Oreshura First Impressions--Formula in Pastels

Nothing to write home about, but not so bland to be completely dismissed either.

 
When I watched this episode, at first I failed to notice that the player had skipped to about roughly the halfway point in the show. I was still able to follow the characters and the basic conflict pretty well, and I thought I'd simply been dropped into a show with a cold opening. But when I did check how much time there was left in the episode, at first I was amazed. Twenty minutes had gone by? But it only felt like five! I clicked back to an earlier point to see if this amazing feat of pacing was really true, but of course it wasn't. That should tell you everything you need to know about the quality of Oreshura's plot line. It has very few relevant details stretched out over a normal episode length.

 
That said, I didn't go into this episode expecting something that would knock my socks off. All I wanted was a high school romantic comedy, and that seems to be exactly what we're getting. The OP, featuring two girls that we haven't seen yet, suggest that this will be less love triangle and more harem, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. The story is that Bland Everylead Eita--who, to his credit, does distinguish himself a bit by his ambitions and his backstory, but that still doesn't help his fade-into-the-background character design--hates love, thanks to his parents running off with other people and ditching him. His only goal is to get into a good medical school, so he ignores romance entirely, despite the fact that his childhood friend Chiwa is clearly dropping hints. That changes when beautiful transfer student Natsukawa finds his chuunibyou notebook describing the adventures of his alter ego dragon slayer Fighting Fighter, and uses it to blackmail him into acting as her boyfriend so that people can stop confessing to her. This all takes place in a pastel-colored alternate universe that makes me wonder if my monitor is dying.

 
Easily the most interesting part is their mutual hatred of romance, but aside from that, you can already make a few broad guesses about how this is going to turn out. The childhood friend will feel scorned and try to win him back while the male lead inevitably falls in love with the other girl while some other people show up to complete the harem to provide additional eye-candy. There will probably be a tragic backstory. And some melodrama before everything is reset back to the status quo. The end.


I'm not trying the be disparaging here; I did really enjoy the episode. But even with the details that make it unique, there's nothing to suggest that Oreshura is going to make a big departure from formula. And that's perfectly fine. I happen to like this formula and the changes in detail and character each time it rolls around. The humor was pretty good as well--apparently anime is going through and IRL chuunibyou phase--and Natsukawa is an interesting character so far, to go to such lengths just to get people to leave her alone. But if this is not your cup of tea, it doesn't look like Oreshura will be the one to change your mind. This episode was pretty by-the-book.

Images from Crunchyroll.com.