Alright, now that the anime has concluded and all thirteen episodes have aired, it’s now time for me to give me thoughts on the anime as a whole. I also went ahead and finished the manga way before the anime itself concluded so I think I know both quite well. One thing I will tell you, is that I thought the pacing of the first half of the anime, episodes one through six (roughly) felt extremely fast, especially with character progression between our two main protagonists Izumi and Kyouko. What indicated this to me was obviously how quickly their feelings for one another grew, but also when Kyouko mentioned “You don’t make moves on me anymore”, when they were watching a movie together at Kyouko’s house.
What isn’t shown in the anime are all the events that led to their relationship building; a lot of that stuff were left out. There were several chapters that were skipped over, or were used at different times. Like for example, there were two chapters dedicated to Remi and Kakeru, while in the anime we only get half of an episode. One thing I thought the anime lacked was proper character development and coincidently, all the parts that were omitted were related to character development. I won’t hold that CloverWorks because there is only so much you can fit into thirteen, twenty-three minute episodes. Overall, I thought the adaptation of the manga was great despite what I’ve previously mentioned.
Did I like the anime, you bet I did. I loved our couple Izumi and Kyouko, I also love how they were polar opposites of each other. If there’s two people you will forever remember from Horimiya, it would be those two. Their relationship is what everyone desires (I think), or is something they’d want to experience. A lot of their interactions are very genuine but also overexaggerated at times, like Kyouko and her multiple personalities and weird kinks. Kyouko’s personality alone is enough to provide a reasonable amount of entertainment and comedy, but, she wasn’t my favourite character.
I actually have two favourite characters, Izumi and Sakura, and for similar reasons. Izumi is the one character I related to the most. While his past life isn’t something that we see much of, we only see little snippets here and there; a lot of it was something I think we’ve all experienced at one point. Being called names, not finding people who you can relate to or rely on, being that outcast and not finding your place in life or in a school environment. Being filled with insecurities about your person and feeling that urge to change something about yourself in the hopes that you’d be accepted. Being so low mentally that you virtually accept that nothing will get better and that in some way you’ve deserved everything that has happened. All of that is extremely relatable and is why Izumi is ultimately my favourite character.
As for Sakura, who like Izumi shares similar insecurities about her body and not being good enough to meet up to other people’s expectations. Feeling like you’ll never be liked and the fear of being crushed by someone you had feelings for because you thought they had feelings for someone else. Is also something I think we all can relate to as well, which is why I like her a lot. Seeing her knowing that the person she likes won’t ever like her back and seeing her cry uncontrollably in the student council room, really struck home. But also seeing her move past that heartbreak and her determination to leave all the cards on the table, leaving no room for regrets is something I really admire.
The art was wonderful, I enjoyed the looseness it had, it was very fluid. The OP “Iro Kousui (色香水)” by You Kamiyama is one of the best OPs of 2021 and that’s just fact. It’s one of those songs where you can listen on repeat. The ED “Yakusoku (約束)” by Friends (フレンズ) was equally as good, however, I learn to appreciate the ED until the very last episode was it played over Izumi’s dialogue and end credits. That’s when the ED really worked for me.
Speaking of the ending of Horimiya, that is actually the one major thing I disliked about the whole anime. I hated the ending of Horimiya because as the end credits rolled it showed a slideshow of everything that wasn’t included in any of the animated episodes. A lot of which would have helped out with the general lack of character development and progression. Like the sports festival was a major thing in the manga, taking up two chapters. This is where the bulk of the character development takes place because this is where everyone bonds and becomes closer to one another. There were also arguments between Izumi and Kyouko that didn’t get animated but also would have aided with their overall progression as a couple.
Being completely honest, there were many chapters that I wanted to see animated, like Chapter 56 “We should break up”, Chapter 60 “His Quirk”, Chapter 79 and 80, Chapters 99, 100, 114 and 118. There are a ton more too. Despite that a lot of the chapters did not get animated, the majority that covered ‘major’ events were. So while Horimiya was only thirteen episodes it did cover the whole manga (which is now finished). I just wanted to see the whole manga animated because, in my opinion, if there was one manga that could have been adapted in its entirety, from chapter 1 to chapter 123, it would have been Horimiya. So in that regard it’s a shame that it was limited to only thirteen episodes.
Overall, does Horimiya deserve all the praise and hype? Yes. Does it also deserve all the dislikes for the skipping out on certain chapters etc? Yes. But I do believe the positives outweigh the negatives here. For a Slice of Life, Comedy, Romance, School, Shounen, Horimiya checks all the boxes. It’s definitely one of my favourite anime and the manga too is also one of my favourites. If you’re unsatisfied with Horimiya (Anime) and you haven’t read the manga, then I suggest you go read it. While both forms are equally as good, everyone knows the manga will always be better than the anime. This is true for Horimiya. I definitely recommend both anime and manga to anyone and everyone. Horimiya is one of the best anime of 2021 and that’s fact. A+.
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