Love Flops

Ahhh another rom-com type show for me to watch and review… How bad could this show be? Renai Flops sure made my heart flop. Not in a good way… for at least the first 6 episodes. We’ll get to that way later… Before we begin, let me backtrack to the beginning… the very very eye stretching beginning… Renai Flops (at least the first half) is what you get when you put together all the possible rom-com tropes into one show and press copy and paste 1000 times. True Insanity… For example the guy (let’s call him Steve) “falls” down a set of stairs only to “accidentally”pounce on an unexpecting girl walking by. Sound familiar? If you do know what I mean, you know what happens next in the story… Oh and of course there is “accidental” groping in this rom-com and I don’t know where to begin with the other crazy shit that I saw here… So original… And yes this is basically copy and paste for the first couple of episodes. Holy shittt… It really was hot shit with no set storyline. I felt like I was drunk watching the show even though I was sober the entire time. Not good… 🙁 It was almost uncanny sort of bad. Too trash to be true... Like the whole show is supposed to be geared towards Steve, a teenage dude going through that rough patch in his adolescence with his hormones. *wink* *wink*. The first half of the show feels engineered like it's supposed to be a fantasy world to help a certain someone escape reality, a certain someone like Steve… Maybe…. Who knows? Do you know because I dunno. Are we humans living in a simulation? Are anime and manga just a figment of our imagination? Yes… Who knows which question I could be answering above? It could be one of them… all of them… none of them…Thiz werlde iz notslddl;fksd’;f’asdadksdd;’ ddsfdlfllk,rsdlvksedlvkadkvldsk……………………………………………….. *Error…* *Error…* Error…* *Brain Overheating…* *System Rebooting* Sorry about that, I had a mental system error there. Had to restart my brain… Basically that’s how abrupt the plot twist hit me when it occured during the show. I won’t tell ya what happened or when it did but oh boy did it change the tone and really gave the show points for creativity and dedication to the storyline. Still very trippy though. All I can say is that Renai Flops flopped but in a somewhat good way. The show’s slow start and confusing story in the beginning is what turned off the show for many viewers, and I can understand why viewers felt that way. However, real show showed its true colors during the second half, and you MUST watch it all the way through if you decide to pick this one up. The concept of Yin and Yang are everywhere in our world, so you must watch through the painful and bad beginning to enjoy the latter half of this misunderstood title. Balanced. I’m not saying it's great, it’s not even that good either but it ain’t bad for a rom-com show. 5 out of 10 for me. *Disclaimer* I have nothing against any Steve or Steve’s in the real world. Steve was the first name I could think of. Using the MC’s real name is boring… Steve is more relatable imo… Sorry in advance if your name is Steve. Anyways, what are you still doing here… Go watch the show… or not… ok bye… Overall: 5/10

This anime started off as your normal ecchi harem series except it felt rushed and was all over the place. It was almost like they mashed every stereotype of anime wifu together all sloppy like. In fact, I almost dropped it. However, the episode I was about to drop it on everything changed. Suddenly, with out saying too much, things were happening that peaked my interest, and from that point on the show went from sloppy and bad to actually really interesting. While most people would hear that it’s better in the second part and skip the first, there is some important information in thefirst part so I wouldn’t. So while the first few episodes might not be that good, I do recommend you watch them through to the end as the ending of this anime is really good. It’s also the first time in awhile I couldn’t foresee the twist, hook, or ending (although the ending was similar to what I expected).

I'm not mad, just disappointed. I will give it this, this show certainly knows its marketing. First, it introduces itself as so generic and cliche a harem anime that people will actually end up checking it out if the studio is really going to invest an original anime on this. Then halfway through it brings in the plot twist so that a new set of viewers will be released into the wild, grabbing passing people, shaking them and screaming, "Guys don't give up, this changes everything!" But what matters in the end is the entire product. Does this show feel complete in its story and characters, anddoes it succeed in the themes it wants to tackle? I think my score and recommendation should speak for themselves. The first and probably biggest issue with Renai Flops is that unless you are truly a fan of harem rom coms, you will probably drop this anime from the first episode. The show initially promised some wacky harem stuff, filled with all the tropes and cliches imaginable, and that is indeed what you get for six and a half episodes. During that time, we get small individual arcs with the heroines in typical harem fashion. That itself isn't a bad thing; it is a way to appeal the heroines to the viewers, and also build up their love towards the main character. The issue is that the show only invests a single episode per heroine, and wraps up a good chunk of their emotional arc within that episode. This means that we mainly skim over their actual development, and also don't get a deeper picture on what sort of people they are, other than their basic trope. Admittedly, the arcs get more and more bizarre and some of the antics introduced are pretty funny, almost feeling like a parody than anything else. But that only means we don't get enough genuine character study on them or the main character. They are just roles for a harem scenario for those episodes. Now, you might say, "Well this is a harem story after all, it's usually par for the course, so you should set your expectations accordingly." Normally, you'd be correct. But then the show suddenly brings in a twist (come on, let's not pretend that the fact that there's a twist to this show hasn't already been leaked to high heaven) which then turns this show into more of a techno-drama that's much heavier and serious. So now we have a deeper, emotional second half that's built on a tropey, style over substance first half. The emotional bits don't hit as hard as they should because they are based on characters we only got caricature versions of before, and also because the pacing is rushed due to only having about five and a half episodes, most of which is filled with some techno-thriller plot rather than genuine character exploration. It's like trying to build the Eiffel Tower on a bed of key lime pies. You ruin the pies and also fail to set up the tower properly. It's really a shame. I feel if the tone and characters were better handled, or if it had more episodes for better pacing and fleshing out its arcs, we could have had a clever subversion of harem stories, and also a thoughtful exploration of technology and loss. As it is, both its harem bits and its dramatic bits feel artificial. How ironic.

Renai Flops / Love Flops is an interesting take on the Harem genre and in a way the Isekai genre (Like Sword Art Online did when it debuted). Some will love it and some will hate it (Like Sword Art Online) I could go into detail, but that would involve spoilers. So I'll leave you with two clues: What is a FLOP? (In computing, floating point operations per second (FLOPS, flops or flop/s) is a measure of computer performance, useful in fields of scientific computations that require floating-point calculations. For such cases, it is a more accurate measure than measuring instructions per second.) What is the Singularity? (In computing,it is the theoretical point in which a human soul can be digitized, stored, and allowed to function as an independent artificial intelligence with the ability to create new memories and change itself)