ORESUKI Are you the only one who loves me Hindi

Type: TV

Episodes: 12

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Oct 3, 2019 to Dec 26, 2019

Premiered: Fall 2019

Broadcast: Thursdays at 00:30 (JST)

Producers: Aniplex, Movic, Barnum Studio, Tokyo MX, Q-Tec, Docomo Anime Store, BS11, Straight Edge, Kadokawa

Licensors: Aniplex of America

Studios: Connect

Source: Light novel

Genres: Harem, Comedy, Romance, School

Duration: 23 min. per ep.

Rating: PG-13 - Teens 13 or older

Plot: 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.

User Review: 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.