My Little Monster - A Crazy Review

My Thoughts on the Show Overall (Light Spoilers):
I knew next to nothing heading into this show except for one scene I saw on YouTube and it looked incredibly interesting. I remember watching this for the first 5 episodes and thinking "Wow, this is fantastic! That confession and dilemma is what's gonna move this relationship forward! Shizuka is going to chill a bit and Haru will happily accommodate Shizuku! What's gonna happen next!" This sparked my excitement so I watched the rest of it in one go. And what great writing and strong conflict turned into a repeating cycle of saying the same shit over and over again without really changing for the better. I remember in episode 11 when they're outside for Christmas or whatever and they have a heart to heart I thought "After multiple tries Shizuku and Haru are gonna be better..." only for Shizuka to go to this school with Yamaken (blonde dude) and haru act like a spoiled brat again!!! What the hell was all that for? Just to say fuck you and do a damn thing about it?? This happened basically from episode 6 to the ending. Yes, exactly nothing changed and everyone is still the same asshole/shy person before the show began.

Overview of the plot (no spoilers).
Basically, this is a 'Shoujou' anime that is a lot more upfront and vibrant than usual Shoujou anime with the daily lives of High Schoolers aspect. For example, the Main boy Haru, a punk who doesn't go to school, meets Shizuku, a quiet girl whose ONLY personality is studying (after episode 5). These two meet because of circumstances and Haru immediately falls for her... These two get into a whole bunch of High School shenanigans and have confessions about what each others want in their life. There are others whom they befriend along the way like Sasahara, a boy who is on the baseball team, and Natsume, a girl who is dumb, but loves online forums. And lastly a sort of 'anti-hero' Yamaguchi who is a rival to Haru and has feelings for Shizuku.

Problems Needed addressing:

Plot: First of all, everything you watch and understand about everyone in the first 5 episodes, goes away and is almost as if nothing had ever happened in the first place. Shizuku defends Haru from his 'friends' taking advantage of him and they leave him alone. Yeah, now they're a part of the friend group as if no exchange ever happened. Natsume being berated (literally sexual harassment at this point) by the guys in the group, literally only feeling safe beside Haru because she feels no love from him, is just terrible writing. The whole point of her character arc was to speak up and go against that noise, but it all just doesn't happen. It's such shitty writing I can't believe it. I feel so agonizingly bad for Natsume the entire time of this show because of just how terrible the writing is. I can go on and on with the shitty writing. I'll do one more to prove a point:
Basically, at the end of episode 10, or around there, Haru and Shizuku confess for a third or fourth time (in 10 episodes at that point!!!) about what each other wants in their relationship. All Haru wants of Shizuku is to not go to that study session during winter (with Yamaken, the love rival!!!) and be with him during Christmas break. Not only does she go to it, she starts walking with him too!!! And understandably Haru gets confrontational about it because wtf, you said you love me not even 2 days ago!!! And when Haru got confrontational, Shizuku pipes in and says "stays 2 meters away from me." Umm, excuse me?? What the fuck do you mean?? This is another example of just how bad the writing is after episode 5. I seriously don't understand, were the writers just given each a part of the episode and just loosely correlate the two, or what the fuck.

Animation:
This is a slight nitpick, but the animation quality for a 2012 anime is incredibly lacking. Granted, it could be an artistic choice, and if that's the case I will happily amend this section, but in no way shape, or form, should an anime released in 2012 have animation quality compared to that of anime released in 2006. I mean, 2008 saw Soul Eater release, and that anime is leagues better in terms of animation.

Ending to the show (OBV spoilers ahead, skip to the Good in the Bad section) :

I had to rewrite this section because I forgot how bad this ending was. I will go in a list with least offensive to most offensive. The least offensive is Sasahara, who is just there, he doesn't do much except try and get Natsume to show her true feelings towards a certain someone (will discuss later). Yamaken's band of Hooligans. Nothing noteworthy except the casual asking out of Natsume and subsequent rejection, along with bickering over the sunrise of a building vs horizon is the first sunrise of the year (dumb shit again). Now this is the first problem, Natsume and Misawa, he is like twice her age, and the show pushes for them to be together so hard, it's scary. Not only that because she sort of weirdly, but not quite confesses her feelings, SHE JUST LEAVES. DIDN'T SEE A SUNSET, NO HAPPY ENDING, WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT. By far and away the most egregious, if not for;
Haru, Shizuku, and Yamaken, who all are just at this point in such a locked love triangle, it's just cringe to watch. I started rooting for Yamaken (unironically) because of how just unlikeable Shizuku and Haru are towards each other, it's to the point where I actually compared them to a toxic couple who one-up each other by doing shittier things. I mean, this is something you can't even make up for how bad it is. This ending made me so mad I actually posted on r/anime about this ending and just how fucking shit this was.

The Good in the Bad:

I will give credit where it's due, and I know that I've been bashing this anime for the past 30 minutes at this point in this review, and that is the fact that the first 5 episodes were genuinely great Romance/Shoujou. I found myself loving this anime at first and watched this whole show in one day how much I loved the first 5 episodes. Why do I love it so much? Because it's the first time seeing characters for who they REALLY are, Shizuku is so much more innocent then, Haru is a lot more physical (in a sort of good/bad way) and Natsume keeps her place in society and there were fights and entertaining conflict. I found myself liking it more than Horimiya and Dangers in My Heart! This is actually the reason why I didn't rate this anime in the 50's, was because of just how well it sets up these characters and the possible wholesomeness and character-changing moments we see in Horimiya and Dangers in my Heart.

Ratings

Plot and Development 5/25

Reasons specified above

Animation and Sound 11/ 25

Reasons specified above

Entertainment value 20/25

I rated it this high because of how different Haru is as the main boy, I found myself only being intrigued by the crazy shit Haru would do next, so its entertainment value is pretty high. Motherfucker would just do the randomest shit and I'm all for it.

Characters 20/25

I liked them as characters, it's just Plot and Development where it sucks the soul out of me.

My personal rating is a 64, but for my Professional Rating given by breakdowns above I'd give it ac

56 / 100

Wow. What an incredible Anime. Some minor spoilers Ahead, scroll to the bottom for a Spoiler Free Summary. But otherwise don't read if you want to feel the full swerve of episode 1 trust.

I honestly couldn't have had a bigger swerve of a first episode in all of anime. That was so unexpected. I seriously just kept getting more and more engaged as the series went on. Imagine Among Us and Anime combined into a season of 13 episodes. This NEEDS to have a second season because it was just so well done.

Aside from my thoughts, I will rate it according to Soundtrack, art, story, and general enjoyability and combine it all into a final rating.

Soundtrack (20/25):

The Opening and Ending songs are pretty forgettable. What's ironic about that is the OST that plays DURING the anime is top-notch. I repeatedly found myself bopping along to the soundtrack or getting within the feels of the anime. It was very good and played the tone and mood perfectly. If it wasn't for the completely forgettable Opening and Ending I would've rated this a perfect 25/25.

Art (22/25):

The art was very well done and had a somewhat generic animation style, but that helped bring in the contrast of the MC's characterization and how she is absolutely bonkers and a murderer, I loved the animation, it was smooth, clean, and had great backgrounds and places. It's literally like an Amongus map that has semi-convenient plot locations like episode 13 but also repeated ones that pop up from prior episodes, so it is worth watching out for.

Plot (24/ 25):

I want to give it a 25 so badly, but unfortunately, I have to admit that the side characters are legit dumb as rocks. The only 3 characters who have IQs above 10 are NaNa, Kyouya, Tachibana, and MAYBE the villain in episodes 12 and 13. Everyone else is legit the dumbest mf on planet Earth. Although the plot explains why they act the bratty way and whatnot because they have talents, it's still hard to see how they're THIS dumb, at some point you've got to smarten up because mf around you are DYING AND DEAD. It's still great to see how all this plays out, and I am dying for season 2, but so far this season has had a very coherent plot, and does well-making things connect from episode to episode.

Enjoyability (25/25):

I thoroughly enjoyed this anime. The plot, the swerves, and the twists. They're so well done your brain will be like a rope trying to figure it all out. And the best part is that it all makes sense. Wouldn't say on Attack On Titan tier plot relevance, but holy shit this stuff is addicting to see play out. Thoroughly enjoyed and I probably would watch it again if season 2 comes out.

Overall, this anime was thoroughly entertaining and I binged it all in one night trying to see how the MC gets caught and all the drama that's happening, and what will happen next. Will rewatch it again if season 2 comes out and I highly recommend it to everybody simply for the crazy twists and swerves this show will give you. Although it does have some absolutely brain-dead characters, seeing that is what makes it enjoyable and gives you a dilemma if the MC is a good or bad guy or conflicted.

One of the Best anime of all time. I thoroughly enjoyed this anime hands down. One of the best anime of all time in my honest opinion. There's so much I want to say about this anime that it's hard to effectively organize this

Main Ratings:

Visuals 9/10

Overall very nice the animation was fluid and the effects were really cool and well into it. It truly got me happy and inspired at the moment and the comedy was amazing. Nothing too focused and nothing too glanced over. It was just right. The ending theme of the episodes also made me feel things I've never felt before.

Sound 10/10:

Honestly perfect in my honest opinion. Along with the already cool opening, I liked what they did with episode 3 where they redid the opening. Shows how much care went into the creation of this anime. Along with the soundtrack which was great, too. The ending made me feel feelings I'd never felt before. It was great.

Characters 5/10:

I read in another review that because it was 13 episodes some characters had minimal to no development and I honestly couldn't agree more. If it wasn't for the opening constantly reminding me of their names I would have no idea who some of the characters were. One dude is literally in it for like 2 episodes and doesn't appear until like episode 12 where he was "training" the whole time. I'm dead-ass for real he legit was gone for half the series and basically comes back a new person. I'm not making this up. This is an actual fact in the anime. Most of the characters in the finale also straight up disappeared without a word. Like what the hell, why even add them in the first place? Anyways, 5/10. The only true characters I genuinely enjoyed were the 5 at the end and maybe a couple of other goofballs.

Comedy 8/10

The first 7-9 episodes were some of the funniest and most well-placed comedies in I'd probably say all of anime. (Except for episode 3 and maybe episode 8 iirc) The slow-mo reels and the generic comedy were just hilarious and I thoroughly enjoyed watching each and every episode.

Finally, the story, 10/10

Its story is the only anime to EVER make me visibly and audibly cry. The only other Japanese thing that could make me do that was Final Fantasy 15. I truly felt involved with each character and their endings and again, the only episode to ever make me cry for the whole 23 minutes was Graduation. I'm so into anime because I want to replicate that feeling. I have never felt that way before when I was visibly shaken to tears from an anime story and I sadly don't think I will ever again. Truly holds a place in my heart and is, to this date almost 11 years later the only anime to make me cry like a baby. I watched it with my mom when I was 9/10 and She and I held each other as we cried profusely. Again, to this day only anime to ever make me do this.

Overall a 96/100 because it is this magical. I have never experienced an anime where it made me feel everything including excitement or laughing or crying or so many other powerful emotions that I cannot list because it's just that well done. But this anime made me profusely cry and for that, I bump it from a. 92 to a 96.

Tidbits, anime was cut down to 13 episodes so each episode is full of love and care but, to be honest, this kind of hurt it as many characters and side plots were incredibly rushed. Especially the PC, which to be honest is probably the only letdown of this anime. It's legit just some random dude I'm not even capping; i for real and am being in entirely honest do not think he has a name. Also, it's criminal that this masterpiece only has 13 episodes. You can tell the Animation team wanted to do more because there are like 5 OVA's of this. Not even Naruto has that many movies. Also, another tidbit was the random characters like TK I'm Deadass might've shown up legit in 3 episodes. Another was the fat dude turned skinny, and a bunch of others who deadass might've only shown up legitimately 3 times in all anime.