 1001 scenarios, from something as simple as sleep to even animals, in the most extreme of ways. Examples like: Why is she sleeping in class, did she get a scuffle with the Yakuza at night, only to reach home so late that she couldn't get a wink?Or why is she always ordering her pet dog around, did she develop personalities overnight so that she can be like a blatant master torturing her own servant? Also Raido: Oh, Aharen has a big family to take care of, so much so that she couldn't sleep at home. And she's teaching her pet dog to obey simple commands. I see. Me: Ooh, I see. *Showing the Resting Bitch Face* It's this blatant, unassuming comedy and humour that makes mangaka Asato Mizu's 2nd anime adaptation through Aharen-san wa Hakarenai a.k.a Aharen Is Indecipherable (or Unfathomable, rather) really enjoyable, and for a very good reason. Asato Mizu is not just your typical author as he/she has no less than 15 series to the name, albeit only some that are worth mentioning like the 2014's Doujinshi ●Rec and 2011's manga Denki-gai no Honya-san (which already had an anime adaptation in 2014). If anything, Asato Mizu is the epitome of this quote: "Don't judge a book by its cover", something which've been refined since ●Rec, and it has worked well for this prolific author enough to use this quote as the core workaround of this manga, especially between the characters since this is a character-driven show. Communication Disorder: It's a condition where a person has problems communicating with other people. This person is an example of someone with such a condition. An important thing to remember is: just because the person has problems communicating, doesn't mean that person doesn't want to communicate with others. Wait, wait, wait, CHOTTO MATTE KUDASAI, why in the hell is Komi-san's driven dialogue here in Aharen-san wa Hakarenai??? The reality is very simple: Raido is like Tadano, starting off his first year in high school, but unlike the latter with his averageness that doesn't concern anyone, Raido possesses a naturally unfriendly face (or as the modern day culture calls it: RBF or Resting Bitch Face, which this unironically cracks me up, no shit xD), so much so that its hard to get to know him as a fellow classmate. Reina Aharen, on the other hand, she is similarly like Komi to the fact that she doesn't know how to communicate (initially), but at least she is aware of her surroundings to help Raido understand her intentions, which as I've already mentioned at the beginning of the review: tell Raido 1001 things and he'll still be overthinking about the possible scenarios which frame Aharen as anything and everything but herself. I sometimes wonder if this ongoing gag will get old pretty fast, but nope, Raido is always adapting to the situations that he is in every step of the way with Aharen, that this gag evolved to actual jokes and plays that are just plain ridiculous to watch, sometimes evolving to hilarious scenarios with things that have cemented themselves in pop culture a.k.a the fidget spinner (clearly shown in the ED) and Pokemon GO! (which is period accurate to the manga's release in early 2017). And this redonculous premise is what actually helps Aharen to propel the fact that while "comedy is subjective", it can be fun too, and this show embraced all of that and more, AND I LOVE IT. Shirorin! Not to be outdone, what's the main cast of characters without the supporting characters. And let's start off with Aharen's childhood friend, the inadvertently huge-sized Mitsuki Oshiro who's tall, nervous, a crybaby and has androphobia (fear of men). Despite her nervous nature and with the stalker obsession of protecting Aharen from Raido for fear of contaminating her pure soul (like many other childhood friends do...in anime, that is), Mitsuki's a warm-loving and trustful friend that is able to confide in Aharen when she is down. But I'd say that she works really well on the basis that when Raido and Aharen are doing things together, her stalker senses are up to 100. Yet another childhood friends duo of Ishikawa and Hanako Sato, they haven't been around with the main character cast much, but one could speculate that they would be a couple, or at best a ship anyways. On the topic of Aharen's family however, everyone looked exactly the same as her, so much that the genetics are truly one-of-a-kind. The eldest in the family that is Reina, the youngest brother Ren and the middle sister Eru, everyone in the Aharen family is such a delight, but the one thing in common is not to infuriate the sisters when they have a knife in their hands, they can do harmful things out of jealousy (at least on Eru's case). But, BUT, if there's one set of characters I WOULD LOVE to have more of them, it's gotta be the homeroom teachers, mainly Aharen and Reina's teacher Toubaru "Momo"-sensei and Miyahira-sensei. These pair of teachers can be a subvert comedy gag on their very own, as Tobaru-sensei is even more wilder than Raido by fantasizing countless lovey-dovey delusions between Raido and Aharen in the most esteemed fashion possible, and losing countless heaps of blood from the resistance to wholesomeness. Also, Tobaru-sensei voiced by HanaKana just puts the icing on the cake much more worthwhile to display Death by Esteem. ESTEEMED, ESTEEMDER, ESTEEMDEST! Shirorin! The relatively new director Tomoe Makino only has Spring 2020's Kitsutsuki Tanteidokoro and this year's Netflix ONA Kotarou wa Hitorigurashi a.k.a Kotaro Lives Alone to his name. So, being an inexperienced director, they had to call someone for help, and that person is chief director Yasutaka Yamamoto (famous for 2013's Mondaiji-tachi ga Isekai kara Kuru Sou Desu yo?). He is a very versatile director who's been directing lots of shows that showcased different degrees of genres, and it definitely ain't a surprise that he directed the anime adaptation of the infamous adult visual novel Nekopara at studio Felix Film (which only started producing Nekopara content to begin with years before the 2020 anime). And I'd suppose that if not for Yasutaka Yamamoto, Aharen wouldn't be adapted as great as Asato Mizu's manga made it out to be, and it's an enjoyable feat through and through that's a blast to watch with the chill vibes. Really bright and colourful visuals with soft animation that still punches to the gut, also in a chill way that's easy on the eyes that makes Felix Film's production values really well done, considering that the main producer is the Chinese anime conglomerate licensor Bilibili, which means that this is a Chinese-Japanese production mix. Shirorin! The chill vibes don't stop there, as the music is thoroughly the same as well. TrySail and HaKoniwalily's OP/ED OST is also enjoyable to listen to, as do the peppy BGM that makes Aharen sound like a jokester syndrome prank of a show that's playing with the audience of its gag contraptions. It's lighthearted and doesn't grate on your ears much, while maintaining the subtlety that this is SoL at its best and most calm. Shirorin! It's safe to say that while Aharen-san wa Hakarenai is marketed as a rom-com of all things, it also isn't really one per se, as the comedy is more straight-laced and the SoL vibes are pretty much strewn all over the place to make this a cute and wholesome show. And no doubt that Aharen soothes the soul as you start the weekend to a relaxing gaze, just wanting to watch more seasonal mainstream anime that anyone and everyone can just pick up and watch, and not have anything to complain about. There has been too much action lately, why not try something more chill instead? To that I say: Aharen has got you covered, and this is comedy at its finest. Shirorin!