This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.



Dear anyone who likes this show: learn how to anime.

Note: This only takes into account episodes 1-7. There is the possibility that the show will do a complete 180 and address the issues in this article in an intelligent manner. In fact, I fervently hope the anime understands the potential it’s sitting on.

But I’m not going to hold my breath. This is the halfway point, and it’s going to take a lot to turn this failboat into a nice one.

Well, let’s get started with the

Plot progression.

If you watch Sukitte in reverse it’s about a girl with dependency issues who gains a personality and learns how to stand up for herself when she’s mistreated.

Episode 7

Episode 6

Episode 5

Episode 4

Episode 3

Episode 2

Episode 1

Much better this way, huh?

Yes, trainwrecks can be enjoyable. But it needs to be clear that the show knows it’s bad so the viewers can get something meaningful out of it. Sukitte doesn’t. Instead, it acts like everything’s going just as planned, with the kind of naive, misinformed idealism you’d find from those people who wear Che t-shirts.

Sure, the glorification of unhealthy relationships with stupid, submissive women is popular right now (hey 50 Shades and Twilight), but I expect some fucking class from anime, the most superior of all artforms.

Speaking of, this show reminds me a lot of School Days. The only thing separating the girls in this show from the characters in that anime is that the girls here aren’t fucked physically and mentally on camera.

But it would take too long to get into the supporting characters’ faults, so let’s just focus on the

Main characters.

Yamato.

What the fuck does this guy even do? He has the personality of a– No, wait, he doesn’t even have one. “Pretty-boy” is the only thing that describes him, so you could say that rather than a personality, all he has is a word.

One of my biggest complaints with this character is that he’s willing to trample on everyone’s feelings in order to… Well, actually he doesn’t achieve anything from this. And that’s the fucking problem. Here’s Yamato giving advice to a crying girl before he fucks her:

Yamato tells Aiko that any changes she makes to herself for others are good, fucks her and then ignores her, and then when she turns anorexic and self-mutilates, he ignores her even more. Class act.

Beyond this, he’s kissed almost every girl in high school. Classiness means nothing, apparently.

“Okay, fine. Who cares?”

Well from what we see of the guy, it’s quite clear that he’s never thought of those girls as anything other than walking slabs of meat with no value even as fucktoys. This wouldn’t be quite so big an issue if he weren’t portrayed as a perfect being. Even the most non-discerning viewer could probably infer that there might be at least a small downside to someone acting like this. But the anime doesn’t, to its fault.

Now I ain’t saying “bad” characters are detriments to a show. Everyone likes a good villain/anti-hero. But these characters need motivation — they need goals to strive for… world peace, removing an immediate obstacle, even just their own amusement. Point is, their actions need to have one.

Yamato? He… well, he doesn’t have any reasons for the problems he causes. He just does things, without any rhyme or reason. That can lead to an interesting character, but they need to be presented properly. Yamato, however, is solely praised throughout the show; he’s a goddamn hero with not even a minimal amount of critical analysis cast on his being, despite all the evidence in the show that maybe he’s not that great.

And that’s where the issue lies; the anime can’t handle what it’s showing us so it just closes its eyes and pretends nothing’s happening while singing praises of Yamato because he’s hot and popular. Fuck that.

Oh, and I forgot to mention he’s a

Cheater.

I don’t mean in the physical sense, that is. That wouldn’t be deserving of a full section (though I’m sure he has sex with Megu). No, he’s an emotional cheater, which I’d be willing to bet most agree is a lot worse.

Let’s start with how Yamato deals with Mei. He takes advantage of her by acting like he’s willing to take her opinions into consideration, but since she’s so emotionally dependent on him, she’ll never say, “Please walk home with me instead of hanging around other girls.” Meaning he gets to do whatever he wants. So he does.

And with Mei’s limp approval for Yamato working alongside Megu, we get this this scene:

That’s the symbol of his affection for Mei right there, lying strewn on a table at his job. He has figuratively discarded Mei, and yeah this is a big fucking deal. Hell, the whole reason she shut herself off from other people for her scholastic career is because she didn’t think she could trust them. Looks like she was right.

But he goes further than that…

So after this little sequence Yamato ends up spending all his time after school either working with Megu or staying at her place late at night. And what about Mei? Well, he just straight up lies to her about his new daily activity. Instead of mentioning that he’s leaving another girl’s place after workdays, he just pretends like he gets off later than he actually does.

In essence, he’s replaced Mei in all but official “girlfriend” status and decides to string her along because… Well, because that’s just the kind of character he is — there’s no real motivation; just action.

But enough of Yamato. He’s just a cardboard cutout imitating a character anyway. Let’s talk about what this anime has done to the character of

Mei.

Can a character undevelop? I think I answered that in the first section, but hell, let’s talk about it some more.

Mei begins the anime as a strong, independent woman who is bullied and ignored by everyone in her school. She gets sexually harassed by a student and lashes out, resulting in her kicking the most popular guy in school — Yamato. And as soon as Yamato enters the picture, things go downhill fast.

He kisses her without asking, turns out it was her first kiss. Also turns out he’s kissed almost every other girl in the school before and she was the second-to-last holdout.

She finds out and is obviously freaked. But then he explains that kissing girls is just something he does without thinking; it’s even less intimate than waving at someone. Apparently this sways her and she admits she has feelings for him.

After that, she finds out that he’s fucked other girls in the school. But don’t worry, Mei. Fucking chicks doesn’t register on his intimate scale either; that’s like holding the door open for someone. This, somehow, also wins her heart.

So here we have Mei who fully understands that she’s just another notch in his belt at this point. But she loves him, so that changes everything! No, really, it changes everything about her.

From Gyarados to Magikarp.

She makes friends, but only with Yamato’s close friends.

She changes her appearance to suit his whims.

She starts to deeply care about what others think of her, including all the people who bullied her earlier.

She has frequent breakdowns in public.

She delegates her opinion to others, especially Yamato.

I mean, holy shit. I really hope the director understands what this show is portraying to a sentient viewer and handles it accordingly. But as you’ll see from the next section, I don’t think he does.

“Overcoming walls”.

This show dispenses worse advice than you’d get from a back-alley abortionist.

Here Mei is, finding out that the reason her boyfriend doesn’t contact her until late at night is because he’s been staying with a girl whom Mei knows has feelings for him. Remember that “Cheating” section I posted a bit back? Yeah, this where the anime “deals” with it.

Cue the bitch crying for four minutes before her friends help her out with this great advice, explaining that mistrust is, well…

And with that, she decides the best way to win her boyfriend back is…

…by rewarding him with a kiss for cheating on her. And that’s the moral of the episode, which finally pissed me off enough to write this article.

So far, I give this piece of shit a 1/10. Will the director pull it together by the end or will he focus on pandering to the idiots who lap this kind of shit up? Based on what I’ve read of the manga, I think my rating is going to be pretty accurate for the rest of the show.