Wotakoi: Love Is Hard for Otaku

" Wotaku ni Koi wa Muzukashii " was a bit disappointing.

First of all, the leading lady was simply adorable. She did a great job with her character and she was entertaining and refreshing. Her music acts were well danced too. The male lead was nice too, but he could do better.

Now, the premises of the story are good, but the execution was bad. The musical acts were interesting overall, but they overtook the focus of the movie. That resulted in having too little time for the actual story, which had a messy pace and didn't allow for the characters to really develop or for the audience to get to know them. The ending was disappointing too.

So, overall, three out of ten.

Two autistic anime nerds/childhood friends meet each other again in the business world and start dating because of their "common interest". The story follows their weird relationship from one awkward moment to the next, with random scenes interspersed where music comes on and the protagonists suddenly start singing and dancing like in a musical. The songs are mostly pretty bad techno and do not contribute all too much to the story. It's so random, but funny in a totally ridiculous way. The comedy varies between over the top slapstick stuff and subtle situational humor. The opening scene alone is hilarious and there are some pretty good laughs throughout. Especially the girl is doing a great job playing totally insane, a great contrast to the guy who always keeps his poker face. But the movie has pretty much zero depth and is basically just exploiting this otaku subculture (which deserves to be made fun of and ridiculed actually). To sum it up, the movie is bad. But in a pretty well made, crazy and entertaining way.

What was so wrong with the original material (manga or anime) that they had to change it so much? Neither the story or the characters match. It seems as if someone just watched the first episode of the anime and decided to make a movie based on it. I can't say it was a waste of time. It was worse than that. It was pure torture!

I mean the change in this is awful. The female character acting too much make everything weird, and the way of story go make me uncomfortable to watch the flim. It comedy romance but i don't laugh and the romance is not enough. On the 30 minutes first i mean it is torture to watch. The male character is handsome and he do the act good because i think there is nothing for him to act seriously. They change so much from the original. The movie make me feel like I am watch some Highschool musical but it worse 1000 times. The music was good though. And the end is not satisfy.

Narumi (Mitsuki Takahata) is determined at her new job to not be known as an "otaku," because she lost her last job when that became known. It turns out that Hirotaka (Kento Yamakazi), both a childhood friend and a fellow otaku, works at the same company she's landed in, and she is worried that he might out her there. But he's not that type of person, and instead they both start re-imagining their childhood friendship into something new, and maybe lasting. In the meantime, the best way that these young people have to express their longings and fears is....by song! With choruses and dancers, lots of dancers! But will they find their different ways too much to agree upon, on the sometimes stormy path to love?

I know literally nothing about anime beyond the word, I've never heard of "otaku" but I *think* (from this movie only) that it's sort of a video-gamer variation of anime. I read that this story is well-known in that world, and I (sadly) saw some reviews of this movie that hated it a lot, presumably by fans disappointed in this real-people version (looks like there's an animation version from a couple of years ago too). But I loved it! I love musicals - that completely ridiculous breaking into song (and with huge dance choreography) at the drop of a hat! And I love a basic love story, where the principal characters first clash, then find their footing together. And I loved that Narumi, especially, is way more than a "chore girl" in the company, she's an accomplished anime author and cos-player in her own right; not just a girl looking for love. People who know more than me about this world seem to dislike this move; for people like me who know nothing of that world (or don't care), this is quite a treat. Made me happy, anyway, and what more can anyone demand of entertainment in these Covid days?