Ijiranaide, Nagatoro-san | Episode 1 Review

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Episode One Thoughts

MAL Synopsis
High schooler Hayase Nagatoro loves to spend her free time doing one thing, and that is to bully her Senpai! After Nagatoro and her friends stumble upon the aspiring artist’s drawings, they find enjoyment in mercilessly bullying the timid Senpai. Nagatoro resolves to continue her cruel game and visits him daily so that she can force Senpai into doing whatever interests her at the time, especially if it makes him uncomfortable.

Slightly aroused by and somewhat fearful of Nagatoro, Senpai is constantly roped into her antics as his interests, hobbies, appearance, and even personality are used against him as she entertains herself at his expense. As time goes on, Senpai realizes that he doesn’t dislike Nagatoro’s presence, and the two of them develop an uneasy friendship as one patiently puts up with the antics of the other.

I’m going in with extremely low expectations, immediately after reading that synopsis. It didn’t appeal to me all that much, but it was interesting enough for me to give it a look. The whole idea of bullying someone into doing what interests you because you find pleasure in that, doesn’t really sound all that great nor does it sound enjoyable in the slightest. But alas! I shall give it a proper look, but I do not think I will be enjoying it all that much, hopefully the anime will prove me wrong.

As for episode one, I don’t really know how I feel about it. I loved the scenery, the art style of it all was something I really adored. But then we immediately jump into the main characters. We have the timid Naoto “Senpai” Hachiouji, someone who doesn’t seem to be someone who is able to express how he’s feeling, and seems like someone who keeps a lot of things in. Then we have Hayase Nagatoro, who finds pleasure in teasing her “Senpai” (Naoto) by making him feel uncomfortable. There isn’t really much of a dynamic there, episode one was literally Nagatoro bullying the heck out of Naoto.

Being completely honest, I can already tell that I’m not going to like Nagatoro. In large part because she seems to immediately intrude on Naoto’s personal space and interests just because she can and is seemingly willing to take full advantage of that. As someone who like Naoto values personal space and wants to keep things that interest them to themselves, having someone immediately intrude on that is openly taunts and humiliates you about it; doesn’t seem like someone I’d like to keep around. While I hope the remaining eleven episodes won’t be a simple “Let’s bully Naoto just because we can” sort of deal because that won’t be entertaining to me, it’ll be far from it. However, that being said, the whole premise of the show will be around that so I do not think the anime itself will be getting better.

Which in itself is a shame because I thought the OP “EASY LOVE” by Sumire Uesaka (上坂 すみれ) was alright, it was catchy and I like catchy OPs. Unfortunately, if this anime is going to be what I think it will be, then it’ll be one of those instances where a good OP is wasted on a bad anime.