Director: Konosuke Uda
Studio: Toei Animation
Fansub Group: KissSub
Genre: romantic comedy, slice of life, school life, drama, sports, shoujo
Episodes: 24
Koizumi Risa is a high school girl at 172 cm tall, much taller than the average Japanese girl, while Otani Atsushi is 156 cm, much shorter than the average Japanese boy. Because of this as well as their constant bickering and loud scenes, they are regularly referred to as the "All Hanshin Kyojin", which is a popular comedy duo in Japan which plays on their height difference. The term basically means "The Halfling and the Giant."
Lovely Complex is a very endearing romantic comedy which plays on the distinct height difference of the two protagonists. Koizumi and Otani begin as a comedy duo who make a deal to set aside their differences to help each other in their love endeavors. After their plan backfires, the duo find themselves launched into their very own love story as the main characters when Risa finds herself falling in love with Otani.
As a side note, Lovely Complex is a rare anime in which almost every character speaks in Kansai-ben, the dialect of Osaka, a region in Japan. This is a turn off to many Japanese viewers since Kansai is deemed as a very crude and informal dialect of the Japanese language. Overseas viewers with no knowledge of Japanese, however, will more than likely overlook this fact as it will make no difference whatsoever. The witticisms and charm of Lovely Complex still manages to present itself wonderfully.
- credits to Lovely Complex @ wikipedia
The storyline is fresh, yet typical in its own way. Very rarely have I seen a romantic comedy based on such a petty complex dealing with height, but I guess the average high school student in Japan is a little more sensitive to this partical physical feature of their significant other. Over here in America, I've seen weirder couples with issues more pressing than 14 cm of difference.
But the concept was fun and the jokes were extremely humorous. Fortunately the show didn't overplay the height jokes to oblivion and weaved them into the dialogue and action where they actually mattered. No one sounded like they were struggling to pull something funny out of their ***es. All fun quips and insults were presented like everyday speech.
Koizumi Risa is undoubtedly the main protagonist of Lovely Complex; the viewer follows the majority of the story through the eyes of Risa, seeing her emotional ups and downs as well as her crazy inner mind and idiotic antics. As far as female protagonists go, Risa is actually a very fun character to follow -- she is almost predictably chaotic.By personal opinion, I find Risa to be a very admirable shoujo heroine and an even more admirable romantic comedy protagonist. She is strong-willed and emotional at the same time, but she never lets her feelings get in the way of her will power to move forward. When I first started watching Lovely Complex, I had never pegged Risa to be so emotionally fragile. She's always so crazy and wild that it would have never crossed my mind just how much the little things about Otani make her tick.
Koizumi Risa is not typical of a shoujo manga heroine, physically or as a person. By no means is Risa considered cute, no matter how she tries to act it -- which is animatedly portrayed very akin to an old woman's snickering. Risa doesn't come off as a ditzy airhead, and as idiotic as she may be, she's not clueless. She's not the most down-to-earth girl you can find either. Her head is in the clouds consistently whenever she's in her "Love Otani" mode.
In one word, Risa is simply "real." She is your everyday girl. But she's a strong-willed, idiotic everyday girl.
Even though she is rejected, she doesn't purposefully date the next guy who comes along and who happens to "have loved her all along." This is an attribute that I hate about some girls (and not just shoujo heroines): going out with the very next guy who's available just because you're rejected, even though you know, and he knows, and every other person and their uncle knows that you don't even like him. You're on rebound and you're using this guy to get over the first guy. In the end, everyone is hurt.
(Look forward to a more thorough and detailed feature on all the sad and frustrating characteristics of shoujo manga heroines that I absolutely cannot stand... even though I'm currently obssessed with shoujo manga... I'm hypocritcal, I know.)
But I digress ...
Koizumi Risa is as tall as a boy, as courageous as a man, and as strong as any hero. But despite being an uncute girl, Risa is a very beautiful person inside and out. With the right touch of everything, she is an absolutely gorgeous woman. She has pretty physical features, wonderful fashion sense, and a lovable personality.
Nonetheless, Risa is human after all and she will make mistakes -- in her case, when she screws up, she screws up bad. I admire this about her: if you're gonna do something wrong, make sure you do it completely and utterly, irrepairably wrong. That's the strong-willed spirit that lets you know that you are still human and that bad things do happen.
Risa has done lots of embarrassing things for the sake of catching Otani's attention. She doesn't hold anything back and just plunges into her courage pool head-on. It is absolutely admirable, because even if it were me, I probably wouldn't have that kind of courage... or idiocy, if that's what you wanna call it.
But love makes people do stupid things.
Risa is a very straight-forward and a very good-natured person. She does what she can for her friends and for herself. Koizumi Risa is predictably very real. These are the strange and moronic antics that almost everyone has done once or twice in their lives. For Risa, they just happen to be an everyday thing.
I idolize her. She's one of my favorite shoujo manga heroine despite and even in spite of all her faults. She's courageous, because it takes a lot of courage to continue on with your fight even after you've been ungracefully rejected. And she's lovely because even as she throws away her dignity to fall in love, she remains at the peak of her cheeriness and charm.
In contrast to Risa, Otani Atsushi is a guy that I really, really didn't like at first. His first impression was that of a brat and a smartass. If he was just a smartass, I could have forgiven him, but then he also had to be a rude and crass little brat. And he's arrogant too. And then he's short and not at all suited for Risa.Those were my thoughts, which were very ironically Haruka-ish.
Otani is short. "Midget" is his calling code. And unfortunately for him, this is also where it hurts the most. Because of his ex-girlfriend dumping him for a taller guy, poor Atsushi-kun has been sensitive to this trait of his since the first day giraffes stretched their necks for food. I truly do believe that he harbors grudges on people who are even remotely taller than he is.
But to be completely honest, I don't hate the shortie.
Otani is a cheerful, loud, and outrageously witty person. His redeeming quality is his tendency to have moments of incredible kindness. Despite being an arrogant ass regularly, Otani is actually a very nice guy. On top of all of that, Otani is just as much of an idiot as Risa is and it's no wonder they can get along so easily. It is because of these random moments throughout the series that gradually allow him to grow on you. They easily balance out his crass and rude behavior and makes Otani Atsushi who he is.
I don't especially harbor exceptional feelings for the Midget, however. I like the pairing of Otani and Risa, and I don't hate Otani either. I just don't really care much for him without Risa to help balance out his idiocy... or enhance it.
Like Risa he can be an idiot at times, mirroring his fellow female protagonist completely. He's got a bit more common sense on his shoulders though, and I have to give him props for comprehending situations better than his girlfriend.
I really did learn to like this guy after a couple episodes. But that's not to say I'll ever worship him. He still irritates me (even in the manga) because he still tends to treat Risa like his normal sparring buddy rather than his girlfriend on a regular basis. Of course, this only makes all those times when little A-chan unintentionally declares his love without reserve oh-so-sweet.
Otani is a very easily tempered person and can be rather insensitive in his manner of speech. He also holds grudges, which is a very un-bishounen trait. His take on the romantics of his relationship with Risa seems to be very secretive as he deems it "disgusting" or "uncool" or "embarrassing" to express his love so openly.
It takes a girl like Risa to actually enjoy being insulted by Otani regularly as a form of affection. Some scenes in the manga even suggests that Risa does not prefer Otani to be clingy and lovey-dovey too often either. And then some scenes also depict that Risa wishes Otani could be more loving towards her. Really, make up your mind, girl!
In my personal opinion, I guess the most unforgivable trait of Otani is his casual, cool, unenthusiastic attitude towards the relationship between him and Risa. Most would probably never guess that they are boyfriend-girlfriend save for the fact that they are always together. While we can clearly tell that Otani has feelings for Risa and that he sees her as a very important person in his life a la "I'm just no good without Koizumi," he doesn't act the part very well. At least not often enough.
I've found myself wondering about whether or not Otani has ever considered that one day, because of his cool attitude towards Risa, he'll end up losing her completely when she's had enough of his insults.
Then again, I might just be biased because I don't really like A-chan very much. Maybe there are some of the little things he does for Risa that I can't seem to see or that I can't seem to comprehend. Or maybe this is just how their relationship is supposed to operate, and frankly if Risa is okay with this, then I guess I have no room to complain.
I admit that while watching the anime, I had the sudden feeling that Otani was the type of person who relished the chase that Risa had been giving him. He likes that someone is worshipping him and somehow can't get enough of that feeling -- but this, of course, is very untrue of Otani's personality because we all know and I admit that he is a very kind person who wouldn't intentionally lead Risa on for the sake of his own ego.
Instead, it was really his indecisiveness that killed his good qualities, as this is much worse than purposefully leading Risa on a wild goose chase, unending. While Risa is suffering the "will he ever see me as a love interest" dilemma, Otani just simply could not decide whether he could see Risa as a girlfriend or not. In turn, Risa found that she couldn't push forward or back away and she couldn't even hate the bastard for being so wishy-washy because she knew he was still undecided and that there was still hope and so she promised to wait for his decision.
Honestly, I think I would have already gone crazy and gutted the poor midget. Well, not really, but I can only dream that I have that kind of spontaneity. In reality, I would have just said, "screw it," and moved on. It takes a girl as persistent as Koizumi Risa to keep at her wild chase for as long as she did.
In the end, I find it kind of unfulfilling to watch Risa put her entire heart and soul into chasing after Otani, and all he really had to do is nod or give his consent. The relationship between Risa and A-chan truly hangs on Otani's every word, action, and decision. Risa has every confidence that she is in love with Otani. Otani has every confidence that she is in love with him. But I think that Risa has no confidence at all that Otani loves her just as much.
She's got low self-esteem already because of her height issue keeping her from finding a boyfriend. She doesn't think she has what it takes to hook herself a good boyfriend, and now that someone finally takes the position, Risa just wants to make sure he stays with her, even if it means being an undead cockroach. Sadly, either Risa just needs to learn how to love herself more, or Otani isn't doing something to convince Risa that he truly does feel for her.
Again, maybe I've overlooked a few things. Maybe I'm not seeing the deeper side of his personality. But up to this point, I'm not very happy with Otani. Maybe he'll fair better as the manga progresses as I've yet to read the complete series.
Don't get me wrong. I'm happy that these two got together. I looked forward to it so much that I finished the whole series within two sittings. They make a great couple, albeit not so loving, and they fit each other perfectly. As they would say, one is just no good without the other. I don't hate A-chan, but I feel like he should at least put a little more effort into the relationship than what I've seen so far.
Lovely Complex is really simply a love story following Risa and Otani from beginning to end. Without them, there is no Lovely Complex. Of the supporting characters, very few have much significance, and the only one that I am exceptionally fond of is the lovely Nobu-chan.
Ishihara Nobuko is the best friend of Risa and has been the stable supporting pillar for the "Risa loves Otani" campaign since the beginning of history. I address her as Nobu-mama religiously if I can because she resembles a wonderful maternal figure to Risa so well. But for the sake of this review, I will dotingly refer to her as "Nobu-chan."Nobu-chan is in a wonderfully loving relationship with Nakao Heikichi, is a very fashionable and charming young girl, and extremely insightful. Because of her, Risa had been able to bring up the courage to confess to Otani and to keep on with her pursuit.
I like Nobu-chan's personality a lot. She's straight-forward with her advice and her insults as well as her punishments. She doesn't hesitate to tell Risa or even Otani when they've been idiots or when they've done something extremely, unforgivably stupid. And even when she deals her executing "You screwed up, now you think about what you did and fix it" blow, she also willingly returns to her friends to continue supporting them.
Nobu-mama says:
"If you weren't such an idiot, you wouldn't be in this situation wondering whether you'd kissed or not!"
(cue frustrated hyperventilation)
"If you just apologized, I'm sure Risa would let it go."
A-chan's thoughts:
"..."
The point at which I utterly fell for Nobu-mama was when she refused to believe that Risa had given up on Otani and had moved along to chase after Maity-sensei. When she exclaimed in an outrage, "Mother will not forgive you!" it was wonderful, funny, amusing, and lovely all at the same time. She was even "Okaa-chan" rather than "Okaa-san". It was one of THE main highlights of the entire series.
The second highlight of the entire series was when Otani spontaneously kissed Risa on her birthday. The third was when Seiko-chin was found to really be male and Otani's good friends are sitting off to the side snickering to themselves, intentionally trying to pretend that they aren't really laughing at poor A-chan's misfortune.
Oh, but there are so many other highlights of this series, I wish I could list all of them.
While the rest of the supporting cast of Lovely Complex were all very outstanding, I find it unecessary to mention them in depth here. I have little to say about them except that I very much enjoyed their personalities and their interactions. Besides Nobu-mama, the rest of the supporting cast were really of little or no significance to the main plot. But don't get me wrong, I loved their presence and the series would not have been the same without any of them.
Nakao and Suzuki were both typical of male shoujo manga characters as the tall, good-looking, cool boys with their cute and stylish shoujo manga girlfriends. Chiharu-chan was small and cute enough to put in my pocket with her timid and adorable fear of boys.
Haruka was annoying overall; but he had his one redeeming moment where he courageously confesses to Risa and actually gives off a really cool feel. I was starting to think differently of him when he told her his plans to come to her in the future and ask her to be his girlfriend. But that thought changed quickly after his personality proved to be exactly as annoying as he first turned out to be.
Seiko is adorable even if he is a cross-dresser who is in love with Otani.
Maity-sensei is... well, I kind of get the same feel that Nobu-chan gets from him: freezing cold. I get goosebumps just thinking about him. Although I must admit that despite his lame attempt at being the magical matchmaker, I'm grateful that his presence forced Otani to re-evaluate his feelings for Risa. Also, Maity had his redeeming moment as well when he pwns Otani, not only once, but twice.
Other side characters introduced were interesting amidst the ending of the storyline. Again, Kohori-kun was nothing more than annoying. Mimi-chan on the other hand was actually quite amusing to watch.
Overall Thoughts:
Lovely Complex had me hooked from the beginning to the end. There were points when I had to force myself to stop watching for the sake of my own sleep.
I personally enjoyed this series so much that I wanted to watch more and know more about what happens to Otani and Risa after high school. I wanted to watch more antics of these two charming characters and see what other obstacles they have to go through. I attached myself to the characters emotionally and it took quite a long time for me to detach myself so that I could move on to viewing something else rather than staring at my endless looping of Lovely Complex episodes.
Of course, detachment did not stop me from religiously seeking out the manga version of Lovely Complex -- but that bit of info is for another posting.
I will say, in comparison, the anime is a little less specific in certain antics and also changes a few things from the manga. Some changes, I felt, were better.
I prefer the anime version of the "Otani standing on higher steps to kiss Risa to make it look cooler than on level ground" scene over the "Otani telling Risa to stand on lower steps so that he could kiss her without standing on tiptoe" manga version.
I also preferred the anime version of when Risa finds Otani after the results of his exams are given to him. The manga supplies that Risa thinks her congratulations, believing she said it out loud, and then the two move into a kiss which is unceremoniously interrupted due to other issues arising with the supporting cast. In the anime, Risa actually says her congratulations, the two share a heartfelt kiss, the scene fades out and we finally end the anime after another "All Hanshin Kyoujin" display during graduating ceremony.
On other aspects of the series, the manga-to-anime adaptation was excellent; the artwork is justifiably smooth and worthy of Nakahara Aya-sensei's original version. Although A-chan is a bit better looking in the manga than he is in the anime, and more fashionable clothes were presented because there was no school uniform in the manga. I especially loved the voice actor for Nobu-mama and Risa. And finally, the soundtrack is incredibly catchy and the very first opening theme by Temogass is meaningful to the story. Nakahara-sensei's emphasis on a unique, modern style fashion gave the series a very hip and cool feel.
Lovely Complex is overall, a very very lovely experience.
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