It’s sort of unfortunate that this anime has to follow up a much better anime about romance between tsunderes, one of whom is named Akane, because this one really doesn’t measure up.

At first, it seemed like they were headed toward a deeper conflict between these two, like that Saito is a smart slacker and Akane thinks he’s wasting his potential, or that Saito feels like Akane is a busybody who acts better than everyone else - something that would actually make them fight about real things and lead them to believe they are genuinely incompatible people. Instead, they immediately drop that kind of argument and switch to Akane imagining things Saito could have said and yelling at him about them, which paints her as delusional and him as just a bullied nice guy.

It also feels like they’re trying to build him a harem for no real reason other than audience wish fulfillment. He’s even got a cousin who seems to be into him, who acts like a child and calls him big brother (multiple layers of gross, and also yes “cousin” is better than “sister”, but it’s still not acceptable).

It’s all very disappointing because I love an enemies-to-lovers arc, I love a forced-to-get-married plot, and I even often find charming most plot contrivances whose only purpose is to get a romantic comedy going. But this all felt kind of empty. Overall, I found it underwhelming and give the premiere a 3/5.