Anime: Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun

My Little Monster is an odd love story that in essence is an "Opposites Attract" tale. Haru, an extroverted psychopath with the emotional maturity of a 5 year old who craves social interaction, and Shizuku, an introverted lone-wolf perfectionist who has put her studies ahead of having friends, are thrust together by some twist of fate and somehow manage to never get unwound, just a little frayed.

To sum up my impression of the show into a couple sentences: it's one of the better romances I've seen because it is an interesting love story, nearly psychological in focus, but without having lots of expososition or monologues. The characters don't understand it, the viewer is only given glimpses, but it never felt like a chore to watch and even though I was occasionally irritated with how things developed or what a character did I was never taken so far out of the story I couldn't remain intrigued.

Haru, the male lead, is a clear and through psychopath; this fact is made clear in the first 5 minutes of Episode 1 when he threatens the female lead with rape unless she quietly comes with him - and while this is delivered in a "toungue-in-cheek" manner as you're either left wondering if he understands what he's saying or is doing it jokingly. Either way I started off not sure what to think and already disliking him... but as the show progressed it was clear that he must not have understood the depth of what he was saying. He is impulsive to a childlike degree and often comes off as someone who stopped maturing around 5, but then other times shows some degree of maturity and self-awareness that is confusing giving his previous characterization - and although he's partially self-aware he doesn't know how to change himself and this ends up being his obstacle in pursuing Shuzuku. It's not clear what the root of his anti-social behavior is and the causes are only hinted at near the end of the series (one reason I hope there will be a second season this Winter, and I'll probably pick up the manga for) but it's his defining feature.

The characters' flaws are a large part of why they're drawn to each other, but it's also the reason this was such a weird show for me. It's a love story about a lonely psychopath who wants to connect with people and an introvert who didn't know she was lonely until people were thrust into her life. The journey the characters - and viewer - make in trying to understand the catharsis that drives their relationship is one of the most enjoyable I've had. Shizuku takes the brunt of Haru's psychopathic craziness in stride, getting punched, kidnapped, assaulted and plenty more. At times it was a little hard for me to believe no one would say anything to Haru, or that he wasn't in jail or something... but at the same time it was what seemed to be a calculated move by the storytellers to depict the depth of this odd relationship between different but similarly damaged individuals. He isn't crazy in a random-LOL way and he's no Prince Charming Perfection; it's all to drive home how damaged and disturbed he is, for whatever reason, and why he's had trouble connecting with people before he met Shizuku.

While there isn't much growth between the two of them I'd say Shizuku is the only one who ends up maturing at all over the course of the 12 episodes. Actually, there isn't a whole lot of character growth between any of the 5-6 main characters outside of Chizuru, whose problem was comparitively minor, I guess. The other characters are social misfits of different colors and their problems are touched on occasionally while Haru and Shizuku remain the focus for the large part of the 12 episodes. They're all portrayed well and you can understand and empathize with them just enough that it's not bothersome when some are tossed aside to make room for the various love triangles to play out. It should be noted though that the story takes place over the course of one year (possibly two?), and they are only kids. They do a pretty good job making sure there's at least one insecure character any given viewer would be able to look at and relate to on some level, and the show does a good job at portraying believable romances and relationships while still staying true to the bizarre essence of the story.

I don't feel it would be right to take points off just for the lackluster open ending in case there is a chance a second season will be on the horizon. If it is left the way it is with no conclusion consider my review a 6.5 or so - it's still worth a watch and definitely enjoyable while it lasts but without any kind of an ending ultimately you'll be left wanting more.you'll be left wanting more.

There are shows that spend an entire season teasing viewers with the prospect of a relationship, or even a kiss. And then there are shows like Tonari that actually get down to the business of relationships and just how difficult they can be to manage. My Little Monster is not about catching crazy guys with Pokeballs but rather about a girl who's path happens to cross that of a very interesting classmate. Will a girl who cares only about studying and working towards a ten-million yen annual income find a new purpose in life?

Tonari no Kaibutsu is a shoujo anime, but one that is much closer to Suzuka than Maid Sama or Special A. Yes, as in the latter two you have an impossibly smart and strong male contender. However, the relationship between Shizuku and her Monster is far closer to what you find in Suzuka; there is a lot of uncertainty and tension, the kind that pulls at your heart strings. If you're looking for something with a very good mix of comedy, drama, and romance I highly recommend this series. Just be aware that it doesn't seem to be quite complete yet. A remarkable amount of development does happens in the first episode, so go ahead and give it a try.

Animation:
Tonari has an interesting drawing style. The overall feel is highly saturated with simple but appropriate coloring. Backgrounds are likewise plain but appears almost purposely drawn in a painted style. As this is a shoujo piece, expect a lot of drawing attention on the male characters. Overall character styling is appropriate and emotions are well conveyed. This should be obvious, but there's virtually no fan service, in its place is a lot of actual character development. There is some action in the form of our Arnold Schwarzenegger-strengthed male lead pummeling other people, but nothing much otherwise. Oh yes, there's a chicken. The last show that I recall seeing a chicken in a plot-relevant role was True Tears. They must be on to something...

Sound:
I didn't find anything special with the OP but found the ED strangely Christmas-inspired with all the jingling bells. The BGM is likewise standard with relatively few outstanding pieces. VA's on the other hand are a completely different matter. Haruka Tomatsu does an amazing job as Shizuku and likewise Tatsuhisa Suzuki as the brash yet somewhat childish Haru. Atsumi Tanezaki also does a very good job at Natsume. Despite many of the characters behaving somewhat immature, the VAs do a great job making it all feel cohesive and believable.

Story:
Shizuku, an academic ace, is one day asked to deliver documents to her classmate/delinquent, who had been absent since getting into a fight on the first day of school. Her life suddenly changes after her encounter with Haru, who has never had a true friend in his life, interestingly a trait that Shizuku also shares. However, rather than turning the plot into another Haganai, the series instead focuses on Shizuku and how she reacts to Haru's candid honesty and growing love for her.

The show starts out with Shizuku promising to explain a story about all the the protagonists in the show. Unfortunately, it seems the director forgot about this promise as, despite being a very entertaining and rewarding show, some of these "stories" seem to have been left out. Yes, there are definitely many-pointed polygons worth of relationships here but none of them have any sort of closure. The story progresses in a fairly linear manner, almost as a slice of life with the exception of Shizuku's feelings towards Haru, which seems to wax and wane like the moon.

Nonetheless, the story captivated me with the strength of the character cast and the exploration of their bonds. In conjunction with the well placed humorous moments to lighten the mood just at the right moments, I felt the execution of the overall story was great, enough so to offset the unanswered promise that Shizuku makes at the beginning of the show.

Character:
The strength in this show for me are the characters. Perhaps it's just me but I easily relate to Shizuku; it's totally true that in academics (at least up till grad school), it's easy as every question has a definite, correct answer that one can master through effort alone. However, Shizuku soon learns that in relationships there's seldom a correct answer at all. Add to this Haru's unpredictable nature and you have a very intriguing picture. Some may look at the characters and say that they're simple and one dimensional. However, there are plenty of cookie-cutter characters out there, and I don't think there are many of them here. The characters here have not only unique traits, but also background-based complications. The only complaint I'd have is that their potential was not fully utilized as the show seems to yet be incomplete.

There are some supporting characters as well in the story that add to the polygon in meaningful ways. The only character I'm still trying to figure out is the rooster. Overall, I felt that the characters here, despite acting like teenagers on occasion, behaved more mature and realistic than many a recent series. The development is intricate and detailed, exactly what I like to see.

Value:
The value you get out of this series depends on what you'd want from the series. If you're looking for a complete love story, you're not going to find it here. If you're looking for beauties to feast your eyes on, you're not going to find it here. I walked in looking for some serious character development and relationship situations, and the series has plenty of it. Add in well timed comedic elements and it was an instant win for me. If you're looking for a series with similar expectations, I recommend giving this Monster a try.

Cliches become cliches because they work very good for comparatively little effort, so everyone starts using them. At the very least, cliches are a good way to get high scores in preliminary reviews.
Still, you can screw up even a cliche. Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun is a cliche high school love story that is just too weak to do justice even to that simple setting.

Presentation:

Presentation is on the level tech-wise, but definitely way weak in terms of vision and inspiration.
The backgrounds are cute. The sounds (voice acting, sfx, music) are not necessarily all nice and soothing (in fact, voice acting gets pretty jarring at times), but definitely fitting to the wishy-washy high school setting. In terms of everything else, though, which is characters, animations, opening and ending songs and sequences, - the only good thing to say about them is that they are present.

Mere presence of audio and visuals, however, means essentially nothing. The show's presentation feels like an execution of a technical document. In terms of distinct style, which is the selling point of all good high school comedies, Tonari has none. That wacky off-beat feeling you might have gotten from it's poster picture over at the anime's main page is simply not there.

Presentation in this show is a job done, but is not done well. While sounds do get a passing grade, in case of visuals it is not even satisfactory. 3/10 for video, 5/10 for sound.

Story:

The story follows the exploits of two social outcasts. The girl is deliberately studious and shuns other people for being distracting. On the other hand, the guy cares about people around him so much, he can't keep his emotions in check and ends up shunned himself. As the two meet and find each other attractive, the story begins to show great heartwarming potential through showing how the pair relies on each other to resolve their issues.

Sadly, the potential never gets realised. The are two reasons for it.

First - the initial episode, introducing the main characters, is both unbelievable and either boring, or scary (without being interesting). The male protagonist goes from laugher to tears to bloody violence at the drop of the hat. Reasons for him doing that are either not easily discernible, or way too shallow for the level of displayed reaction. All of this makes the guy's antics, which are the focus of initial story ark, decidedly hard to empathise with. The creators do attempt to alleviate this inconsistency by using it to make better presentation for the female protagonist, who looks upon all these developments with as much disgust and confusion as the viewer. However, this is a weak cop-out, which is both too little and too late to prevent the whole following story being painted in the "ridiculous, confusing and boring" color.

Second - the story doesn't really go anywhere. While at one point or another, plot developments are hinted at, they never get shown or resolved. While the secondary characters do get a sort of story for themselves, the main pair seems to be locked in an all too familiar unresolved-tension-preserving stassis.

Ultimately, it appears that the story was not the main focus of the efforts of the animemakers, and is mostly used as an excuse to show off the characters in various situations. While a point can be given for at least attempting to make stories on the side, this part of the job is simply not done at all. 2/10

Characters:

Characters can make up for lack of story and have been known to do so on occasion. This is clearly what the creators of Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun intended to happen.
Well, the good part about the characters of Tonari is that they all have that one defining trait that they stick to. Watching characters come into situation that puts their defining trait into question and finding ways to get back to it is the source of all enjoyment Tonari has to offer.

Problem is, the characters don't really have much else going on outside of their defining traits. And thus the ways to stick to it that they find are seldom creative and look more like stubborness than actual development.

The female protagonist somewhat breaks the mold, due to innate contradiction of being a girl that firmly decided to follow the traditionally male role models in life (for good reasons, too). But, again, this is just not enough to save the whole show.

In short, characters have weak, one-dimensional presentations and all their development is dependent on development of female protagonist, who can't really offer much in that department, being at best two-dimensional herself. 2/10

Value:

None whatsoever. No style. No new artistic ground. No story told.
The potential the show was offered by the time-tested cliche at it's core was left completely unrealised and unexplored. 1/10

Enjoyment

If you like seeing one-dimensional people struggle when faced with contradicting one-dimensionality of other people, you might derive some enjoyment from it. Heck, this is even a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine, so i'll go ahead and give a couple of points for that.
Also, despite everything, loved the chicken. Guess it's worth a point, too :) 4/10 overall.

THE STAFF
- Animated by Brain’s Base, a studio with very good production values and a mostly mediocre roster. Their best works to date are Baccano and Penguindrum and even them were just lively and colorful but not exactly masterpieces.
- Directed by Kaburaki Hiro, who has experience with the romance genre but didn’t produce anything amazing.
- Based on a manga by someone whose this is the only work adapted.

PROPER MINDSET
My Little Monster is in a way like Kare Kano, one of the most memorable school life anime of the 90’s. It has characters that are pretending to be someone else, or even to actively not enjoining their teen lives. All that for the sake of being likable to others and to increase their chances of success in their goals. It is a very commonplace and reasonable thing most teenagers do and it’s nice to see how they would deal with the psychological pressure such issues create.

CAST
The comedy factor of the show is very high though, so most of the conflict is presented in a comical and light way. They address them but don’t expect a realistic handling of them. Take the main two characters for example.
- Shizuku, the heroine, cares only for her studies, until she meets Haru who completely messes her organized life.
- Haru, the co-protagonist, is a crazy teenager with extremely anti-social behavior, violent, vulgar, never takes something seriously, and acts as he likes without thinking much. He comes to the conclusion Shizuku is in love with him, just because she cared a bit about him and never leaves her side thereafter.

A thing you must accept right away is Haru’s behavior. He does some really horrible things from time to time, such as threatening to rape Shizuku, punches her hard to the point of bleeding, undresses in public, and constantly gets into fights for close to no reason. Normally such problematic people would not be allowed in typical schools, but since the show is mostly comedy whatever he does never has negative consequences. You must also accept Shizuku’s passive acceptance to all that. You would expect she would be devastated and would hate Haru for all the terrible things he constantly does to her. But instead she just becomes his best friend (and possible sweetheart) without much of consideration.

SCRIPT
There isn’t much of a plot; it’s basically the small daily problems teenagers face while trying to socialize or get good grades. There is close to no continuity and character development is close to zero. So in case you are watching this just to see the two main characters getting all serious in their relationship, don’t expect anything to happen. The characters are eccentric and full of emotional angst for you to like them right away but they are otherwise bricks when it comes to simply saying “I love you” or the more expected “let’s mate like rabbits, since we are crazy”. It is questionable how far they can remain interesting without developing their relationship or something actually important happening in their lives. I for example lost interest in 4 episodes before the lack of serious handling of its themes and the commonplace setting made me lose interest. This didn’t happen with Kare Kano, thanks to its weird animation (or lack of it).

PRODUCTION VALUES
Ok in terms of colors and character figures, but don’t go looking for anything special in them. They still have lots of choppy animation and the setting is just another typical high school with typical teenagers. Voice acting is very good for the roles each one of them has and the songs are ok for this sort of show, but still overall nothing memorable.

LEGACY
Just like all romances, it’s a good time waster for the slice of life or comedy fans but nothing that will be remembered in a few years from now.