ORESUKI Are you the only one who loves me?

Overview

While ORESUKI Are you the only one who loves me? (Ore wo Suki nano wa Omae dake ka yo / 俺を好きなのはお前だけかよ) wasn’t the worst anime of the season, it was probably my least favorite. From here on out I’ll simply be referring to it as Oresuki, and hopefully by the end of this review you’ll understand why this anime isn’t worth your time.

Even when I say bad things about series, I don’t feel like I often actively tell people to avoid them. However, this series was so infuriating from start to finish that I feel it’s warranted. I’ll get into more of the details as the review goes on, but to start, let’s just say that it’s not at all what it advertises itself as.

There are good examples of this, like Madoka Magica and School-Live! where that false advertisement is part of the plot. And there are bad examples of this like TenSura to an extent, but really like Oresuki. And to anyone who’s going to argue with me about this actually being a good series: no, it’s not. I’m drawing the line there.

Basically, Oresuki advertises itself as the “anti-harem” series. The protagonist is constantly rejected by girls who he thinks are asking him out — they’re really asking for him to help set them up with his best friend. However, by like episode two or three that’s no longer the case. It’s just a regular harem anime.

Every girl who originally rejected the protagonist suddenly loves him simply because they were in turn rejected by his best friend. And in typical harem anime protagonist fashion, he’s too oblivious to notice.

Characters

There are too many characters who don’t matter at all, so I’m just going to briefly cover some of the “most important” ones. And, I also want to preface this by saying I don’t even know their actual names. Every character has a nickname (usually a flower) which is based on taking random characters out of their name and mashing them together.

Yes, I think the nicknaming scheme in this series is stupid. Nobody would ever do this. It’s like taking Madoka’s name and calling her “Damo” simply because she happens to have those letters somewhere in her name. It’s meaningless.

So with that in mind, our protagonist’s name is Amatsuyu Kisaragi, AKA Joro. Yeah, they somehow got “Joro” out of that. His unique trait is that his “true self” is actually a jerk. However, 99% of the time he’s just your typical, white knight, punchable-face-having, male protagonist.

Sumireko Sanshokuin is the female lead of the series, and her nickname is Pansy. She loves Joro from the start, and he loves her too. Except, when she wears her hair in braids he calls her ugly and says he hates her. And no, there’s never a good explanation given for why that is. I guess just because otherwise it would be a normal romance series?

Aoi Hinata, AKA Himawari (sunflower), is Joro’s childhood friend, so you already know she lost in the battle for love (you’ll quickly notice every female character in this series are just tropes). There’s not much else to say about her other than that she seems to have a really low IQ.

And last we have student council president Sakura Akino. Can you guess her nickname? That’s right, it’s Cosmos. Even though she’s already named Sakura (cherry blossom). Just let that sink in for a minute.

Some of the Worst Writing I’ve Ever Seen

I don’t want to throw the people working at Connect, the studio which animated this series under the bus, but this is the highest rated anime they’ve ever made. That’s unfortunate. However, I don’t think this anime was bad because of them. It was bad because the source material is bad.

By all accounts, they made a good looking adaption of this series. It’s just not a good series to begin with.

The author couldn’t manage to stick with the somewhat unique premise they began writing, they really stretched when coming up with character nicknames and got way too into it, they had to rely on character tropes for every character since they can’t write good characters of their own, and the plot makes absolutely no sense.

I’ve already touched on the previous issues with the writing of this series, so let’s focus on that last point — the plot.

Joro is in love with Pansy from the start. Pansy is also in love with Joro from the start. So the natural thing to write about would be their relationship. Or, if they aren’t going to be in one, it would be about whatever obstacles get in the way of their relationship.

That’s not what we get with Oresuki. Instead, like I mentioned, Joro refuses to date Pansy for literally no reason. He’s attracted to her and apparently loves her, but also hates her and thinks she’s ugly. That’s what causes every piece of conflict in the series and there’s absolutely no reason for it to be the case.

And then, when other girls who he’s previously expressed being romantically interested in admit they like him, again, there’s some non-reason why it can’t happen. I honestly can’t tell you what the driving force behind this series is. All the conflict appears out of thin air and is resolved just as easily.

Conclusion

Oresuki is probably a 3/10 for me. I considered giving it a 2, but I’m not sure if it deserves to be that low. Regardless of the score though, it was definitely the anime I hated the most from the fall 2019 season. And with that said, I don’t recommend this series to anyone.

Also, I guess I should say something nice about this anime before I wrap up. The tsundere Asaka “Sasanqua” Mayama was a good character. I mean, she probably wasn’t really a good character, but I like tsundere characters. And I respect her for committing to the hairstyle change even though she got rid of her twin tails.

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