Kawaii dake ja Nai Shikimori-san | Episode Five and Six: A little more appreciative.

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Episode five and six of Kawaii dake ja Nai Shikimori-san, I thought were better all-around episodes for the anime because we saw less of that cringe, lovey-dovey type stuff from our characters.

Much of both episodes were things I’ve seen in multiple anime. Festival scene, a day at the beach (in this case a river). All things that you’d expect to see out of a romcom, where its characters are high schoolers. Nothing took you by surprise and nothing worth noting stood out above everything else.

As I’ve reached the halfway mark of the anime, Kawaii dake ja Nai Shikimori-san has turned out to be an okay show. Without a doubt, I’ve seen better. There are anime that are way more entertaining and feel more well put together than Kawaii dake ja Nai Shikimori-san but there is something I will give the anime credit for, character progression.

Yes, that’s the easiest thing to say because, well, it is. But also because I think it’s very much true with regards to the show. At the beginning of the anime, we were watching the ‘honeymoon’ phase between Shikimori-san and Izumi-kun. We learned about our characters and their quirks and that was all. What followed were episodes following the same sort of gimmicks and to me, I thought it got really boring really fast. So what do you do then? Do you drop the anime? Not in my case because I have a “no drop” policy. Instead, you look for the smaller details.

Especially with two episodes that take our characters out of their usual environment (school) and place them in unfamiliar grounds. You begin to look at the smaller things. As previously mentioned the biggest thing I’ve noticed over my time watching the anime is that it seems as though we’re slowly transitioning out of this ‘honeymoon’ phase. Episodes five and six felt like more personal episodes, we found both Shikimori-san and Izumi-kun reflecting more on their relationship which as you’d guessed means they’re becoming more appreciative of one another.

This is always something you like seeing in characters because it give them a little more depth. This of course, was something I thought the characters in Kawaii dake ja Nai Shikimori-san lacked. No better way to add that depth than through a festival scene which is in every romcom. I will deduct marks though because to me, that’s an easy out. But you know, it is what it is I guess.