Kimi no Koto ga Dai Dai Dai Dai Daisuki na 100-nin no Kanojo: r/anime Awards 2023 Thoughts
This is part of a series of posts, reworking my casual writing from the r/anime Awards about the various shortlists and nominees. I do a lot of writing for the awards which never gets released outside of awards, so I figured I’d try bringing some of it out and putting it here. They’re not meant to be anything too serious or in-depth, just reworking my thoughts as I posted them in the awards server to here. This isn’t representative of the awards themselves or anyone other than myself involved in the awards. I’ll make a larger post with all the shortlisted shows from each category in the Write-Up Collections tab after I’ve posted all of the individual write-ups for that category here.
Of the categories I was juror for in the 2023 r/anime Awards, Kimi no Koto ga Dai Dai Dai Dai Daisuki na 100-nin no Kanojo was shortlisted in Anime of the Year and nominated in Character Design, and the main character Rentarou was nominated in Comedic Character, so those were the categories where I discussed it.
Watch Links: Crunchyroll
It's not an unpleasant show for the most part, I had a couple chuckles I guess. But most of the comedy comes from the extremified versions of tropes playing out in a very direct harem situation. The comedy is very loud, bombastic, over the top, and cluttered. Like, visually cluttered and audibly cluttered. Characters are constantly talking over each other while snappy text quips pop on screen to give a meta slant acknowledging that you the viewer are a savvy anime watcher and clearly know all these tropes and that's funny right? If that wasn't enough, the god of love will reference you're watching an anime too, and the nature of this adaptation! Honestly kinda curious what the joke is there in the manga. The reference humor felt lazy. It was not funny and felt like "laugh because reference" humor. The only joke I found kinda offensive is the French kissing vice principal. It's gross, and very problematic. As for gags drawn out too long, generally this show is very fast paced. The first kiss episode is kind of half this 1 gag, though about the dude's shitty plan and all the tropey things that happen when a harem MC is blindfolded walking towards a girl who is also blindfolded. But in general the show moves at a pretty fast clip. I dunno, the comedy doesn't grab me.
I have some issues with the characters. They're archetypical, and that's absolutely the point. The show wants you to know it's self-aware that one girl is the tsundere and one girl is deredere and one girl is the shy girl etc etc and it's dialed all those tropes up to MAX on that trope to be absurd, and this includes the shit-outta-luck nice guy self-insert MC. The tsundere is extra violent and extra tsun and extra dere, the deredere is extra loving to the point of just accepting everything the MC wants, the shy girl is so shy she only talks through a book...you get it.
Anyway, this is a weird way to "characterize" these "characters". I don't actually think this show has what we can call "characters" for the most part, it has extremified tropes. The show introduces these girls and its premise is the very moment they lock eyes on the MC, they fall in love with him. The problem with this premise is, upon their introduction, the girls are largely defined by the way they express affection for the MC. Shy girl actually has an interest in something other than the MC and, like, a backstory, so I do recognize her as having the bare minimum of what one may consider a "character" beyond just her trope, but after that's established and she's in the MC's harem, she’s not doing a ton.
As for Rentarou, our main character, there are some reasons why the girls could maybe care about him beyond just god has fucked up their brain chemistry to make them fall in love with him suddenly and lose most of their personality. He is convincingly earnest and caring. Unfortunately, beyond that, I didn’t find much of anything to like about him. He’s not funny or interesting or well-written or personable or likable from an audience perspective. His sob story at the beginning makes him just kinda pitiful. There’s not much to think about in terms of his struggles or thoughts or goals or anything, he just wants to make 100 girls happy. He doesn’t have much personality behind being a tryhard niceguy. His over the top love of everyone is annoying and cringe. He’s pretty stupid. Many of his plans fail in really dumb ways which aren’t funny. He doesn’t have any real chemistry with anyone, all the girls just like him automatically and vice versa, so we don’t see them develop feelings for one another, and they don’t really establish unique dynamics between him and other characters.
Probably one of the strongest elements of this show is its character design. It has very round and squishy looking designs, which work well with some of the comedy, and sell the “cute” aspect pretty well. The designs are very fitting of the show’s general tendency to take tropes and dial them up to 100. Rentarou is the kinda standard harem MC. The eyebrows are probably the most standout feature about him, as they’re pretty bushy. He does kinda feel like they wanted him to be cute? Not like, in an attractive way, but more a moe way. He feels kind of like just a kid. Kusuri’s size change gimmick is pretty good. Covers both the childish girl who plays with chemicals and sultry science senpai in 1 character. The clothes going from somewhat loose fitting for short form to tight and revealing in tall form works to show the appeal of each form, whether cute or hot. Shizuka is almost too small, but again they’re going for cute and achieve it, plus details like her messy hair are nice. The other girls are unfortunately pretty standard for their tropes, not much remarkable or that extreme. There are some cute outfits, especially towards the end as we’re at school less.
