The Story
Tachibana Mei is a real shut-in. She has decided to never trust anyone again and to always be independent.
In school she's an outsider whom other like to call names and speak ill about.
One day Mei meets the schools most popular teenager boy: Kurosawa Yamato. Though he looks like a playboy and probably is, he has no ill intentions and just never had a real special interest in someone-at least before he met Mei. Just in coincidence at first, when Yamato's best male friend Nishida bumps into Mei and she glares at them in her death-stare. However, Yamato, who doesn't seem to be interested in normal girls thinks that Mei on the opposite is really fascinating.
- The Beginning -
The anime starts in a flashback, which is, literally only a FLASHback. We get to see a little part of Mei's childhood, or more precisely, the reason why she became so untrusting. In her childhood the few kids she could call her friends unloaded the weight of their faults on Mei, aka. they deceived her and she learned to never trust anyone again, since everybody would just hurt her and she would always end up alone.
We can see her awaking from her flashback-dream and preparing for school.
This whole anime is based on the theme of mobbing with the cause of beauty and unreal-ness and true beauty that lies inside, and of course a lovestory that progresses in that area, but I honestly think that the producers over-exaggerated a bit. At the station people even laugh at Mei. Sure they may be girls from her school, but it's clearly visible the girls don't know her and still talk about her. Today we live in a similar bit but in my opinion it's a bit dramatic. It's not like you go to the station and just becuse you didn't shorten your skirt like every fcking girl you get laughed at? What's up with that, really.
However, we get to see a little of Mei's school life and I really liked that one scene where she stood at the station and looked "at the clouds" with a nice but kinda uncomfortable music in the background and then just out of nowhere theres this loud train noise and a big train rushes through the screen and Mei switches back to reality, aka. the real station. Got that? I'm horrible at explaining things.
After that scene we get to see Yamato talking to his male friend Nishida. Just looking at Yamato we can guess that he must be popular *have to add that I adore Yamatos voice actor!*.
This guess is confirmed as the both talk about the last night at a karaoke bar where the 'cutest girl only had eyes for him'. We also learn that Yamato seems to take his popularity lightly since he wasn't really flattered by that 'cutest girl' giving him her phone number. Out of nowhere Yamato's best female friend Asami then appears and hugs him in a very clingy and girly way. Asami is a small girl with *really have to say that* big breasts and long hair. From her manner I take that she kinda has a thing for Yamato though we also learn that Nishida likes her too, without Asami knowing it.
So after Asami disappears again Mei enters the same floor Yamato and his friend are on and she bumps into Nishida. Of course he excuses right aay but Mei only glares at him with her death-stare leaving Nishida grossed out and Yamato speechless. After Mei's gone he asks Nishida what the name of the girl is and Nishida aks if he didn't know her what, again, leaves me thinking that Mei's "negative popularity" is just overexaggerated again. Well, Nishida tells him Mei's name and that he's in her class and she practically never speaks with anyone. Before switching back to Mei we can hear Yamato saying: "Interesting."At this time I have to say that I rather liked he way he wasn't all over her at first sight but just simply thought she was "interesting". Otherwise it would have been just too over-clicheed and I probably would have quit the episode halfway, expecting nothing great.
We get to see a little of Mei being annoyed and confused and then the three meet again, this time at the staircase when Nishida [the perv] dares to touch Mei's skirt while she walks up because he thinks a long skirt can be appealing too. Mei kinda freezes until Yamato walks up to them and Nishida glares at her disappointed saying: "Oh, it's you Tachibana", before Mei turns and kicks Yamato instead of Nishida with her *have to say: AWESOME.* Tachibana-Kick.Yamato however end up having bruises on his hand and tumbling down the stairs crashing against the wall
Yamato is only fascinated again and ends up laughing *in a cute way!* about her reaction while the girls gather around him asking him what happened and insulting Mei.
Switching back to Mei we can see her getting mad glares from Yamatos fangirls and then feeling to feed a cat at the back of the schoolgrounds. On the way back to the building Yamato catches up with her and asks her to be his friend. Another plus point cause I would have seriously hated it if he would have asked right
away: "Heyo girl, wanna date this super awesome boy?"
Mei still says she doesn't want to what again makes Yamato speechless. He then asks if they can at least exchange numbers which Mei first misunderstands as literally exchanging PHONES. She's all embarassed but after that Yamato clears that misunderstanding while laughing a bit.
Mei reacts shily and still a bit mad and says no, which causes him to just write his number on a piece of paper and give it to her-but then she remembers the bruises on his hand thanks to her again and gives him a lot of plasters. Then she's back in shy-mad-deathglaring-Mei-modus again and runs away.
A little switch to her workplace where an old geezer pretty obviously has his dirty eyes on her.
At night Mei is confused and lays in her bed looking at Yamatos phone number before getting to sleep.
The next day Yamato follows Mei around everywhere but she keeps blocking him. In the end Yamato thinks she hates him and makes plans for the night at the karaoke bar with Asami *yknow the big breasts bounching girl...*.
At the same time Mei is at work again. This time, as she gets out, the creepy costumer from the day before stands outside INCONSPICUOUSLY waiting for her. A little scared Mei is on her way home and keeps turning around but sees nothing but the empty street. In the end she feels him in a supermarket and is in some kind of panic state where she constantly tries to call her mother, who is apparently not at home. She then recognizes this piece of paper with Yamatos number on it and calls him in a hurry.We switch to Yamato at the karaoke bar who gets her call and listens to Mei asking him in a whiny voice to come and 'save her', which is, again a little over-clicheed in my opinion. He comes running for her though.
At the supermarket he first listens to her story, tells her that everything is alright now and that he knows how to handle these type of guys *WHY I WONDER*. He buys an ice for the both of them to cool down and lies his arm around Mei's shoulder while going outsder where the creepy stalker is waiting.
The old geezer is a little furious and aks 'who this man may be?'. Yamato just turns to Mei and tells her he
Mei however is RIGHTFULLY confused and turns bright red causing Yamato to be confused because he thought she'd understand he only meant to save her.
At this point the episode ends and leaves me pretty dumbfounded and cliffhangered if that's a real verb.
The Characters
The characters are kinda clicheed: the most popular boy + the most hated girl *I'd really like to see an anime/read a manga where it's the other way round actually.*
I still liked this setting cause I'm a shoujo sucker and I fell for this pairing. That's why it's popular I guess.
Also I think that they really didn't do everything like other animes/mangas but give many differences.
Mei's hair style for example: It's a very common one which shows that she absolutely isn't interested in things like this. Also it's not nicely done but very wild and unkempt. Also her skirt which is not shortened.
Her character also isn't that typical. She's a shut-in but she's definitely not only silent and shadow-like but commotion-causing, loud, and all bark and bite. Though we also get to see as she further interacts with Yamato that her 'real' character is nothing like that but extremely shy and pure.
Yamato on the other hand is styled and knows how to react to girls. He doesn't take them lightly but also has no heavy feelings for them or plays with them. He's nice but no further. When I watched the first episode of Sukitte Iinayo I really got to love him since he seems so real. He cares about his own appearance but is interested in Mei because of her character. That's nearly TOO pure in this ugly setting of the story. And with that I mean all those girls freaking out about beauty and ...I don't know some spoilers told me about them having points of not liking yourself, loosing weight and plastic surgery, but I don't know no further.
So then I feel like this pair is well-matched.
I can also see a love-triangles coming like:
Nishida-Asami-Yamato-Mei what would make it a love-quadrilateral OMFG. c:
I have high expectations on this!!
Though I like both main characters characters I wish that I would have known more about Mei's past in the first episode *also about her father...who's slightly mentioned in some memories and at the beginning but seems to be dead* and also more about Yamato. Because he just seems TOO flawless in my opinion. *Or maybe his abnormal likes for girltypes make it up n_n*
We'll see how the characters will progress, but I really look forward to this.
Review
Sukitte Iinayo is veeeery shoujo-over-clicheed but at the same time cute to watch and I have faith in Mei's past that will hopefully be mentioned a lot more often. There seems so much unspoken.
Also I like this combination of popular boy+unpopular girl with the main-theme "beauty warn". It's interestign and definitely shoujo but gives off a nice message up until now.
That being said I adore the soundtrack and opening and especially the ending has a nice sound to it.
Oh yes, nearly forgot to mention it. I LOVE THE ARTWORK.
The way the characters hair, body and eyes are drawn really makes one focus on the "beauty" part on the anime. In other styles it wouldn't have been so obvious that Mei is an outstanding girl because she has a common hairstyle. Cause it's COMMON.
Really love that.
I'll definitely review the other episodes too, because I just fell in love with the anime.
Points
8/10
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