There's No Freaking Way I'll be Your Lover! Unless...

When I first started this show, I was actually really into it. I thought Mai was a really engaging love interest and it was going to have a lot to say about boundaries and two dummies who've never really been in love figuring out how to be in a relationship together. ...And then the Satsuki arc happened. I don't think I've ever been this disappointed that a show was a harem (or poly or whatever, quite frankly, the distinction doesn't really matter to me in this case). The inherent problem with a harem is that you then have to write that many more engaging love interests. A monoshow? You have to write one good love interest. Harem? If they aren't all interesting, you either have an undercooked character you just kinda slide under the carpet or a dud swallowing up airtime that could've been used on one of the more interesting partners. Watanare has both. To be fair to Watanare, it's actually getting a sort of sequel/second cour/whatever that features the last girl (at least for now because who fucking knows now that they've broken the door open) but Kaho does not do jack, diddly, or shit this season. How are the other love interests? I think the problem is that they set up the one character I actually like as a joke or antagonist. >"Oh, I'm the great Mai Ouzuka, nothing will go wrong-" >*Renako starts grinding on the nearest girl in sight* Satsuki actively uses Renako as a baseball bat to emotionally traumatize Mai in a way that makes me just want her gone. I actively dislike Satsuki for how she treats Mai in this show. She's supposed to be the "cool beauty" of the show but the problem is that's Mai. Ajisai and even Kaho have their own niches but Satsuki never really stuck out to me except in the worst possible ways. Ajisai is... better, I guess, but she's kinda bland. She's just your industrial-grade cinnamon roll where even her crashouts are cute and sweet and pure. I guess she wasn't bad but she didn't inspire me to want any more screen time with her either. Renako, the MC, feels like if you took the introversion/social awkwardness of Bocchi, the inexplicable charisma of a harem MC, and apparently the sluttiness of Makoto Itou and put them in a blender. This show has one good love interest and chooses to clickbait you into thinking you're getting a show about her and the MC before tossing her out for the most part while they build the other characters and it just didn't work for me. For my more enthusiastic himefriends out there, maybe seeing a poly yuri is more impressive to you, maybe if you knew that's what you were going into, you'd have a better time, but not only did that actively kind of spoil the show for me, the post-Mai love interests aren't even all that interesting. Even after getting 2 arcs to explore 2 of the others, I still only want to see Mai x Renako. When the show is that? Great show, I'm here for it. When it's any other pairing, could not care less. I've definitely seen worse but proceed with caution.

WATCH THIS ANIME, it is a masterpiece. Especially if you are a fan of the yuri genre... you can think of this as kinda like I'm in Love with the Villainess (except this time the blonde girl starts off as the skirt chaser). 10/10 Animation 10/10 Audio and voice acting 10/10 Characters (And the intro is super catchy too) It is the greatest yuri anime of all time and I am CONFIDENT in saying that, it drew me in about 4 episodes into airing and for the first time in my life I watched every episode as it came out, looking forward to them all. This should tell you justhow good this anime is and just how well it pulled off what it was aiming for. Several other reviewers on this site and outside of it have given this show a less than stellar or even negative review particularly talking about Mai's pushiness but if anything it feel like the show would crumble if she wasn't. There's No Freaking Way I'll Be Your Lover! Unless... succeeds where other popular yuri shows don't, because of its main cast being just 4 girls it has time to flesh every main character out (well maybe not every character, sorry Kaho) and it does extremely well pacing it. Of course you will get common anime tropes like the tall black-hair quiet girl who cant really express herself, the rich blonde girl, the protagonist who used to have social problems but is trying to become more social and even some common yuri tropes too, however they all come off as endearing. Oh yeah gotta praise that animation \[T]/. After coming off of Whisper Me a Love Song (no shade to it, still a really really good show) the animation startled me with how good it was, seriously just look up the intro, the animation is FLUID and so so expressive. The sound design is no slouch too, super good audio that sets the mood perfectly for each scene. It's really rare for a yuri to get such a high quality adaptation, usually the adaptation is lacking in some area but not this anime. Regardless that's enough gushing, GIVE THIS ANIME A SHOT!

A harem anime with a surprisingly unique twist: it's yuri. Unfortunately, the main love interest, whom the entire plot revolves around, absolutely fucking sucks. She's a millionaire (/billionaire, i don't think it's explicitly said how rich she is, but money is absolutely not a problem for her) nepo baby completely out of touch with reality who has no concept of boundaries and is set on making everything about herself, even in the one arc that isn't about her she comes out of the blue to crash the party. Looking back, Mai reminds me a lot of Jinshi from The Apothecary Diaries, with how she has moremoney than god, keeps forcing herself onto the MC, and I feel a constant sense of dread at the thought that she will almost inevitably end up dating Renako by the end of the series. However, I think I dislike her slightly more because she represents a more modern archetype of real-life person. that said, if you can get past her it's a really good series.

The harem yuri that isn't harem One great thing in anime is when there's a confession in the first chapters, and this is one of those animes. I actually expected some kind of harem, but this goes beyond. The rich girl falls in love to the shy main girl, but she only wants friendship, then the serious girl also falls in love, and then... But, as absurd it may sound at first, the story takes it seriously, is funny, yes, but not a parody like Kimi no koto ga dai5x... and it's not the MC power. Renako just want friends but is that attitude the reasonshe becomes the center of the "harem". The animation is great, but there are some moments when the novel source shows up, long dialogs and monologs which are not a bad thing, but this is not Monogatari, the chibi pictures are not enough to translate a light novel into animation. Great story, and the final chapter is great, luckily, they announced a next part. Polyamory is the answer.