I Don't Dream of Bunny Girl-senpai (I have nightmares about it) - Mai Rabbit Arc

Part 3: Romance and Pacing

I had originally written like 3 pages about how much I hated the romantic development of the main characters, but the more I thought about it the more I thought that I was being too hard on it. I went back and rewatched the confession scene, and I think it’s a bit better than I had remembered it being from the first viewing. While I really dislike Sakuta and his interactions with Mai, I think their romance is passable. It could be much much better, especially with the narrative given, but it’s not as insufferable as I had originally tried to criticize it as being. It’s just my dislike of the characters that really detract from fully appreciating it.

The romantic narrative here is pretty good I think. Even in my original iteration of this “chapter” I praised it. It could just be executed a whole lot better. I like this idea of Mai and Sakuta maybe starting out with the relationship they maintain through the first three episodes briefly, interspersed with more sincere and romantic moments, Sakuta growing to forget Mai and being aware of it (which granted does happen in the show, but I think it could be handled better). They are desperate to figure something out, and it’s this period of struggle that really draws them together, Sakuta realizes his feelings for Mai before forgetting her. They have a genuine, romantic moment with each other and maybe confess their love. Then the next day, Sakuta has forgotten about her entirely. Have Mai actually in the picture trying to interact with him and show the emotional and psychological trauma she goes through in having her true love and last contact with the real world forget her. Maybe have her do something on her end to help him remember her, or try to solve the main narrative herself. Then do that confession scene, it would have a lot more punch. Not only would it be the big symbolic gesture that it is already, but it would also be genuinely cathartic as Sakuta is already in love with her and his remembrance makes the scene that much more powerful. There’s a good story in here, both in Mai’s struggles and Mai and Sakuta as a couple.

The biggest problem is that this narrative is just not given enough time to be fleshed out fully. Like, in any other of these “thinking man’s harem” shows, there is a clear romantic plotline between the lead male and lead girl that progresses throughout the show. For the majority of the storyline the idea of romance is entertained, but not really acted on. It’s important to note that both the male and female protagonists are probably not fully aware of their own emotions or how to handle romance, especially with each other. It’s a thing that takes time, these characters are usually head smart but not emotionally smart, and it’s their development over the course of the series that makes them finally being together more fulfilling.

I do fully expect Sakuta and Mai to continue to have romantic development as the show continues, Mai has that whole bit about “telling her he loves her in a month” and the show recognizes that the whole confession scene is exactly what it is...a kind of brainless, hot-blooded act of passion that shouldn’t be taken too entirely seriously, and I commend it for that. I can’t help but still feel it’s a little dumb though. Like, there just hasn’t been enough time for me to come to care about these characters’ romantic development this far to find the actual confession really powerful, however much its purpose is to help the school recognize Mai or for Sakuta to exclaim his true feelings aside.

Like, everything leading up to this point has been Mai occasionally showing her true feelings for Sakuta and him not really batting an eye at them, or them talking about fucking in that tongue-in-cheek manner they do so much. While I don’t doubt that there’s an attraction between them, I also don’t really view it as anything more than that to warrant the payoff of the confession scene. It feels like just the beginning of their relationship, and that confession scene is what needs to come at the very end of the show, not three episodes in.

I did find the mechanic of Sakuta forgetting Mai genuinely compelling. But...it’s just not executed as well as it could be. Like, Sakuta goes maybe 5 minutes without her in his memory? And then it’s just randomly triggered by something from the night before. It’s nowhere near enough time to make me actually care. Like, he goes to school half the day and remembers. I like this concept of human relations being so fragile and how that concept takes a toll on the romance (i.e. go watch Ef A Tale of Memories). It’s a neat little thing, but they just didn’t go all the way with it.

So I guess I’ll keep this part short. I guess the romance is the strongest part of this show. While the execution is far away from being perfect and I don’t really care enough for the characters involved in the first place, but there are definitely some cool ideas and bigger concepts in play here that I think are worth something, even if it’s just me imagining them in the context of a better show. I’m feeling a 5/10 on the romance, that’s a passing score for me at least.

So let’s move on to the most annoying part of the show that is really the main focus of my dislike for it...

Part 4: Your Mechanics Are Terrible and You’re Not As Smart As You Think

Okay, so the characters in this show suck, and the dialogue is shitty, snarky bits of comedy that does nothing to flesh them out to the extent this level of narrative requires. But I did say that Mai’s backstory was interesting right? There’s definitely the seeds of a somewhat interesting story here, I think if her story was implemented into a less obnoxious context it would be enjoyable. So surely they get at least exploring the supernatural elements of Mai’s existence correct, right? No. The mechanics of this show are cobbled together and fucking broken. It’s like the creator had this idea for a character arc but didn’t pay enough attention to the details to make it seem anywhere close to realistic if you think about it for more than half a second. And even worse than just letting this bad worldbuilding go unnoticed, they try to explain it but make themselves seem like even bigger asshats in the process.

So to go off on a bit of a tangent, these kinds of episodic supernatural occult detective shows are not uncommon. Mushishi, Natsume Yuujinchou, and Bakemonogatari (which of course I reference frequently) are all great examples of this kind of show done right. While all of these shows do involve supernatural occurrences that are not at all commonplace in their worlds and would cause any outsider in that world to freak the fuck out if they noticed, they also have clever ways to present these occurrences in a way that makes them feel real, or at least sensible in the realm they inhabit.

Mushishi portrays the existence of mushi as some foreign concept most of the bumpkins Ginko visits don’t understand (and most can’t even see them in the first place). It has this weird, mythical tone to it where the people view the spirits as things of legend, very old time-y. A central theme of Natsume Yuujinchou is the fact that Natsume is constantly trying to hide the fact he can see spirits from his friends and family, and how his interactions with the youkai world affect his interactions in the real world. Monogatari is unlike these other two because instead of making the supernatural happenings’ effect on unknowing people apparent, it abstracts everything to the point where it’s not even a problem—the only characters we see are those who are “in” on what’s happening, there are no outsiders. I have a hard time believing that Senjougahara made it so long without people realizing she weighed only 15 pounds, but at the end of the day that doesn’t pose much of a problem. Monogatari is focused on drama and character interactions, and their afflictions are more symbolic of these problems than anything. Doing away with unnecessary attention from outsiders feels natural in the way the show handles its atmosphere and theming, most of this stuff is broken if you think about it, but at least they provide a way for there not to be a world around to exploit that fact (if that makes any since—Monogatari indulges in artistry, realism is moot). I guess these comments on supernatural affliction representing past trauma of the main characters can also be applied to the characters in Bunny Girl, but let’s talk about the ways that despite the fact that it tries so desperately to be Monogatari, Bunny Girl fails as an occult detective show even in this sense.

Well, first of all, as one would expect of a “thinking man’s harem show”, Bunny Girl takes place in the very real human world. There’s no sense of abstraction as in Monogatari, so everything that happens just comes across as...really fucking dumb. Like, the point I realized this is the scene where they’re in the grocery store. Sakuta asks Mai about the details of her condition and how she interacts with the real world. This is the scene that’s supposed to act as a “reality check” of sorts, there are a lot of questions involving Mai’s invisibility that of course a show as “smart” as this one would go out of its way to answer. But the way this exposition scene is handled is so awful that it raises even more questions than what I would have gone in with.

“Oh when I hold things they disappear I guess” she says as she grabs a carrot from a shelf directly in the line of sight of other people in a supermarket...are they not going to notice that it just disappeared into thin air and teleported into the grocery cart? Or maybe if she just took it without anyone noticing, why hasn’t she taken advantage of that fact yet? She goes on about not being able to get food for herself, if she’s able to completely unnoticeably take it, why doesn’t she find a way to do that and pay the store back somehow. I mean, that’s what I’d do, at least, Mai seems like a pretty shrewd individual. Are there any boundaries for when the thing disappears in the first place? If she were to accidentally rest her hand on the grocery cart would the whole thing disappear (that would be super noticeable if so)? If she started pushing it, would it be completely gone like the carrot or would it just move on its own? Why do only the things she holds disappear, not the ones she interacts with?

There’s plenty of shit she’s touched up to this point right? Wasn’t she like lounging on tables and stuff in her first scene? Why didn’t those turn invisible? Is it just that she has to be physically holding it for it to disappear? At what point is something qualified to disappear, like if she turned a page of a book would that float or would the whole book disappear? She can touch humans and they not disappear, but will their clothes disappear if she touches those? Or will just an indent appear on Sakuta’s jacket sleeve when she grabs it? At that rate, why would the things she picks up disappear in the first place!?

I guess all of this can be ignored if we just view it through Sakuta’s eyes as the only one who can see her, but it’s such an unnecessarily complicated element to add to the story, why even bother? Like, it’s easier to just explain away a floating carrot or not even take the time to acknowledge that point altogether, just let it be accepted as a part of the narrative and move on. More on that later.

Or alternatively acceptable is that the whole existence of Mai’s invisibility is purely metaphorical and representative of people just not recognizing her, Puberty Syndrome stemming from the inside and only someone as free-thinking as Sakuta is able to recognize that. If that is the case, then they do a shit job of presenting this idea, there’s no level of abstraction or fantasy that makes that seem viable. It seems very cut and dry that Mai is just invisible. I don’t think this is what they’re going for, but I’d accept it as an alternative with proper presentation.

But anyway, that still doesn’t explain the fact that Sakuta was basically interacting with a person directly in front of him that no one else in the store could see and no one even notices the fact that he’s talking crazy shit about turning things invisible and flirting with thin air? That one guy with the glasses was there from the very beginning of the scene and didn’t pay him even the slightest of mind despite the fact that he was right next to him the whole time he was talking to Mai. But of course, he did finally notice something was off after Sakuta anime gasped after Mai grabbed his arm just for the sake of a comedy bit. Which is fucking dumb. You’re not going to tell me this guy has an anime overreaction to only one thing the whole time this numbskull is talking to himself for 3 minutes straight.

Okay, so at this point you’re probably thinking that I’m being overly pedantic and nitpicky. I stood up for this kind of thing in Monogatari and Natsume, why am I bashing it here? Well there are several reasons. For one, this show has a terribly, terribly pretentious attitude about it. Like it’s so smart that it just needs an exposition scene to address these questions that are better left untouched. Which isn’t a bad thing on its own, I think having logic introduced into a fantastical story is a nice touch. When the logic actually makes sense. Look, if this show is going to take the time to smugly explain itself, I at least expect it to know what it’s doing.

Like, do you know what make this exposition scene better...just do it in a private area. Let Mai tell Sakuta shit with no one around so he doesn’t seem like a headcase in front of random strangers and shit’s not disappearing all over the place. That’s all you have to do. Let Sakuta have enough sense to not act like an idiot in public. The touching and making items disappear would still be stupid, but it’s at least a little less idiotic in its explanation. I known I’m kind of just overanalyzing one scene...but this one scene is fundamental to understanding how Mai’s condition works. And it’s not like I’m racking my brain for things to nitpick, these are all genuine questions that should immediately come up within a moment’s thought of the implications of the system.

Or alternatively, don’t even bother explaining the mechanics of the thing. When you take the time to explain a basic concept, at least make an effort for your explanation seem thought out. If Bunny Girl had completely eliminated this scene even, I would not feel as much disgust towards it. Like, just let the thing happen, it’s fine, it’s a work of fiction, dumb abstraction can exist, just don’t make yourself seem like an idiot because you need to explain how everything works to the viewer when you don’t even understand how everything works yourself. Of course there’s no mech that can exist as the size of the universe and throw galaxies around, but that scene is still fucking awesome in Gurren Lagann. Materialization shiratori is fucking stupid and broken, and that episode of No Game No Life is one of my favorite episodes of anime. Natsume rides around on Madara through the sky all the time in Natsume Yuujinchou, do people just see a boy floating through the sky? Listen, all anime is full of dumb shit that doesn’t make sense, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s a cartoon. Just don’t insult my intelligence by talking down to me by trying to present shitty mechanics in any form of meaningful way. It just makes you look like an idiot.

(granted, the tone of this show is one that seeks realism more than Gurren Lagann or NGNL, but I still wouldn’t put it on a different level from Natsume. Also I hope this whole rant about talking out your ass trying to explain shit you don’t understand yourself doesn’t come back to bite me haha. Well, let me address now that for a lot of these three episodes I was borderline comatose, I’m sure there’s plenty of details I missed. I’m at least 88% confident about my writing here, but wouldn’t be surprised if there was a major detail I somehow missed. Just as a disclaimer. But hey, if this show weren’t so boring I wouldn’t have to worry about not paying attention in the first place :X)

(also there’s so many questions I have regarding the way this arc ends...Why does Sakuta only remember Mai after seeing the one vague detail from the previous night? And then everyone else remembers her collectively after his confession scene? I know his confession of love was enough to “ingrain her in their brains” or whatever, but it still doesn’t feel like much of a resolution. Why does the one kanji symbol trigger his memory and the letter he wrote to himself about her not. Why does hearing the name Mai Sakurajima fall on deaf ears, but the symbol doesn’t, especially when just hearing some yelling idiot yell the name Mai Sakurajima bring the memory of her back to everyone else in his class, when he had such a deeper, longer connection to her than anyone else there. I guess this is the kind of dumb shit that doesn’t need to be explained, but I mean...it’s still dumb when your story that has been based in logic to this point resolves so illogically. Once you introduce a need for realism into explaining everything, you can’t just fizzle out with hand-waving stuff)

Part 4: Continued
So anyway. Off the topic of the mechanics of this world and onto the unnecessary philosophy. As if the annoyingly apathetic and trying too hard to be relatable main character wasn’t an immediate give away about this show’s obnoxious pretentiousness, episode 2 was sure to rub it in by discussing S̴͚͓̈c̶̲̰̭̉̀̕h̷͕̔͌r̶͈͚͐ỏ̷͖͝d̷̝̝̎i̵̧͙͂̀n̵̪̬̩͛̐̄g̶̨͑e̵̛̜̋͐ͅr̸͈̕'̸̪͈͈̾̆ṡ̸͚ ̵̤̇̔̀C̶̜̟̄̏a̴̲̾̏t̷͎̙̯͆̏̚ in the opening dialogue. Wow, you know what’s a really complicated concept that I’m not sure our main boy Sakuta can understand? ...Literally what the entire first episode set out to explain and I’m pretty sure anyone over the age of 9 could understand. The concept of Mai disappearing as a manifestation of Puberty Syndrome due to the effect of no longer being in the limelight is not a hard one to grasp. But yes, please, bring in the idea of a classic thought experiment with no bearing on clarifying this concept any further and only making things more complicated for absolutely no reason except to make the viewer feel smart for saying “oh Schrodinger’s Cat I know what that is!”.

Like...again, this show goes out of its way to act smart but only overcomplicates things by trying to do so. Okay, so the moral to take out of this Schrodinger’s Cat scenario is that something is both dead and alive until its “existence is verified”. So let’s dissect this. First of all...okay, the way they interpret the thought experiment in general is completely stupid. The Schrodinger’s cat scenario implies that there is a moment that the cat is both alive and dead until you open the box and then the result is that it is either dead or alive (which I guess is “verifying its existence” but in a different context that they’re not intending). It’s the period of unknowingness that creates the paradox, it is not a constant. So if the writer actually finished the end result of this analogy and applied that to Mai’s scenario, then does that imply that if Mai did return to acting to have her “existence verified” by the eyes that were once on her there’s still a chance that she would not regain being able to be seen and remembered? That once her “existence is verified” there’s still a chance that she could be metaphorically “dead”?

I mean, that would be a cool touch to add to this show actually if it was implemented correctly, have Sakuta and Mai actually be concerned if the return to acting thing would work in her regaining her visibility. And then once they get her back into the modeling game, it actually fails (because they “open the box” and “find the cat dead”, i.e. the need for being in the public eye is no longer in Mai’s heart and there’s something else missing that she needs to become visible, maybe a healthy family relationship or something) and they have to come to approach her invisibility from another angle? (but I mean it’s pretty clear that’s not even a possibility from the get go, the trajectory of her arc is pretty linear).

(okay here’s another genuine question I have because I feel like it’s something I could comment on, but feel like it’s such a glaring detail they must’ve addressed it in the show...how is Mai even going to return to modeling if people can’t see her? Is just seeing her on TV or on a sign enough to bring her back into existence? If it’s gotten to the point where so much of the area can’t see her, then if she goes to a modeling agency are they even going to see her to tell her what to do or get pictures of her to use for the modeling? Is this a thing they actually address, I don’t know)

So, Bunny Girl staff, if you are so insistent on inserting unnecessary philosophy into your narrative to overcomplicate a simple idea, allow me to offer you an alternative thought experiment that actually makes sense to the topic you’re discussing. What can I say, I passed Philosophy 101. What I have linked here is the classic scenario, if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it does it make a sound? Which is kinda similar to Schrodinger’s cat, it’s still discussing the topic of “unperceived existence”, which is the primary theme that the implementation of any philosophical concept here is looking to address. Schrodinger’s cat is tangentially related to this of course, but there’s that double ended conclusion to the thought experiment that the show pays no mind to even mention for some reason. The whole purpose of this thought experiment is to sell the idea that if something happens unobserved does that thing actually happen? It’s not a matter of any sort of momentary duality with double ended results like Schrodinger’s cat, but simply about verifying the existence of a thing by being there to witness it.

There’s no “opening of the box” here to see if Mai’s return to acting will see her successfully return to being a visible human, it’s simply saying that Mai can return to her former self if people recognize her existence. She has a need for people to pay attention to her. She is the tree in the forest, and if there’s no one around to hear her falling...does she even exist? She needs those ears on her to verify that she does indeed make a sound.

But nah fuck it quantum mechanics and Schrodinger’s cat are cool, let’s do that instead.

I mean, I guess I do see where they’re coming from with this analogy, she’s “alive” to some people but “dead” to others (or something??), but that still doesn’t resolve the ultimate outcome of this thought experiment which they leave unaddressed...the tree falling thing is a much better analogy. Or, you know, letting the events of the show speak for themselves rather than inserting pointless philosophy into the script delivered by an unnecessary and drab scientist character in the first place. But hey I just inserted unnecessary basic philosophy into this obnoxiously long anime review, and I’m also unnecessary and drab, so I can’t complain too much.

Ah hey, that brings up yet another gripe I have with this show! The concept of “showing not saying” is pretty basic, and almost annoyingly cliché when it comes to critiquing visual media. But I’m discussing it anyway. Because this show is cough smart and should know that the best way to effectively sell an emotional narrative involving supernatural happenings would be through not discussing that symbolic supernatural event itself, but instead seeing the interactions between the characters, learning their backstories, and leading the viewer to draw themselves to the conclusion as to how this supernatural event relates back to those experiences. But I mean, I guess Monogatari does that pretty well (along with having an actually dynamic, memorable visual style to pull that off effectively) and we’re basically ripping off Monogatari soooo yeah just lay all that shit out there, we gotta set ourselves apart somehow. Just talk about Schrodinger’s cat or something, so people really get the idea. Get it, Mai’s invisible because she left acting and people are forgetting her. Find 100 different ways to hammer that idea in through annoying, snarky dialogue. There’s absolutely no subtlety to it or room for me to draw my own conclusions about Mai and how her Puberty Syndrome represents her character, it’s all explained in the most basic, plain dialog imaginable so you don’t have to think too hard.

And while maybe the mechanics of the supernatural elements of this show don’t make sense, its decision to use basic thought experiments to over-explain simple concepts, and the unsubtle dialog-heavy exposition may all seem like unrelated criticisms, they all point to the one major problem I have with this show—it acts way smarter than it is. Look, go to my favorite anime list, I love talky, pretentious shows that make people think you’re an anime snob. It’s not something I dislike in concept. But the reason I like something like say Serial Experiments Lain is that what’s at its core is so interesting and unique and forward-thinking, and the way it presents these ideas are so one-of-a-kind and unforgettable. It allows me to take in everything and figure out what’s going on, and there’s a lot going on. From the way this show hypes up philosophy and rips off Monogatari and has such intellectual, too cool for school characters, it has this really annoying atmosphere of having some level of depth, when there is absolutely none. The only sense of theming at all comes from Mai’s backstory, and, again, it’s so cut and dry there’s not even anything to sink into. If this show presented itself as a dumb fun romcom I wouldn’t have a problem, but the way it always feels the need to “talk up” to the viewer and act smart when there’s so little going on really pisses me off. All talk with no substance is just boring, and if you’re not going to bite on the dialog between Mai and Sakuta there’s nothing to grab onto here.

Part 5: Visuals and Technical Stuff

And well, that’s enough about the philosophy and prevailing attitude of being smarter than you that this show has going on (for now). Let’s move on to talking about the more corporeal elements of this show, the aesthetics. This show looks passable. It...doesn’t look amazing or anything, but I’ve seen worse looking stuff. I’m watching and enjoying worse looking stuff. That’s fine, it’s what’s inside that counts (it’s just what’s inside this thing is garbage). The backgrounds are bland and lack any flavor, but they don’t look low quality. The character designs are literally ripped from an Oregairu artbook, but I like Oregairu character designs so that’s fine to some extent (is it really that hard to not be such a deliberate ripoff though) I hate the color palette, it’s as dull and boring as the characters, just all grays and light browns to the most part. Also, you’d think with this kind of narrative there’d be some kind of level of cool direction or interesting visual style or...anything. There’s absolutely none, it’s shot as flatly as you could imagine. Like, a lot of the problems I have with this show also apply to Hyouka, but at least that show visualizes the long bits of dialog with cool animations and weird direction, I appreciate that. This is just...characters standing beside each other and talking. Like, seriously, how anyone can watch two flat characters mumbling annoying dialog to each other with absolutely nothing going on onscreen and enjoy it is beyond me. Seriously, how do you guys make it through this shit.

The soundtrack is definitely “recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program, or video game”. It’s unexceptional. But it’s not awful. So that’s more than can be said about most of this show I guess. The voice acting is unexceptional. Again, I generally like Kaito Ishikawa, but this is one of the most lifeless, passionless voice acting roles I’ve heard. I guess it suits the character, but...seriously, does he have to talk in a boring monotone voice 100% of the time (unless he’s yelling at the school). The content is boring enough, don’t make the main character so sleepy as well. I don’t even remember what Mai sounds like, Asami Seto doesn't really stand out in my mind in any of the roles I've heard her in. The other characters don’t matter in the first arc. Except scientist, but she’s even more boring than Sakuta somehow.

Part 6: Final Thoughts

Alright, let’s wrap this shit up. Bunny Girl aims to be a smart, quick-witted, romantic comedy with a supernatural occult detective element, investigating the drama of the various characters in the protagonist’s “harem” while also maintaining a level of maturity and intelligence so that a more adult audience can easily get attracted to it and feel some level of self-insertion into the main character’s shoes. And here’s the thing about this show, despite failing miserably at the more content-focused details, it succeeds super well at the demographic-focused details and is able to veil the terrible content well enough to keep it acceptable. And that’s why I think it’s getting such good reviews.

Look, a lot of people like this show. It’s one of those shows that gets good reviews from the “Reddit community”, it’s like an Oregairu or a Monogatari (as is evident by how hard it rips both of these off). It has all of the broad details that makes one of those shows successful down to an art. It has a protagonist with the cynical, apathetic traits from Hachiman and the elaborate, dramatic backstories and arcs of Monogatari. All of the elements are there, this is the kind of show that sells. But is any of it actually used or implemented or written well? I wouldn’t say so.

The characters and dialog are poorly written and achieve nothing, the romance is underdeveloped, it’s visually unimpressive, the plot is utterly stupid in its attempt to explain itself, it’s trying to be every other “adult harem show” that’s come before it...how is this anything that makes itself out to be good? Because this show acts smart and like it knows what it’s doing. It is so similar to the shows you love that you still get that feeling that you do from watching Monogatari or something, but it does absolutely nothing to elaborate on anything from that basic concept. It’s like the skeletal outline of a greater show that just no one cared enough to flesh out. There’s a basic level of “what sells” and “what’s entertaining” and that’s what this show seeks to achieve, and it does achieve it with an added attitude of being something so much more. But what lies beneath the surface is so bad in its fundamentals that it shouldn’t be rewarded for being like 100 shows that came before it.

It feels like a robot who took in all the details of these aforementioned popular mature harem shows and was able to artificially conjure up its own anime without any human touch or attention to detail. And yet, all the things you like in your anime are there down to a tee, the idea is unique enough, the characters are archetypal enough to be likable and relatable if that’s your thing, the dialog’s what you’ve come to expect, the plot progression is what you’ve come to expect...it’s all there, but none of it is really all that well done. At its very best it’s derivative, at its worst it’s terrible.

There is so much text I only had the patience to skim through but the biggest problems is that the show pretends to be smarter than it is and Sakuta is a dick?

I think the level of pretentiousness is whatever you take away from it. It's not stuffing philosophy and science in your face nor is it the biggest focus of the show. At least from what I've seen, the main focus is on the relationship between Sakuta and Mai. Your concerns about its plausibility might bother you but I'm not sure if most of the audience really care about that considering the romance is the main component. No one expects the adolescence syndrome to be as fleshed out as Mushishi.

And Sakuta's character is the comedy part of the romantic comedy. Again, it just seems that you personally dislike dry, sharp humor. A lot of his jokes fall flat with me too, but again, it's not the focus of the show. He's a dick and it's supposed to be funny. I don't understand how that's any worse than Toradora or any other romcom with a protagonist that would be shitty in real life.

This show is not meant to be a deconstruction of the harem genre or some brilliant, philosophical analysis on teenager psyche. You're going too deep about this show. You might think it's super pretentious and that it pretends to be deep but understanding of the show is pretty surface level. The reason you seem to hate it is the sharp, dry dialogue. And the way it presents that dialogue is (I admit) pretty contrived. Who in the world would ever banter like Sakuta and Mai? How does Sakuta seem so effortlessly cool? And obviously, if you hate that, it's going to be glaring in a show like this. But honestly, at the end of the day, it's a work of fiction. The expectation of it to be realistic and less obnoxious might seem like a huge problem to you but it's just a romance show. The comedy and supernatural aspects are on the side. There's nothing wrong with that. I personally think you're taking the pretentiousness thing too seriously. It doesn't seem to pride itself on philosophy at all; at most it prides itself on the dialogue. And yeah, that can come off as obnoxious but I think that part is more personal preference.

Obviously though, I can see why it would be irritating and the romance is underdeveloped so far because of the speed in which the arcs are getting completed.

But all the writing just sounds like you hated the dialogue and then made up everything else to say why the show is unoriginal and boring. Maybe you hate the art, sound, and animation but they seem about on par with most anime coming out today. Really though, all this writing just boils down to the fact that you find the show obnoxious. I can't say I agree but I can see why. Beyond the dialogue though, it just sounds like you hate on it for the sake of hating on it. It's not supposed to be realistic, it doesn't have to be the pinnacle of comedy, and it's definitely not as deep as you think it is. I don't see why this show in particular deserves the hate compared to all the other anime that suffer from similar problems.

You make a few good points, though I disagree with your conclusion. The pseudo science is definitely annoying, writers really need to stop using quantum mechanics to explain everything.

I can also agree with your opinion on the romance thread of the first 3 episodes, but it's important to keep in mind that unlike Monogatari, where Senjougahara is rarely present, Sakurajima has continued to play a leading role in the next 4 episodes that have aired so far. As you stated, the confession was a beginning, though I don't believe the placement of it is a problem. From there, their relationship develops. The next arc in particular demonstrates the strength of their relationship, and really sets itself apart from relationships in the other shows you mentioned.

In your complaints about the mechanics of Adolescence Syndrome, you appear to make no effort to understand the philosophical underpinnings of this anime. Like Monogatari, the supernatural world is bound by a set of loose rules. In Monogatari, generally Aberrations are attracted to people with some kind of mental turmoil. Hanekawa attracts the cat due to her extreme buildup of stress, Kanbaru's mostly subconscious desire to get ahead through any means allows the Rainy Devil to take her arm. Similarly, in SeiButa, the social "atmosphere" is the cause of supernatural afflictions. With this in mind, many of the issues you had can be explained away with a minimum of suspension of disbelief. In particular, you pay too much attention to the behavior of the invisibility. It's not invisibility in the traditional sense, but described well as a Someone Else's Problem field. It's not that Mai is truly invisible, simply that she has faded so far out of the minds of those around her that they can't notice her at all. Therefore, no one would notice a carrot disappearing in mid air, because they refuse to acknowledge the very cause of the disappearance. The atmosphere is the socially acceptable set of behavior and facts, which as Sakuta mentions, few are willing to oppose. In SeiButa, it's presented as a powerful force, which can cause disaster to those who get on the wrong side of it, as in the cyber bullying of Kaede. However, the tide of public opinion is fickle, and can be turned easily with the right push. On the baseball field, Sakuta uses his self-inflicted public humiliation to grab the attention of the school's populace, and is then able to use the temporary spotlight to make Mai's existence once more part of the "atmosphere". No one is going to soon forget his actions, which means that the existence of Mai must be implicitly acknowledged.

I can see why you don't like the dialogue of this show, though personally I find it quite amusing. I'd place Sakuta firmly in the Oregairu camp as opposed to Monogatari, as he more closely fits the self-honesty of Hachiman (whereas Araragi takes "unreliable narrator" to high levels, lying to the viewer, those he converses with, and most of all, himself). The least abstracted layer of dialogue may be a closer match to Araragi, but when looking closer, the two characters are very far apart. Of course in any show like this, the dialogue requires a fair level of suspension of disbelief. As with Monogatari's sheer density of puns and jokes that require the cooperation of both parties to pull off, the dialogue in this show is far from realistic. But I argue that's not a bad thing. This genre thrives on the witty interactions between characters, transcending what would plausibly happen in conversation in the real world. If you want realistic dialogue, SSSS.Gridman is a much better choice, if you want to watch a rapid exchange of one-liners, SeiButa takes the lead this season. I also don't see Sakuta being as flat as you claim, though that's from the perspective of someone who has watched the next 4 episodes as well.

As an note, while I don't fully subscribe to this view, some have explained the nonsense quantum mechanics as the ramblings of a high schooler who thinks too highly of her own knowledge. This is definitely not the expert opinion of an experienced mentor, in the vein of Oshino Meme, but simply a teen who read a few Wikipedia articles and now considers herself qualified to wax philosophical about the application of Schrodinger's Cat, Laplace's Demon, and quantum teleportation.

In the end, considering how strongly you are set against this show, I doubt watching further would ever truly change your mind. However, I found the second arc much more engaging than the first, as it brought in more nuanced interactions between characters, and several scenes where the emotional state of Sakuta was more readily apparent.

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