Ore no Kanojo to Osananajimi ga Shuraba Sugiru (OreShura) Speculative Review

By James U.

Speculative Review at a Glance:

Rating as of Episode 5: 
2 out of 5
Multi-dimensional characters in a terrible story.

Highest Point:
Masuzu is one of the more interesting characters I’ve encountered in recent anime. She’s got a lot of complexities about her that make most of her actions difficult to predict and her motivations hard to read.

Lowest Point:

An important plot point felt completely out of place. What’s worse is that it keeps getting referenced and exploited, but is so poorly executed that it comes off as unnecessary (and worse, unfunny). The anime could still theoretically survive if the details of that plot point had been changed completely.

Recommendation:

OreShura has some interesting characters and ideas set up from the beginning, but ultimately fails in execution. If you’re willing to put up with that for the sake of watching the characters grow, then go ahead. Otherwise, steer clear from this terrible title.

Overview

Ore no Kanojo to Osananajimi ga Shuraba Sugiru (My Girlfriend and Childhood Friend Fight Too Much) is an anime adaptation of a romantic comedy/harem light novel series written by Yuji Yuji (I’m not kidding, that’s the dude’s name). It began airing January 6, 2013. The anime is directed by Kamei Kanta who’s involved in titles like Blood+, Ergo Proxy, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, among others. I seriously don’t know what he’s doing here. Granted, this is his third time as a director; his first being Tales of Vesperia: The First Strike (2009) followed by Usagi Drop (2011). So yeah, what the hell is he doing here? The anime is also called OreShura for short.

Ore no Kanojo to Osananajimi ga Shuraba Sugiru is a mouthful? That’s what she said.

Premise

Kidou Eita is a high school student who doesn’t want to have anything to do with love due to a bad experience with his parents’ divorce. All he wants is to study hard and become a doctor. Enter Natsukawa Masuzu, supermodel and campus heartthrob. She’s just as disinterested as Eita when it comes to love, but her popularity prevents her from avoiding the topic. So she does what any well-adjusted high school student would and blackmails Eita into becoming her fake boyfriend. There’s also Harusaki Chiwa, Eita’s childhood friend who’s there to serve as a foil to Masuzu. While it sounds kinda fresh (guy is a study bug, gets blackmailed), this harem anime is anything but.

Blackmail? I prefer to call it “aggressive negotiation”.

More Than One Dimension

If there’s anything good about OreShura, it’s that the characters aren’t completely shallow. Eita is the typically dense high school hero who hates love (whatever, dude), but he does care a lot for his childhood friend. He cares for her so much that he became a study bug so he could become a doctor and one day cure said friend’s injury.

Harusaki Chiwa is Eita’s childhood friend who acts like a typical quirky Genki Girl (she’s called Chihuahua by her peers), but is secretly torn up about not being able to practice kendo due to some freak accident. This causes her to overcompensate in other activities (which may or may not be considered healthy behavior) just so she could have a new passion to pour all her energy into.

The pinnacle of this is Natsukawa Masuzu. She is arguably the most complex character in the series. Masuzu is portrayed as someone who’s completely detached to the point of being deranged. She does some really terrible stuff and it’s a major draw to see the sort of shit she can do. She’ll emphasize on how fake your relationship is one moment, then cock tease you the next. It’s hinted though, that the core of her character is either something really really dark, or really really sweet. She’s got all the makings of your typical cold/aloof seductress archetype, but she’s also got some quirks. Masuzu has a taste for theatricality; she’ll strike random poses whenever she makes a point or gives a strong statement. While completely pointless and out of place, it’s still pretty entertaining. 

“Theatricality and deception, powerful agents for the uninitiated. Boobs work on anybody though.”

Masuzu’s character is something I really wanted to explore, especially if the story went with a completely dark and broken character. She is a cacophony of conflicting characteristics, and it shows whenever she struggles with herself.  

Typical anime characterization aside, the relationships are made better by having multi-dimensional characters. Will Eita give in to Masuzu’s teasing? Will Chiwa get consumed by her insecurities brought about by her trauma? Will Masuzu become a better person in the end? Typical rom-com/drama questions sure, but at least the characters make it interesting.

Good luck getting answers to all that while the source material is still ongoing.

It’s Just a Harem Anime; A Harime

The harem itself isn’t particularly better than any other harem, but it at least brings something new to the table. While the “I’m going to become X so I can cure your Y” motivation has been done, it’s still a nice motivation that realistically bonds Eita and Chiwa. Masuzu on the other hand establishes early on to the entire school that she’s Eita’s girlfriend, but hints that there’s something deeper to this other than utility. This is rare, because it supposedly locks out any of the other girls out of the harem. It’d be interesting to see how the story would introduce the rest of the girls (there are two more) to Eita’s penis.

“Sorry you’re in love with me. I’ve got hero-dick syndrome.”

It’s not without its flaws though. While there is a bit of a twist to the harem, everything else is cliche. You’ve got the main girl, the childhood friend, a Shrinking Violet, and possibly a girl from the disciplinary committee. These girls’ interactions are incredibly predictable; Main girl clashes with childhood friend (in fact, this happens in the first few episodes), disciplinary committee girl tries to overshadow main girl, while shrinking violet slithers into Eita’s pants as the other girls bicker. I haven’t seen anything new in their harem activities in the five episodes that I watched. It is fun to see Masuzu drill in the fact that she’s already with Eita though.

It’s not cheating if they’re all banging.

While this particular setup is supposed to pander to different fetishes-- I mean interests, it seems to set itself up for the typical “Oh, I love all of you equally while you all agree to share my body” ending so as to not piss off fans of a particular girl. It’s a tried and tired formula that has gotten stale over the last 50 times it’s been done. While I’m already expecting such an ending, I wouldn’t mind it if the story went the other way and actually paired Eita with only ONE girl.

Sorry. We’re fresh out of originality. Could I interest you with a witty remark instead?

Eighth-Grade Syndrome

I mentioned in the premise section that Eita was blackmailed by Masuzu into becoming her fake boyfriend. If you knew nothing about this anime other than the whole blackmail thing, you’d expect something like Masuzu claiming rape or threatening to release Eita’s internet history (*shudder*). Let me crush your interesting ideas right now. Masuzu’s blackmail material is a notebook which contains made-up stories and fictitious chronicles of Eita’s embarrassing childhood fantasies.

*Sigh* If only...

Eita used to fantasize of being the “Burning Fighting Fighter” (*sigh*) from his past life. It’s the typical boyhood cliché where he fights dragons and explosions happen. I get that it’s supposed to be some sort of original plot point, but that’s been done before (and done better at that). Let me go off on a tangent for a bit and tell you about Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! otherwise known as Chuunibyou. In it, the main hero used to fantasize about being the “Dark Flame Master”. It’s the same boyhood fantasy premise that gets the hero blackmailed into doing something against his will (though I suppose that discussion is best left on a different post). In Chuunibyou, the whole fantasy thing was a major plot point that was a springboard for both fun gags and other more serious plot points. In OreShura, it’s a Plot Tumor with poor execution that has little significance in the story (so far at least). Sure the anime starts out with Eita dreaming about the BFF thing if just to give us a heads-up, but it’s so out of place with the rest of the anime such that Masuzu’s blackmail could’ve been about ANYTHING and the anime wouldn’t change so much. Unfortunately, it seems like the third harem girl Himeka Akishino is directly linked to this plot tumor. And that’s terrible.

Pictured Above: Chuunibyou. It’s OreShura except it’s funny, deep, and original.

When Eita grew out of it he secretly (and stupidly) hid it in an encyclopedia and sold it to a bookstore near a train station for Masuzu to find (and exploit). This notebook first came up as something completely random, and the fact that Masuzu and Akishino found it feels absolutely contrived even though it sorta kick-started the entire story. The only way this plot tumor could be justified is if it turned out that Eita was being stalked by Masuzu and Akishino since the beginning. Somehow, I doubt that’s the case.

“Might as well leave my name in the notebook in case somebody wants to return it to me.”

Oh Eita. You fucking dumbass.

Gagging on the Gags

OreShura is supposed to be a romantic comedy. Unfortunately, it tries too hard to be funny that it ends up being uncomfortable to watch. One terrible gag has Masuzu whip out the notebook and recite a passage from it (usually in front of Chiwa). This causes Eita to completely lose his shit, even though 1) Chiwa has no idea that it’s his writing (even though they’ve been friends for a long time), 2) the passage in question makes little sense given the context of the situation, and 3) Eita’s spazzing, while understandably cringe-worthy for him, just attracts attention to himself. Like the plot point, his overreacting is out of place and poorly executed. It would be nice to see Eita get desensitized by this and just brush it off to show his maturity. But no, he has to act like it’s such a huge blow to his reputation even though the contents can’t be immediately linked to him.

It’s actually pretty funny if you pretend he’s dying of a heart attack.

Another gag is Chiwa’s “crazy” behavior. She’s made out to be some weird energetic Cuckoolander, but rather than invoking “Oh, that’s cute because it’s quirky”, it instead comes off as “Ugh, this is too painful to watch”.  Chiwa as a character is fun to watch most of the time, but my interest in her is immediately extinguished when she’s trying too hard to be quirky.

Conclusion
I wouldn’t recommend following this anime. The writing is terrible and the story panders to teenagers who have no taste (if you happen to be one, I’m sorry for your defect; it’s not too late to change). However, if you could get past the terrible gags and nonsensical plot points, then maybe you can find some measure of entertainment through its characters. It’s still quite a leap though. If harems are your thing, then you’re better off watching something else.

2 out of 5.