Love is said to bring out both the best and the worst in a man. Those romantic moments full of affection are cute to those in love and cringey to singles(like me), this paradox has no end. Valentine’s day is finally over and the season love behind us we can finally criticize those cringey lovers; ahem sour grapes much. However jokes and sarcasm aside; it’s the same even in anime. While some moments fill us with “aww how adorable” kind of emotions, others make us cringe out of our skin. More often than once it’s the later since anime love usually pushes the boundaries and gets so repetitive that I find myself drowning in cringe.
So for today the 18th day of the event “#28DaysofLove” we are asked to talk about the anime scene that gave us second hand cringe. For me this one is quite simple, as there Is one scene in the entirety of anime that continues to cringe me until this moment. It’s the final confession scene from the anime “Oreshura”
Now before I unleash my sarcastic and borderline offensive commentary on this anime at large allow me to put a disclaimer.
These are purely my subjective opinions and in no way indicate anything definitive about the anime nor do I wish to demerit the efforts gone into the anime. The blog also contains mild spoilers
Now with the pleasantries and warnings aside lets get to discussing (trash-talking) the cringe.
Oreshura is a harem anime which revolves around
“Eita Kido” and his harem of girls all seeking to win his love. The anime follows the “fake lover” romantic troupe, troupe of which I am not particularly fond off, since in my opinion it’s the farthest from reality. I am not fond of harem amine in general ,as amongst the few I have seen they lack a substantial plot and to supplement this the anime is filled with perverted misunderstandings, awkward interactions between the MC and the harem girls or weird confessions. Frankly this anime is not that far off either. From fake lovers surrounded by competition to eventual lovers is the plot summed up in a single line.
The MC is called “Eita Kido” who is anti-romantic by nature and wishes to single mindedly focus on his academic dream of becoming a doctor. He gets into a fake relationship with “Masuzu Natsukawa” on her request as she wishes to shield herself from the unprecedented romantic attention she was getting. These two eventually become the lead couple however the harem still consists of 3 other rivals. Chiwa harusaki and Ai fuyuumi who fill the role of the “childhood friend ” who gets rejected and “Himeka Akishino” ,the chuunibyou who believes that Eita is her knight in shining armor.
None of the characters seem that endearing in this anime, while Eita appears to be a dense over committing harem mc, Masuzu appears to a be a diabolical predator who suffers from identity and emotional crisis, while the 3 other competitors seem mindless simps.
I believe this was one that made me cringe so much all throughout the length of the anime.
The final confession scene was the cringiest amongst all, still cringe about it when I think of it. So to offer a brief gist of what happens in it, the final scene is set on the beach(very cliche). There is this “love confession contest” where girls clad in swimsuits confess their love to crushes and the audience rate it(quite creative contest I must say). While the other confessions were fun the cringe begins when the harem girls begin to herald their love interests. The 3 simps say the usual “he gives me courage ,he is always so nice to me , he is so kind to me, we both have been together for so long” Himeka even goes to the extent of hugging and making it clear that he is her knight in shinning armor, alas as the plot demands these girls get rejected.
As if this wasn’t enough, Masuzu takes the cringe to the next level. First lets talk a little bit more about Masuzu, I had earlier called a diabolical predator who has emotional and identity crisis. This harsh criticism has merit, all throughout the anime she doesn’t really come across as a likable character. She claims she has no interest in love and is troubled who by the romantic attention she gets from her peers, hence she blackmails Eita and gets into a fake relationship with her as he holds a similar outlook to life. Despite her apathy to romance she is quick to notice that the other 3 girls have romantic interests in Eita and she can be seen manipulating them one more than one occasion, the worse being when she encourages chiwa to confess to a “high school jerk.” Her sole reasons to manipulate the other harem girls is to secure the status quo that she has with Eita.
If this was the case alone, I would not have any problem, as then Masuzu would have been the antagonist, but she doesn’t really have the mental strength to stick on to her ideals about being anti – romance herself. She unconsciously begins to develop feelings for Eita and is then able to sympathize with the competitor girls and then realization comes crashing about her rather petty
behavior.
Ultimately during the confession scene she breaks down into a helpless mess of a person who cant think or take a decision, she ultimately becomes the “the character who became a jerk only to suppress her past trauma” , I absolutely despise this trope , I don’t understand why. To add the final layer of cringe Eita finally realizes that he too has developed feelings for her and confesses to her from the audience, thus making it very clear who her prefers. The scene is loaded with a rampant display emotion and an unsettled feeling.
If the whole anime up until this point and this very scene itself wasn’t cringe, there were some personal triggers that this anime caressed that made it worse.
If there is one thing I detest in life it is heavy display of any kind of emotion, not to mean that I am not in tune with mine or that I am emotionally unavailable its just that I prefer to remain calm and composed. More that’s how my upbringing has always been as well, filled with decorum and rather stiff body language. I get awkward with any kind of ionate display of emotion be it anime or in real life. I know this isn’t something that I need to overtly extol since my stiffness has been offensive to people more than once as I tend to get judgmental about their emotions or the method they choose to express it , still that’s just how I am .
That’s not the only personal reason I have, if you have read my past blogs under the same event umbrella (and if you haven’t I encourage you to do so), you may notice I use the term “relatability” a lot. For me relatability is an important unit of mensuration in romance. My method to sympathize with people and situation I do my best to put myself in others shoes, be it with real folk or anime characters. Now imagine if someone confessed to you on a stage and you shouted your confession back at them, while such a flamboyant exchange might be the dream love story for some one out there it certainly isn’t the right thing for me. I would have ended up rejecting the one who confessed to me immediately on the of loss of decorum.
I am aware that I am more on the “old school” side than the “cool ” side, however I am sufficiently open minded as well but certain scenarios just don’t make the cut for me and this anime was one such case.
Just because I have felt so strongly about this anime doesn’t mean you will feel the same, if this blog has piqued some interest , you can try checking it out(however it must be obvious that I don’t recommend it) and form your own opinions about it, while you are at it you can share them with me , who knows a new perspective might broaden my outlook.
Writing this blog was more difficult than I earlier anticipated, It was as if I was reliving the cringe, hence I shall call it quits here and relieve myself. Until next time folks
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