Lovely Complex Allowed me to Rediscover Myself!

Production

The line between classic anime and modern anime is getting blurry. Lovely Complex came out in 2007. That’s the same year as Naruto: Shippuden, Gurren Laggen and 5 centimetres per second. But it looks older than any of those anime. Not bad by any means. In fact, I really liked the characters’ designs and generally enjoyed the visuals. But it did look like it came out a decade earlier. Let me try to explain it.

Obviously, the most important element in giving off that nostalgia vibe is the aspect ratio. In fact, slap that pillbox on any airing anime and you’ll feel like you’ve gone back in time. At least I do. The second big issue for me was the colours. They just looked faded. I liked the palette, in fact, I think the restrained warm colour scheme brought a lot to the visuals but the quality of the colours themselves was a letdown. And finally, some of the animation techniques were a bit old school. Lovely Complex uses a lot of art fails or super-deformed facial expressions and switches up geometric backgrounds.

This said I don’t want to give the impression that the show looks bad. It doesn’t. Like I said I quite liked the character designs and the backgrounds are varied and filled with extras. There are a lot of interesting details. The characters wear different clothes every time when not in school and all the outfits are layered and make sense. Risa, the main character, changes her hairstyle frequently like most real girls do, and all of the styles have obviously been carefully planned. They work with her hair length and seem like things a normal girl would be able to do.

And the animation is fantastic. The art is very consistent, above average and the movements are fluid. The vice acting is great.

When you take the time to take in the small touches, Lovely Complex is very visually impressive…but it just doesn’t always look that way. You have to see it for yourself to understand. What I’m saying is that it’s a very good production, it just looks dated to me.

Story & Characters

Let me just say, Lovely Complex is a romance anime. It’s really the only theme throughout the series. So if you like your sows to have a romantic element and lots of other stuff going on, like a murder mystery in Edo Japan or something, then this is not the show for you. It’s also a shoujo as in Risa is the main character and we see this particular story from her perspective. This matters a lot and I’ll get to it in a bit.

I was pretty charmed by the beginning of Lovely Complex. I would say that up to episode 7 or so, I thought it was amazing! I could wait to watch more and I was so excited by that revelation. Maybe I did love romance. Maybe there is an entire library of romance anime just waiting for me now.

The series starts with the classic setup of Risa and Otani constantly arguing but we the audience clearly see how similar they are and deep down they care for each other. And they do. They are good friends. It’s a light will they won’t they sort of affair and everyone involved is a sweetheart. And then, maybe around episode 4 or 5, Risa realizes her feelings and she starts pining over Otani. And then the will they won’t they intensifies to the point that it’s really the only thing going on.

And that lasts until episode 20…. Guys! They get to date for like 4 episodes and they break up in that span….

Yeah, that sort of lost me. I just don’t have those sensibilities. But that really a question of personal preference. Some people might really like those types of stories.

What I think is a bit more objective is that despite what I wrote, Risa and Otani make for a horrible couple. They argue all the time. They don’t seem to care about each other’s feelings or opinions at all. They are purposefully hurtful to each other for no reason. And what’s more, Otani was basically bullied into the relationship. He clearly stated he had no romantic feelings and then not only Risa but all their friends as well made him feel bad about it, for years. There is a character that has a huge crush on Risa and she turns him down without being hounded about it forever. I don’t know, it didn’t seem fair to me.

And because I felt that way, I couldn’t really get into their relationship. I quite like both Risa and Otani as characters but I really thought they would be better off not together so it’s not like I was sad when the series was hinting they might not end up together. And since that’s a huge part of the series,, if you don’t feel the emotional engagement it becomes a bit tedious to watch.

There is a lot of things to like abut Lovely Complex. The characters were almost all great. The setting and base premise is fun. It’s just that I’m not a fan of romance.

You might like this anime if:

Lovely Complex is a classic romance series – if you like those there is probably something you will like in this!

I save all my screencaps on my Pinterest and you can find more there if you are interested. But I still like to show you a few in the post. If you’re like me, screencaps are something that really helps you decide to watch an anime or not.