When sometimes your life is a complete disaster, there are those who dream that someone came with a magic wand and solved it for you in a moment as if nothing had happened. More or less that happens to the protagonist of ‘Romantic Killer‘, except that her life is perfect the way it is and she doesn’t think there’s anything to fix.
This new 12-episode anime has been one of the powerful premieres on Netflix during the fall season, leaving us a very funny slice of life that destroys certain romantic comedy conventions.
Video games, chocolate and cats
Those are the three priorities in the life of Anzu Hoshino, a high school student who goes straight home after school to play video games, cuddle her cat and gorge herself on chocolate. The only guys she cares about are the virtual ones, but then a creature called Riri to burst his life.
It turns out that Anzu has been selected for a very special program so that she ends up with the boy of her dreams, so Riri is dedicated to surrounding her with different gorgeous candidates and launching her into romantic situations with them. Thus he ends up meeting the mysterious Tsukasaresuming the relationship with his childhood friend Counciland attracting the attention of the insufferable rich boy hijiri.
One of the great virtues of the series is precisely Anzu, who is grosser than a guillemot and on many occasions goes completely out of the norm of how a romantic heroine should be… precisely because she refuses to be.
And yet, and without ever compromising who he is, It’s also very nice how Anzu is changing during the series and opening up to new experiences and to have a fuller life simply by daring to get out of your comfort zone and create deeper ties with those around you.
‘Romantic Killer’ is full of romantic tropes, which the anime exploits to the fullest to parody them and get all the juice out of them, but he is not just pigeonholed at the moment and manages to develop very naturally all the relationships that we see without it being forced or falling only into easy romance.
The animation also helps a lot at this point, further exploiting the comedy moments. And although it is above all an animation without great flashes, it does leave us with quite a few very beautiful moments where the visual team shines a lot.
blowing up the romance
The series maintains a very good rhythm, generally with a comedic tone and endearing situations that leave you in a good mood. Although in the last chapters takes a few very dark turns to discuss topics such as sexual harassment and the importance of believing victims in a way very accurate and sensitive that you do not expect from an anime.
The original Japanese version is stellar, but it must also be said that the dubbing in Spanish is also very good and manages to give the series a lot of life. As with ‘Komi-san can’t communicate’, it is a series that also earns a lot dubbed and can be enjoyed very well, especially because of the location and the personality of the voice actors.
the sleeve of Wataru Momose it was published between 2019 and 2020 in Shonen Jump+ and only left us with 4 volumes of manga, so it’s not like there’s too much base material to keep adapting. yes, though the end of ‘Romantic Killer’ is very satisfying and positivealso leaves the door a little open for us to continue with a hypothetical second season.
So unfortunately, although the truth is that the first season of ‘Romantic Killer’ is quite round, yes, it leaves us a little bit bugged and wanting more to see what life holds for the protagonists (and also to see what more sauces there can be).
If not from the manga, there wouldn’t be any special episode left over where some of the romantic tensions are resolved and they give us a true romantic comedy closure, which in the end seems that Anzu is not so close to the idea.