Kawaii dake ja Nai Shikimori-san

Yuu Izumi leads a high school life filled with one mishap after another. No matter how improbable the situation, unfortunate events strike him at every turn. In possession of such terrible luck, Izumi enters his second year with a single wish in mind—to spend more time with his affectionate girlfriend, Micchon Shikimori.
Cute, athletic, and caring, Shikimori is immensely popular at their school. But since they began dating a year ago, Izumi has witnessed a surprising side to his otherwise adorable girlfriend: when the need arises, she turns incredibly cool! His misfortunes are easily avoided when she is there to protect him with an awe-inspiring look on her face. Charming in every way, she never ceases to make his heart skip a beat. Unfortunate as he may be, Izumi is sure to see his days of bad luck end thanks to the cute yet cool Shikimori.

Kawaii dake ja Nai Shikimori-san is taking longer than expected to finish, but that’s okay. I’m writing this blog immediately after watching the 11th episode, so I think it’s a good time for me to give my final thoughts on the anime.

Overall, I’d say the anime Kawaii dake ja Nai Shikimori-san was not a show that I found particularly enjoyable. If I was able to give out .5 scores on MAL. I’d probably be going with a 5.5/10. It was a pretty average anime to say the least.

The starters, the biggest issue I had with the anime was that our characters, primarily Shikimori-san and Izumi-kun, were not a strong pairing. They definitely were not strong enough or interesting enough to carry the anime through to its end. The supporting cast did not compensate for this weakness either, we didn’t see much from them at all. You wouldn’t even know that this anime had a supporting cast to begin with to be honest.

An anime’s success is always based around whether or not a viewer will find it entertaining, if you’re unable to show why you should watch the anime then chances are, the anime will not preform as you’d expect. What’s the first thing a viewer will encounter? The characters. If the main characters aren’t interesting and the supporting cast are virtually nonexistent then there isn’t much going for the anime. That was a big negative of the show.

Another negative of the show was that, for the most part the anime was about Izumi and Shikimori-san falling head over heels for each other. Which isn’t interesting in the slightest, let’s be honest. You have the clumsiest and most unlucky person in Izumi. Then you have the highly popular and attractive Shikimori-san, who only have eyes for one another and spend most of their time together. Shikimori-san spends the bulk of the episodes protecting Izumi from his bad luck, which is put on display every episode.

When you have the same sort of deal happening every episode, it get’s pretty boring real quick. I get it, our two characters love each other very, very much. But there isn’t much going for that now is there? It’s a cycle if you think about it.

Step One: Izumi suffers bad luck.
Step Two: Shikimori comes in to save the day.
Step Three: Izumi apologizes and compliments Shikimori.
Step Four: Shikimori falls more head over heels.
Step Five: Repeat step one.

The last few episodes offered something different because one was a friendship episode, another showed a little backstory to both Shikimori-san and Izumi when they were younger. Furthermore, the episodes with being Kamiya the ‘focus’ was great because broke up that cycle of repetition. But ultimately it wasn’t enough. There just wasn’t anything beyond the constant gushing between Izumi and Shikimori-san that made the anime entertaining or really worth watching.

Kawaii dake ja Nai Shikimori-san wasn’t an anime I particularly liked. Kawaii dake ja Nai Shikimori-san will be an anime that sits on the lower end of anime I’ve watched.