I’m not really sure how to evaluate this one, because it triggered a lot of (bad) feelings for me in quite personal ways. The thing is, I dated a guy like Hananoi in high school and it did not go well. Like in the show, my Hananoi relied on me to define who he should be, because he didn’t value himself enough to be willing to face me as himself and preferred to try to be whoever I wanted instead. We see a glimpse of how frustrating it can be to care for someone who acts like that, but with my personal experience, I’m not sure I have the stomach to watch more of it unfold on screen.

On top of that, one of my least favorite things in romance stories is the “can I learn to feel romantic love?” trope, as it can extremely easily get into territory where the character for all intents and purposes is written as aromantic… until they get “fixed” by the plot. And even having seen it again and again, I think this may be the most blatant example I’ve ever seen. Hotaru, there’s nothing wrong with you. If you fall in love some day, that’s great, but you don’t need to become somebody else to be happy; you can stay exactly like you are and there’s nothing wrong with that.

I don’t feel right giving it a rating, but I hated it the whole way through.