Oreshura

Summary: >

Eita has top marks in academics due to persistence, hard work, and shunning romance. Enter Masuzu Natsukawa: the beautiful girl from over seas every guy (except Eita) fawns over. New seat assignments put the two next to each other, which isn't a big deal until Masuzu suddenly confesses her love and wants to be his girlfriend.

It turns out Masuzu is also anti-romance. Due to never ending confessions at school, she wants to use a fake relationship as a shield. Eita doesn't like the idea, but is forced to go along with it when Masuzu reveals she's obtained a notebook from his comic book obsessed youth, filled with his incredibly embarrassing writings. With a girl now interested in him, Eita's childhood friend starts pursuing him as well... along with more girls who seem to come out of the woodwork to throw themselves at him. It's also not clear if Masuzu's intentions with the relationship are entirely fake... Who ever thought keeping your head in the books would be so tough?

These are the chronicles of Burning Fighting Fighter, and the fair maidens who flock to his passions.

Thoughts: >

The full title translation is "My Girlfriend and Childhood friend fight too much". Factoring in the generic "here are the girls" intro, I had a bad feeling this would be another superficial harem title. Even so, by the end of the second episode I thought perhaps this one had enough to go somewhere. As it turns out, that's one of the bigger problems with Oreshura: it doesn't go anywhere.

At first it seems like Oreshura will focus on the relationship between Masuzu and Eita; based on pretences it's just for show, but Masuzu's actions not quite reflecting that. Then it seems like it's about the club called "the club for maidens reinventing themselves". Or is it about Masuzu's heritage? Or is it about this new bland girl introduced for no reason? Or is it about the student committee girl who tries to shut down the club but has a crush on Eita? As time goes on, Oreshura keeps adding more and more subplots, does a half assed job with them, and leaves them unresolved. It's attention deficit disorder done as a harem anime.

Oreshura does at least look really nice, and it's well produced in both visuals and audio. Most of the day to day happenings aren't really that great, but it does hit a few good points .. occasionally. With unfocused plots, uninspired characters, and the usual harem girls squabbling over the indecisive guy... there isn't much to recommend on this one.

But it does have one exceptional feature: Eita's notebook. Masuzu uses the notebook to blackmail Eita, but it doesn't stop there. At least once per episode, Masuzu does a reading from the notebook involving Eita's Burning Fighting Fighter writing days. It's not clear if it's simply meant to torment him, but it's amusing the girls find it inspirational (not realising it's Eita who wrote it). It's gimmicky, but I always found it hilarious.

Oreshura is gloss with little substance. It continuously throws crap at the wall to see what sticks, but in the process adds too much crap. It splits attention in too many directions in both the number of girls, and the number of unresolved story points. Yet just as I was about to write off this show it came around again when the relationship between Eita and Masuzu gains clarity. Masuzu admits she has a dark heart, and Eita thinks perhaps she's the right girl for him for precisely this reason. The other girls sit on the sidelines, eagerly waiting to snap him up at the first opportunity, adding the needed pressure to keep the relationship together. The setup isn't that bad thinking of it that way, making it frustrating how it flails around aimlessly in harem hell. It needs to eject two of the girls and keep the pink haired one (yes, they're generic enough to be referred by hair color). Kind of "meh", and yet I still want to see more. Oreshura is strangely magnetic that way.

Screen Caps: >