Amatsuyu "Jouro" Kisaragi is a completely average second-year high school student who has two dates over one weekend—with the student council president Sakura "Cosmos" Akino on Saturday, then with his childhood friend Aoi "Himawari" Hinata on Sunday. Sadly for Jouro, both girls proclaim their love for his best friend Taiyou "Sun-chan" Ooga, the ace of the baseball team. Accepting each of their requests for advice and guidance, he is now responsible for helping the two girls win the heart of the same guy.
Unbeknownst to his friends, Jouro's friendly and obtuse image is all but a ruse designed to cast himself as the clueless protagonist of a textbook romantic comedy. A schemer under his cheery facade, he makes the best of this unexpected turn of events with a new plan: get Sun-chan to fall for either Cosmos or Himawari and take the other as his own prize. But Jouro's last-ditch effort is threatened by the gloomy, four-eyed Sumireko "Pansy" Sanshokuin, who surprises Jouro with not only her knowledge of his secret personality but also a confession to the true self he hid for all this time.
Stuck in this hilariously messy situation, each of the five students must navigate countless lies, traps, and misunderstandings to come out on top.
Oresuki is the tale of love. The love of one spineless, self-righteous, pitiful piss ant named Joro.
Joro wants to find love. A lot of love. In fact, he thinks he deserves his very own harem of beautiful women. Unfortunately, they are all bitches and sluts, as he calls them. And they are all in love with his best friend Sun-chan, a popular baseball player. All but one. Pansy. A stalker, blackmailer, and the main heroine. They’re perfect for each other, both toxic douchebags. But Joro doesn’t want her. He wants an angel.
The English title “Are you the only one who loves
me?” made me wrongly assume this show would have a point. I thought the end goal would be Joro giving up on the harem fantasy, then coming to his senses and dating Pansy. Maybe then this vitriol could have had a decent message like, there’s someone out there for everyone! Or, if you treat girls like sewage water they’re going to hate your guts!
Instead, he doesn’t. He chooses a harem. Every girl on the face of the planet inevitably falls in love with him. Strangely he no longer picks up on rom-com cliches—he is oblivious that everyone wants to jump his bones. So what do we do for twelve episodes? Your guess is as good as mine. I’ve watched the whole thing and I was left wondering one thing, “What’s the point?” Oresuki has nothing but dubious social philosophy sprayed out the pretentious anus of the main pissant himself, really obnoxious flower symbolism, and cringe-inducing fourth-wall-breaking humor. Rather than just being another banal harem, it threw as much shit at the wall as it could in hopes something would work. Oresuki wanted to be special, and oh boy is it special. But for all the wrong reasons.
The plot is an amalgamation of braindead stupid conflicts contrived for the sake of selling more volumes. There is no character development at all. Every time a girl becomes stale, a new one gets added (all the fucking time). The author sharts out a never-ending stream of waifus like a goddamn broken faucet. I wouldn’t be surprised if the guy was on crack while writing this abomination. Don’t worry about giving them all personalities, he has a brilliant formula for that too. Each girl is named after a flower, and wait for it, this man wrote all of their personalities based on Wiki summaries of the flowers. Genius, what an absolute madman. For example, Cosmos (the pink one) is named Sakura Akino, meaning virtuous and respectable, so she was obviously made the class president. She is just a hollow husk of a waifu archetype; similarly, Himawari is the sunflower, representing longevity and loyalty. The childhood friend trope. There's nothing to either of them—their purpose is to look pretty and provide panty shots. This same formula is used to write every single character. There is no deeper meaning. Flowers are pretty, colorful, and they have more personality than any of the characters in this show. The wall—thoroughly covered in feces—now has a fresh layer of flowers thrown at it too. I feel like I need to give this man a standing ovation for being the first writer to make tons of money by doing as little as possible. *Stands and applauds*
They say love is blind, I sure hope so because this show is butt ugly.
You would think with a story this lazily written the team would have more time to work on art. Wrong. It’s hideous. Everything is blindingly oversaturated. The lighting is horrible throughout the entire show. All of the characters look passable. The uniforms are plain black for the boys, typical school outfits for the girls, boring. Most of the girls have bright and colorful hair, identical rosy cheeks with dimples, and the same height/body types. The animation is passable, from a distance it looks pretty ugly, but up close it’s primarily still art being slid across the screen. Whenever you’d expect a lot of animation, they used still images instead. When an anime puts more effort into animating skirts ruffling and lips smacking than anything else, I think the director needs to get his priorities straight. Take away the headache-inducing lighting, the art is a solid 5, it’s a 3 with it. The OP and ED are pretty boring. Every girl is symbolized with the flower they’re named after (in case you forgot where all of their personalities come from).
Well, what’s next? I can’t say much more without spoilers. So I’ll give you a choice. You take the Blue Pill and the review ends—you know enough to avoid this abomination. Just do me a favor and scroll down, click “helpful,” then don’t let the door hit you on your way out. OR take the Red Pill—you keep on reading and I’ll show you how deep this burning stinking shithole goes.
***RED PILL: Spoilers***
I think it’s about time we talked about the bench—a long-running ‘joke’ that makes no sense and isn’t much of a joke at all. If there was an antagonist in this show it would be one of these three: Joro’s insufferable personality, everyone’s struggle to be the stupidest character, or the bench. Defying all logic, this bench appears at random points throughout the show for the same purpose. When a girl needs to have an Important Conversation with Joro, the bench appears. A park, a library, the school rooftop, it’s there. In episode one, the bench makes its first appearance. Himawari asks to talk with Joro in private on the bench. It’s heavily hinted she’ll confess, but SUBVERSION! She asks him to set her up with his best friend. Shortly after Cosmos asks him to talk privately on the same bench, shocking! This girl is, of course, also in love with his best friend. They were both at one of Sun-chan’s games when they fell in love with him. They both saw him crying, at the same time, and their hearts were moved.
Their stories are the exact same for no reason. It’s an intentional coincidence, but why? There’s no reason for these two girls—no, every girl—to have all fallen in love at this one game. I can’t explain it. There’s nothing funny about every character having stupidly intertwined backstories. Joro might comment and say wow this is so coincidental, just like a rom-com! No, it isn’t. Unless it’s a really terrible rom-com. Oresuki’s author had the clever idea of putting zero effort into the plot, characters, or narrative, but because Joro acknowledges the bad writing from time to time, he tricks people into thinking it’s deeper than it seems. This is not some grand plan conjured by a 144 IQ genius. It is the work of hack author with his brain vacuumed out of his nose.
Wrapping my head around the mindbogglingly awful narrative is exhausting. A more fun topic is the brainless characters and all of the problems they cause for themselves. Ah, Joro. At first he acts like a closeted incel, only to become just another banal potato self-insert. He would constantly condescend to anyone who made him the tiniest bit pissed off. Imagine Hachiman with bipolar disorder, throw in paranoid schizophrenia with how often he talks to himself and hallucinates.
The one joke I liked in the entire show lasted a whopping 5 seconds. Tsubaki offers Joro help for anything because her flower means saint or some shit—she then glances at one of his stalkers and says she’ll help “whether you think someone is stalking you.” Then her gaze subtly shifted to the camera and she continued “or if you think someone is reading your mind. The latter half of the joke stood out to me. It acknowledged how Joro’s thoughts are constantly said to us, and it weirdly felt like she knew. In a better show, this would be a great joke. Unfortunately, Joro is Joro and so the inner monologues are usually voiced creepily. He comments on things could see with my own eyes, or he’ll act annoyingly smart. Yes Joro, there are boobs on the screen. Thank you for letting me know. Don’t be surprised if you see this guy on a sex offender registry before he finishes high school. I do not hesitate to say he is one of the worst harem protagonists ever.
I’ve talked about the main characters, so here’s a rundown of the less-important-but-still-bad supporting characters. Sun-chan. The chad all of the girls love at first; his pussy grabbing hands entice everyone until they realize he’s evil (but Joro is still infinitely worse). He hangs around Joro for no reason than to support him. He claims to be in love with Pansy, then forgets about her to bromance it up with Joro. Blue-haired girl. The school journalist—she confronts Joro for having a harem. Eventually she realizes he isn’t flirting with all of them. She never finds out he secretly wants them all for his harem of whipped women. Then she falls in love with him. Tsubaki. She runs her family restaurant, a transfer student that already in love with Joro upon her arrival. They met once before when she was at work. He complained to her about his boring life and he didn’t remember her. Red-haired girl. She dies her hair black after Joro tells her it’s his favorite hair color. She follows him around with blatant intentions in mind, yet he never realizes it. She’s one of the more tame crazies. Kind of a creepy stalker. She spends the entire show yearning for Joro… and his *gulp* micro-penis. Joro’s Mom. Why does she talk and act like a twelve-year-old girl? If my mom genuinely thought she was seventeen, I’d be worried about getting smothered in my sleep—time to send that maniac to the psych ward.
There are two prominent traits all of these fruitcakes share in common. First, they seem very soft… in the mind. The other is their undying love for Joro. Coincidence? I think not. For the rest of the series, the story is essentially dead air. There is no driving force to the plot, to make up for the lack of anything the author contrives conflict after conflict to keep you watching. The stupidest ones go as follows...
Joro borrows an expensive book from a girl loses it because of a plot contrivance, then it is beaten up beyond repair. How does he apologize? He decides what she needs is a new book, so he gets a fulltime job. When he tells her how nice he is (unironically) she says over and over that he could apologize by simply spending time with her. He tells her no, adamantly, and that she REALLY wants him to buy a new book, so he gets the job anyway. Because Joro is such a nice guy, he wonders why the girl gets so pissed at him for working instead of hanging out with her (hint: she doesn’t give two shits about the book). What a nice guy, always has everyone’s best interests in mind. Eventually, she confronts him, but of course, he can’t be wrong. This entire conflict is predicated on Joro being a selfish dickhead for no reason other than his own shittiness. While he annoyingly wallows in self-pity, multiple episodes pass. Eventually, a stranger shows up and tells him how to think, then he apologizes to the girl. He learns nothing on his own. He’s simply told how to resolve the situation.
Then, all of a sudden, another girl buys the book for Joro. She was the one who caused it to become damaged, unknowingly. Joro responds by telling her to shove it (up her butt). He makes this poor girl cry because he’s too egotistical to notice her kindness. Assumably she gave up her favorite sport to spend her money on the book weeks ago (yet she curiously waits until the day that Joro has enough money to buy it because we need more contrived drama). The whole scene is disgustingly framed as a dramatic climax for the arc. The girl sobs for the camera, but it did nothing but piss me off. After berating her harshly, his personality spins around out of nowhere. He apologizes and thanks her, then buys her sports equipment, and just like magic, he is the good guy.
The final conflict is probably the dumbest one. The school decides it wants to shut down the library, the place where Joro’s harem meets up. You read that right. The library. Apparently no one uses it except the harem. No one goes there to get books, to study after school, or read a book. What kind of ass-backward school is this?
Sadly all things must come to an end. I will give the story a 1 because there was 1 good joke. The characters get a whopping 0 because they all sucked. Lastly, I will honor the author with an 8 for enjoyment because there was never a dull moment. And so, this dumpster fire is extinguished. Haha… who am I kidding? Humans will never run out of trash, just like this author will never run out of Ore Suki. He can keep writing this forever. See you next season.
For the first half of the first episode, Oresuki (Are you the only one who loves me) seemed like a very generic romcom. We’ve got a timid guy whose childhood friend seems to have a crush on him, then enters the Student Council President who asks the main character out on a date. The date seemed to be moving in very predictable manner; homemade lunch by the prez, some close moments and eventually, their faces inched closer and closer as the girl seemed to be confessing her love.
Yes, everything points towards this being yet another harem with cliché characters and repetitive story. But by the
time the first episode had ended, this had already become the anime whose second episode I awaited most. So, what had changed in just about 10 minutes?
There was a confession of love. But the confession was aimed towards the best friend of the main character. All the build-up, all the hints, and the president didn’t have a thing for the protagonist. Fast forward four minutes, and we’re in an identical situation. This time with the childhood friend. And we’ve got the same result. I tell you I haven’t had more of a surprise in the opening episode of an anime for a long, long time.
And the surprises don’t end there. There are some which you might be able to predict but some’ll stun you. A lot.
For once, we finally have a protagonist in a romcom-harem who isn’t the timid, dense guy who doesn’t take hints. And for once, we have a guy who won’t take being friendzoned the same way those pathetically boring characters do. That doesn’t mean that Amatsuyu Kisaragi, also called Joro by his close friends, is not a kind guy. He’s more helpful and kinder than most are in the real world, but what makes him great are his inner monologues with himself when he feels like he’s being played by the girls. He’ll call them bitch or vixen, show his lack of trust in them on the inside while acting calm with a gentle smile on the outside, or look at their advances with lechery eyes.
And that’s why he’s relatable. He won’t take the abuses of girls lying down nor will he act like an idiot to their advances. He knows everything while acting like an innocent and dense harem protagonist.
And with this attitude, he fools most of the characters. Apart from one: Sumireko Sanshokuin, the main heroine of the story. Also known as Pansy, she’s the only one who knows everything about Joro. So much so that she probably knows Joro and his habits better than he himself does. And that’s saying something. No matter what Joro does, she’s always one step ahead of him. And Pansy is where this anime gets its name from. It’s a question by Joro after he’s put in situations like the ones I mentioned above by the girls, only to later confess their feelings for his best friend, Sun-chan. Is Pansy the only one that loves him? And Joro’s none too happy about that fact because he’d rather have the Student council President, Sakura Akino, or his childhood friend, Aoi Hinata than this girl who he considers ugly (for whatever reason that I cannot understand).
One of the reasons Oresuki is amazing is because the characters that at first may seem generic, have added layers of depth to them, just not in the most conventional way. Their hilarious interactions never cease to make you laugh while the innumerable twists and turns never let the story get dull.
Produced by a host of studios lead by Aniplex, the production quality remains top notch. It’s got beautiful art and the animation never really caught my eye. And to be honest, for a romcom, that isn’t a bad thing. That just means that it was consistent throughout without dropping off. The use of different background shades for the scenes which showed the dark, inner monologues of Joro were superbly directed. There were some nice tracks inserted at the right time to create great sync with the scenes depicted, and the voice acting, especially for Joro, was great.
At the end of the day, entertainment is why most of us watch anime and this gets a 10/10 from me as far as that aspect goes. There was not an episode in which this show didn’t make me laugh, and neither was there an episode for which I wasn’t excited for. The deceptive nature of the characters, some realistic reactions, hilarious character interactions plus the various twists and turns in the plot make for a crazy ride of 12 episodes. I honestly feel like this is the dark horse of the season. Worse romcoms have been made popular by the hype while anime like this one, suffer when the season has sequels to already established shows like Boku no Hero Academia, Sword Art Online, Shokugeki no Soma, etc. Oresuki deserved a lot more attention and I’m certain it would have captured tons of heart if it did. Alas though, it looks like this will remain one of the underrated gems that not everyone will have the pleasure of encountering.
What is this? This truly is the romance of the season.
The main character Joro is basically the mix between Deku and Narancia. Joro is this nice and helpful little fella but of course when he snaps, he snap real hard. Sanshokuin Sumireko aka Pansy is the best girl of this show. She is really manipulative and very smart. Cosmos is the student council president who is very smart but gets flustered really easy, and whenever she is in an awkward position she starts talking like a samurai. Hinawa is Joros childhood friend. She is really into sports. She wants to be helpful but sometimes she
is not. Sun-Chan is Joros best friend who is the baseball teams captain and the first 3 episodes are based around him.
It seems this anime is divided into 3 episode long arcs. So far we have had a friendship arc? (I don't know the actual name) Flower Dance arc I guess and two others but I cant figure out a name for them
The arcs: First we have the confession arc where the 3 girls tell their story to Joro how they want to become sun-Chans girlfriend and Joro helps them. It turns into a huge clusterfuck at the end. Flower dance arc: They need to practice for the flower dance but then a sneaky reporter stalks Joro and wants to release a news article of Joros harem. The arc ends with the dance. Then in the third arc we first hit the pool where Sun-Chan turns into a real bro. I think the arc is about one book that Pansy lent Joro but in the end the book kinda got trashed or something so Joro had to get work. Then We have the fourth and final arc. Where the gangs meeting place is gonna be shut down so they need help. Joro meets a new character who is like a Joro v2 and Pansys worst nightmare.
Finally a harem RomCom with realistic characters and shit. I guess.
Do I recommend this? Yes. If you enjoy RomComs this is the perfect show for you
Have you ever had one of those moments in life where you feel as if a miracle is about to happen to you but then suddenly ends up being disappointed beyond disbelief? Someone by the name of Joro sure did. Just when he thought his life would turn into a miracle, he gets asked by two beauties to help them win their loves. Now that’s a slap to the face and reminder that life sometimes just isn’t fair.
Ore wo Suki Nano wa Omae Dake Ka Yo (Oresuki) may be a romantic comedy but loves to flirt with the idea of manipulation. It’s almost like a
real life version of a soap opera filled with drama but without the violence. Or is there? Physically, the show has limited amount of action unless you count Joro getting kicked or slapped on around on the occasions. But on a psychological level, Oresuki deals with manipulative love and drama that twists and turns until you see how deep the rabbit hole goes. Watching Oresuki has been a rather unusual but pleasant experience compared to some of the other rom-coms I’ve seen in recent years.
In wasting no time, the first episode drops Joro into a drama angle with upperclassman Cosmos and Himawari. In a particular depressing incident, he finds out that both girls are in love with Taiyou Ooga (Sun-chan), his best friend and baseball club ace at school. What’s worse? Both girls wants him to help with their love problem. That’s only half the drama as we later learn that Pansy, a library girl at the same school, is actually in love with Joro himself. With this setup, Oresuki establishes a peculiar love story with Joro being forced to become a matchmaker. However, a twist reveals that Joro has a much more manipulative personality that he keeps hidden from others. Only Pansy is aware of his true personality and is why she is in love with him. Now you can imagine how this type of story may play out. It essentially becomes a labyrinth of mind games. Joro’s goal is live his life as a “Romantic Comedy Protagonist”. He invented his own character while masquerading as a typical protagonist with a gentle personality. It’s essentially what people call a “two-faced” person. Deep down, Joro has his own insecurities and often feels inferior to others around him. The reason he hides his true personality is often so that he can craft plans to make things go his way. Although some people see his role as an anti-hero with such a role, Joro is also fundamentally a decent person. He doesn’t truly try to harm others and show his true feelings when someone in his life is jeopardized. Does this type of protagonist appeal to you?
This question can be answered if we take a look at how he develop relationships with the main cast. Starting with both Cosmos and Himawari, he reluctantly agrees to help them but also formulates plans of his own. Watching his moves carefully, the audience should take quickly why he interacts in his ways. Because let’s face it, Joro is actually quite a skilled actor who is able to change between his “nice guy” persona to his true nature very quickly and vice versa. On the other hand, both Cosmos and Himawari are dreadful liars. Their lies can easily be seen through by others and Cosmos even have absurd reactions whenever she gets nervous. Comparing their acting skills to Joro is like night and day. Joro’s goal of making his dream harem becomes a complicated plot for himself. Because Pansy is in love with his true personality, he has to accept such a fact despite still seeking to be the “romantic comedy protagonist” he hopes to be. Essentially, Joro becomes his own enemy and often times, his problems arises because of his own machinations. On individual levels, Cosmos and Himawari are clueless about his true visage. They still see him as an average classmate who doesn’t have a girlfriend but nonetheless, they spend time with him. But as the series progresses, they both seem to develop feelings of their own towards the boy. Is this perhaps true love? What happens is that love can change how people behave and in later portions of the show, it seems both characters show more affections towards Joro than they realize. On the other hand, Pansy constantly beats Joro at his own games. Whatever plans Joro crafts, she sees it through and actually makes him see his own mistakes. Between the two, they are the only pair in the show that doesn’t have a problem insulting each other. It’s a bit ironic since Pansy is in love with him and in a perfect world, couples are supposed to be loving with care. In Oresuki, we have this imperfect world where manipulation is part of the norm and almost everyone wants to be someone they’re not.
While the series has its own antagonists, I believe the true enemy is human nature itself. As a skilled actor, Joro has his own human faults that he even realizes. In fact, every character in the show has flaws in some way or form. However, I don’t want to throw everyone under the bus. There’s characters who learn from their mistakes such as the case of Sun-chan. Even supporting characters such as Asunaro realizes the trouble she caused when manipulating others as a member of the newspaper club. Joro himself even realizes that he has to face with consequences in life. It’s in human nature that people commit sins and the show teaches about how characters needs to learn from their actions. The only character that seems immune to corruption is Pansy. Her position in the show is unique in that she is the one who can see through others, in particular their lies. When the show finished airing, I find that Pansy is perhaps the most real character in the show for not only her observation skills but also being a life coach to others. Someone such as Joro could learn a lot from her.
Watching Oresuki may feel like an anime dosed with heavy amounts of drama. Every episode keeps the adrenaline going and there doesn’t seem to be a stop in the momentum. However, you have to remember that it’s also a romantic comedy. There are certainly a lot of comedic moments too such even including the physical aspects of the show. Whenever Joro gets hit, it’s portrayed comically. Many of his character reactions is often over exaggerated, almost like he’s acting. The anime also loves to throw in running gags associated with Joro’s matchmaker role and even occasionally moments of the fourth wall breaking. So take a breather and relax. Oresuki isn’t just a show with every square inch filled with drama.
As a 1-cour show of 12 episodes, it seems Oresuki was able to fundamentally get the audience to know what the show is. Divided into arcs, the plot is formulated with mind games but I do wonder how much the producers really wanted to be animated. The light novels continues the drama so as it’s up management to decide if they want to animate more of the series. To my delight, Connect managed to make the characters look sharp similar to their manga designs. Every female character in the show stands out and is portrayed with feminine features and beauty. Cosmos and Himawari are prime examples of this as they have an attractive valley girl look. While Pansy normally looks plain with braids and glasses, her true appearance is that of a beautiful girl endowed with attractive appeal. Even supporting characters such as Sasanqua has their own appeal when they show their true appearance. All this is contrast to Joro, who is portrayed as normally as possible on the outside. However, the character expressions he shows in secret is a different story.
As an anime with heavy amount of dialogues, I do commend on the voice actors on taking on their roles as dominantly as possible. This is especially true for Joro and Pansy, two voices who speak lines that often clashes against each other. Their character interactions is the most noticeable because Pansy knows the real Joro. Other times, Joro’s inner dialogues with himself speaks as his real character. On other technical standards, Oresuki’s theme songs adapts a more lighthearted tone with flashy images of character expressions.
Oresuki is kind of like a taking a multiple choice test where you have to figure out what’s real and what’s not. The idea of manipulative characters in romantic comedies isn’t entirely new. But for Oresuki, this anime took it on a whole new level with Joro at the center. This is type of rom-com that will keep you at the edge of your seat to see what will happen with each progressing episode. And by the time it’s over, you won’t feel like a loser beyond disbelief.