In its serious and dramatic moments, the first episode of Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines feels like a comforting and nostalgic reminder of the kind of romance anime I yearned for heavily as a teen — shows with an atmosphere I could wallow in, dramatic and emotional relationships that I could immerse myself in, and production values that created a beautiful world I wanted to lose myself in (I had to settle for setting screenshots as my desktop wallpaper).
Makeine isn’t all serious, though, even if depressing blues and greens are sewn into the fabric of its general visual identity (a lesser production might look hideous with this approach, but Makeine pulls it off). There may be a scene where tears fly through the air like the fragments of a shattered teenage dream while a wistful track plays in the background, but there’s silliness sitting amidst all that unrequited teenage love and atmosphere. When protagonist Kazuhiko Nukumizu (Shuichiro Umeda) accidentally gets a front-row view of his classmate Anna Yanami (Hikaru Tono) imploring her childhood friend and crush to go for the transfer student he likes before the latter transfers again, the theatrics intentionally clash with the regularity of the restaurant. It makes Anna’s table feel like an enclosed bubble of light novel melodrama suddenly appearing in the middle of the mundane real world.
When Anna notices Kazuhiko’s attention — right in the middle of a desperate indirect kiss via her crush’s abandoned straw — the light novel-esque world of losing heroines directly interjects itself into the life of our ordinary main character, whose most unique feature is the ability to figure out the best faucet to drink from at school. The blue-haired girl suddenly hops over to Kazuhiko’s table, where he’s trying to enjoy a romance light novel, and begins to share her unsolicited life story. The pacing feels a tad bumpy at first, but the development sets the show’s tone and plants the seeds of the duo’s relationship. Kazuhiko becomes an unwitting confidant in Anna’s romantic frustrations, and Anna has to make up for the inflated bill — the result of her drowning her sorrows with food — with bento lunches.
There are a couple of tired jokes in this episode, like Kazuhiko getting the false impression that Anna is going to repay him with sexual acts, but the bulk of the comedy is sourced from well-drawn mannerisms and expressions. Kazuhiko gets teary puppy eyes when his younger sister brings up the fact that he’s friendless and adopts a pathetic expression (accompanied by a perfect-sounding whine from Umeda) when Anna murderously stabs her food with chopsticks while venting about her love life. The bento lunch scenes are a recurring highlight, too. In one of them, Anna cutely tries to toss more side dishes into Kazuhiko’s bento to increase its value (thereby reducing her debt further), and in another, she slams a brick of rice onto a flimsy lid that Kazuhiko receives in lieu of a bento box.
Anna is the primary focus of Makeine’s first episode, but all the main players are introduced by the end. There’s the athlete Lemon Yakishio (Shion Wakayama), whose crush seems close to another schoolmate who attends the same cram school, as well as the timid Chika Komari (Momoka Terasawa), whose rival-in-love appears to be the Mari Illustrious Makinami-resembling vice president of the literature club. Anna’s mixture of natural cuteness and rage seems tough to beat so far, but it’s too early to place bets on the best losing heroine of the series. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing more of the side character Konami Amanatsu (Sumire Uesaka), a klutzy teacher who spends half of her brief appearance screaming passionately about the Byzantine Empire.
In the beginning and ending of the episode, Kazuhiko wonders what his life would be like if he were the main character in a light novel, which is what I’m most curious about. Are we going to get an eventual harem situation where all the losing heroines fall for him? That sounds like a possible but not very interesting route, so I sure hope it doesn’t come to that. Fingers crossed that Makeine will offer surprising developments on this front, in the good sense of the term.
Episode 1 main staff
• Storyboard artist and episode director: Shotaro Kitamura
• Animation director: Tetsuya Kawakami
• Scriptwriter: Masahiro Yokotani
Series staff
• Director: Shotaro Kitamura (Overtake! Episode 4 and Shaman King Flowers Episode 5 storyboard artist and director)
• Series composer: Masahiro Yokotani (Ohmuro-ke: Dear Sisters)
• Character designer: Tetsuya Kawakami (86 Eighty-Six)
• Sub-character designer: Yu Saito (Warlords of Sigrdrifa Episode 4 ending animation character designer)
• Main animator: Miura Takumitsu
• Main animator: Akane Takeda
• Main animator Mirai Kawashima (Kaguya-sama: Love is War -Ultra Romantic in-between animation checker)
• Color designer: Ayaka Murakami (Sword Art Online -Progressive- Scherzo of Deep Night)
• Art Director: Yuki Hatakeyama (The Tunnel to Summer, the Exit of Goodbyes)
• Compositing director: Yohei Miyawaki (Fate／strange Fake Whispers of Dawn)
• Music composer: Kana Utatane (Overtake!)
• Animation producer: Yuichiro Kikuchi (Kaguya-sama: Love is War)
Source material: Based on a Gagaga Bunko light novel series written by Takibi Amamori and illustrated by Imigimuru
Watch on: Crunchyroll, Bilibili, iQIYI
