Broadcast season: Summer 2024
Number of episodes: 12
Viewed on: Crunchyroll
Translated by: ?
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Thoughts: I had a good feeling about Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines (“Makeine”) from the synopsis, but if you had told me it would become one of my favorite anime of this season, I would have suspect. All promotional artwork features three colorful girls who perfectly fit the harem stereotype: the genki winner, the athletic tomboy, and the nervous bookworm. While the synopsis depicts three heroines who fail to win their romantic love, the girls seem ripe for the casting of a plain, nondescript protagonist named Nukumizu.
Nukumizu spends his days reading romance stories, but he has yet to experience it himself. His fate suddenly changes when he overhears Anna, one of the popular girls in class, encouraging her crush to pursue his love by selflessly confessing her own love to him. , declared that even when he rejected her, she still found the love she was meant for. he deserves it. As expected, her lover rejected her on the spot, but thanked her for her sacrifice and immediately left Anna alone to pursue the other girl. Anna copes with the non-existent breakup by attacking Nukumizu's quiet lunch and eating all of his food. Her entrance into his life draws him to a colorful cast of other lost heroines from his high school.
This anime is very funny and it only works because all the characters are funny in different ways. It's easy to cast Nukumizu as a straight man, but like all the other characters, he has his own quirks. He is obsessed with the taste of tap water and is so passionate that he even argues with another character about which faucet in the school tastes the best. Usually, the male lead in a movie is just a cardboard cutout for the male audience to insert themselves so they can live out the fantasy of being surrounded by cute anime girls. However, Nukumizu has clearly defined interests, personality, character, and relationships. In fact, as the series went on, I got the feeling that he was more interested in the idea of romance than the actual romance, as he admitted that reading these romantic developments was much more interesting than the watching them happen in real life.
the characters lead to captivating comedy
His relationships with all three girls are charming, and while humorous, are filled with soul. He is not a forgettable main character in harem anime. He's the supportive best friend that the camera suddenly focuses on, the one who listens to them blabber even when he's tired because he cares and enjoys being friends with these girls. There was a quiet joy, acceptance and comfort every time he heard them chatting, enjoying a picnic with them and preparing for the school festival.
It's disingenuous to only praise a good male lead when the story fits and the development of the three female characters is appropriate. Anna, Lemon, and Chika are all caught up in a love triangle, each showing very different emotional reactions. Anna provides the main source of the comedy, but there's something very raw and real about how difficult it is for her to remain good friends with the couple who intentionally come together only through their own feelings. . Chika's confession and foreknowledge of rejection was just a coincidence – blurted out in the heat of the moment. Her conflicting feelings stem from the fact that the person she loves and the person she loves are both senpais who treat her with a lot of care and sympathy, making her feel like a bad person for having these feelings. This contact right from the start. As a result, unlike Anna, being rejected brought a sense of freedom and she was relieved to find that she could maintain close friendships with her two seniors who were currently dating without conflict. constantly hovering inside her.
The lemon is on the left
However, my favorite is the Lemon. Personally, when it comes to love triangles, I usually hate the losing character. Their insistence on maintaining an unrequited love for a character feels like a staged play or a selfish decision that their feelings are more important than anyone else's. My frustration grew exponentially when the losing character tried to take advantage of their alone time in an attempt to steal their loved one away. Lemon is that character, however, I sympathize with her more than I hate her. In one scene, she openly admits to having unconscionable ideas, wondering if she can rob her of the person she loves by spending as much time alone as possible with him. Afterward, she broke down, hating herself for having these thoughts and wishing these feelings had never developed. She is certain that if she doesn't love, she won't hate the person she has become.
For the first time, I truly believed that love was a feeling that could transcend someone's feelings, and seeing that poor girl trying so desperately to control it made me forgive it all. Other bad ideas she has. This is a funny animated movie. It pokes fun at romantic comedies and every episode is laugh-out-loud funny, but it offers some of the best dialogue about love and its complications I've ever seen.
Forever a zombie
The animation is exceptionally well done, which is partly why, despite its heavy emotions, the comedy works. The character's quirks, such as Anna's dexterity with chopsticks, wouldn't be as funny on screen if the animation didn't show her quickness in grabbing Nukumizu's coat and the His subsequent dramatic struggle to escape her chopsticks. Another example is a student council character whose aneKaren is frequently portrayed as if she crawled out of a horror movie, complete with full-body convulsions, sudden head turns, and steady eyes. no blinking.
Voice acting is equally important. good acting and funny.. A special mention goes to Hikaru Tono who voices Anna and all the colorful noises of frustration she makes when forced by her friend couple having to deal with PDA. Everyone in the cast did a great job, but I personally think Hikaru had the hardest time making sure Anna's performance wasn't too theatrical given how dramatic her character can be.
What I predict is an anime that has turned into an anime that checks all my boxes subjectively and objectively. The characters are nuanced, funny, and real. Thanks to voice acting and visual direction, the anime retains both humor and drama without sacrificing the other. Makeine is a nice reminder that sometimes the most heartfelt stories actually come from genres you wouldn't expect.
Rating
Plot: 8 (Multiplier 3)
Characters: 8.5 (Multiplier 3)
Art/Animation: 8.5 (Multiplier 2)
Voice acting: 8
Soundtrack: 7.5
FINAL SCORE: 82