Lili Cooper

OK, so I watched love through a prism and I have some opinions….

First of all, I just want to say that I have no notes on the anime itself. I loved it. I thought it was so engaging and entertaining. But there really was a lot of poetic that I think a lot of people really didn’t notice.

I always love the outside elements to all romance anime I watch, if it’s a sports romance, I like all the attention to detail when it comes to the actual sports because in reality people aren’t just reduced to their crushes right and when an author really puts attention in the manga and anime, about all the other all the things going on in their life. It makes the story better for me personally because if it’s just the romance, it’s kind of boring.

So I think they did everything very well done I love it.

That being said, I feel like a lot of the fandom lost the overall plot, not the anime itself the fandom the fandom I think has lost the plot.

(Spoilers ahead)

A lot of people seem to reduce the black-and-white phase of the show to be a reflection on Kit being dead when this is absolutely not the case.

Because if that was the case, the second Lili saw Kit at the pier next to those fireworks the world would come back to color. But that’s not the point because the overall message of love through a prism was never the romance. It was the artistry.

The world came back to life not just for Lili but for Shin as well, when they stopped, ignoring their dreams, their hearts their desires, and started nurturing their art again. The world came back to life when they were forced to acknowledge that they wanted more for life for themselves than a traditional Japanese life. Because that is what was going to happen.

Both Shin and Lili we’re fine, they were OK, they were even happy about getting married they were talking about it. They were going shopping for their wedding, picking out kimonos looking at a place to live together. They were making all these plans. They were perfectly fine having a average traditional Japanese life where they get married to someone convenient that they enjoy their company and have a couple of babies take over a family business.

But that wasn’t exciting, it’s not what they wanted, it’s not what would make them content or satisfied it was what the easy route was.

But when they realized that they don’t belong in Japan, they belong in Europe and they belong in separate countries and neither one of them is heartbroken. They both looked relieved that they both wanted to go.

Kit is not what made Lili’s life worth living, painting is.

And Shin felt the same way, Lili is not the meaning of his life, sculpting is.

He longed for Italy, and she longed for England.

They both wanted their permanent homes to be in Europe and they wanted to see other places too…

It’s not that they weren’t happy in Japan. It’s not that they weren’t happy in their engagement. It just wasn’t what they wanted.

First of all, let me make the legal terms clear. This is the case of statutory rape. If you don’t know what that is, that is a form of consensual rape where the victim does consent, but technically it’s not legally considered consent because the victim is under the age of 18 therefore unable to consent and it is still illegal.

Therefore, even if Ian will fully engaged with this relationship at every opportunity, even if he initiated it, he is still the victim because it is the responsibility of the adult of the offender of the criminal the four year-old man to set the boundaries acknowledge that a teenager having a crush on him is not consent for having sex.

It is rape, it is wrong. Doesn’t matter. It’s illegal.

Okay now that that’s been said…

I have a problem with this spot for many reasons. Well, I know that the shows intention is supposed to show low income and be a more grainy and real reflection of life instead of being a fantasy. There is a lot of things that really disturbed me that no one really talks about or at least not enough within the fandom.

1) first I just wanna clear up some stuff in the edit that I’m talking about that reminded me of this. He’s not “pushing 30”. He’s actually in his mid to late 40s and Ian is 15 canonically. Also, they were not “only flirting”. They were having intercourse for months, maybe even years it is possible they were having intercourse when Ian was only 14, however, it is stated economically Kash is not the first and only sexual partner. Ian has just the only inappropriate one since cash was an adult, and his other partner was his age, I bring this up to say that he’s probably already sexualized himself from a very young age and he’s probably lost his virginity between the ages of 13 to 14, so he was already very vulnerable to being in a situation like this.

2) the show really victimized Kash, who was the perpetrator, he was a sexual abuser, having an inappropriate relationship with a teenage employee. Like I said, in the beginning of the post that falls into statutory and an abuse of power within the workplace. But Kash is victimized because he grew up in a Muslim household, and he’s forced himself to be married to a woman and live his life closeted, but in reality, he was a full grown adult who made that decision. I recognize that it’s a very hard and difficult decision to make, but it is a decision.

3) it was really gross how Ian’s older brother was even aware of the situation, but didn’t really stop it which just goes to show how normalized SA is in low income situations.

4) Kash’s wife was also painted as the villain well a lot of people in the fandom still feel a lot of pity for her as if she was the victim in the situation, and well, yes, she does deserve a certain level of empathy, considering that her husband cheated on her and not only cheated on her, but cheated on her with a man and hid the fact that he was never sexually or romantically attracted to her in the slightest and was only using her as a shield for his real sexuality and that must be a very painful realization. She also was relatively OK with the fact that her husband was a PEDO. She demanded another baby after what happened, which is awful because…

5) they already have two children, two sons. And by the looks of their height in the scenes, they show up they look to be about 8 to 12-13 years old. It’s a very rough estimate, but that’s mainly because kids can be very different height depending on jeans at that age kids between the ages of eight and 13 can be the same height depending on various different factors. But either way doesn’t matter if they’re eight or 13 they are closer to Ian’s age then Ian is to their father’s. Both Ian and his children were probably under the age of 10 and alive at the same time.

That is fucking disgusting and deplorable that you would demand another baby while living under the same roof of a pedophile, specifically a pedophile who is attracted to younger little boys when you have little boys…

And I know it’s awful to insinuate that a father would do that to his own children, but it happens. Unfortunately, it’s awful. But it happens.

And I have one under the belief that I would never give a pedophile, the benefit of the fucking doubt.

This plot was absolutely fucking disgusting, and they deserved more rage from the characters and the fandom in itself. As a fandom do sometimes give attention to all of the various cases of sexual assault in shameless, but there is so many points in which this was wrong so many layers in which is wrong all these different layers of reactions that were wrong. It’s not just the fact that he was 15 and the man was in his mid 40s. It’s the fact that he’s probably 7-3 years older than his fucking kids, I cannot imagine a universe where a decent human being would be sexually attracted to an individual that close and age to their own children…. It’s the almost nonchalant way his wife reacted to finding out…. It’s the fundamental lack of humanity and how everyone seemed to just move past it. Disgusting.

He doesn’t. Or at least he didn’t….

Birthday’s weren’t really a happy fun thing in the Todoroki household. He never even knew that was uncommon, he didn’t know you were supposed to celebrates that.

It wasn’t until Sato made him a cake and the whole class made a pretty cheesy “surprise birthday party” that he was introduced to the concept.

He was genuinely confused. But not upset at the situation… just a little uncomfortable. But happy, he felt appreciated and valued in a weird sort of fuzzy way.

Some people got him gifts, not everyone and none were really that expensive but they were thoughtful.

Everyone sang to him, which was the most awkward moment for him. And they had cake.

It’s a nice pleasant memory.

But that’s not how her probably chose to celebrate it if he had control.

The fallowing years, he’d spend his birthday eating his favorite food enjoying quality time with his mother and siblings, calm, peaceful, soaking up nice family time that they were deprived of in childhood.

They’d talk, and eat. And that’s about it.

In later years after his mom’s passing he’d spend his birthday the same way, eating cold soba, by her grave.

He’d bring her offerings, and tell her about his life, being flowers, and tr her bush. He takes very good care of her barrel cite. He cleans the cement tombstone if necessary, tho it’s not always needed.

He doesn’t cry, but he does often stare at it silently…

Maybe he might bring his spouse and children to eat soba with her, but it’s not a grantee.

Some years he sees her at lunch. Then his siblings for a celebratory dinner. But not always. Depends if they insist or not, (they usually do).

I love it, 10/10. You may notice that this is the second anime in a row that is a romance anime, yes, I love romance anime, there will be more of these, also if you know any good ones please recommend them and where I can find them.

OK, so it’s literally not a joke when I say this has become my comfort anime. My father was in the hospital after having a heart attack when I found this anime I was looking for anything on Netflix to take my mind off the situation and I sound this show.

And despite how tense my home life was on new years, I was genuinely laughing out loud at this anime.

I’ve always sort of hated romcom movies they all have the same plot and premise, average MC, suddenly becomes the apple of the eye of some perfect person in western beauty, storms, and financial status, and they almost get married until the MC changes their mind last minute and goes for the best friend or the annoying person that they lk hated for most of the movie.

But anime Romance is always different, there are some tropes that remain the same matter what, and some episodes that remain the same, no matter what. But there’s an actual story there.

If you want one, that is truly wholesome, I would recommend The Fragrant Flowers Bloom with Dignity, I will most likely make a post about that one soon since I’ve watched it very recently. I just wasn’t doing this series yet.

If you want a romcom, that is genuinely actually funny and you will fucking laugh, Romantic Killer and Monthly girls Nuzaki-kun is the way to go

If you want a romance, that is truly heart, wrenching, and tragic, and will make you cry, the silent voice.

But this one is great. L definitely one of my top three favorite romcoms I can’t pick between Witch watch, Romantic Killer and Monthly girls Nuzaki-kun, they all have a special place in my heart and honestly match for first place. Komi can’t communicate gets second.

What makes this anime so good in my opinion is several things first of all. It’s genuinely funny. There is fantasy and I really love fantasy.

Although I am very picky about it, I love historical fantasy. Pieces do you like some monster fantasy and fiction. But it could go either way I like the concept of werewolves and vampires, but more often than not. It comes out, kind of cringe, especially when you combine those with romance

It gives me twilight war flashbacks

But this show executed well. The four main character boys are all descendants of monsters, but they’re not cringe. They’re just average teenage boys and it’s more like they have superpowers instead of ….twilight ….

I’m also not really into witches, to me when I think of witches I think of history. And culture.. and misogyny.

I don’t really like the concept of magic and fantasy as much as I love it as much as I love a monster as much as I love superpowers and the paranormal and ghost and historical fiction, I don’t really like magic. The reason why I don’t like magic is cause I’m autistic and I feel like the laws of physics are fucking necessary for me to be able to digest a story. I cannot go in to this fictional world, no matter how good your world building is if the laws of physics don’t apply if math does not apply. What are the limitations of these people who can practice magic it makes no sense to me. Where are the limits people???

Luckily, this show does not fall into that most spells have scientific drawbacks, and a lot of things can be dissected, mathematically, as one of the non-magical yet paranormal characters tends to do a lot, we see a lot of scientifically motivated drawbacks from a lot of the spells, and a lot of of them only function for a small period of time, so the fact that there are limit limits means the world feels more real to me, so I can dive deeper into it without feeling overwhelmed.

What I really love about this show is that even if you would think this show is going to fall into the reverse, Harold trope for boys and one girl living together that isn’t really what happens three of the boys are fully 100% aware that the main character likes one of the boys the one boy who doesn’t know is of course the one who the girl is crushing on, and the other three boys are trying to help her, get his attention and get him to like her back. There is no toxic rivalry and fact one of the main female characters finds out that the MC has a crush on the same boy she was sort of crushing on, and because they’ve become so close friends she completely backs off of him. She just gets over the crush like in the span of a few days without even telling anyone that she had a crush at him because she realizes she didn’t like him as much as her friend and she likes her friend enough to get over it. Which is something we rarely see in romance there’s always a romantic rival. 

Now let’s talk about the secondary couple.

Now, if you know, anime romance, you would know that there is always a secondary couple in the show not always in a movie, but in a show, there’s always a secondary couple. And this one has not been confirmed yet, but it is, in my opinion, Keigo and Nemu.

Nemu is a witch who can turn into a cat and Keigo is a werewolf. Is it a little on the nose yes cats and dogs. But it’s also really adorable because in this universe werewolves don’t actually turn into wolves. They just have an alternate personality kind of like dissociative personality disorder. Where this alter ego and ultra persona will take over their brain and body they become more muscular and have more dominant, almost canine personality. Where are their impulses sex fighting dominance, hunger or more raw.

But the main point is, the wolf is not the same person as the guy they just share a body and a lifespan, but they are completely different people.

And Nemu, ends up having crushes on both persona’s, which I think is so beautiful because it means she likes all sides of him and I feel like that’s something. The character really deserves. It would be unfair to him if someone only loved Wolf, but not Keigo or the other way around because whether you like it or not, you get both sides of the coin with this person you end up having two boyfriends, sort of like Sadie Kane from the Kane Chronicles. There’s two boys living in the same body, and you have to love both of them, not one or the other.

Their romance is a little bit more of a slow burn, but I am here for it. I am sad. I am waiting. I am watching.

Also, another aspect that makes this show so good is that in the English dubbing they add a lot of American and English humor in general. There’s one of the characters one of the boys that lives with the whole gang has this habit of doing voices and accents, now I watch dubbed I do not watch anime in Japanese because I have dyslexia and watching subtitles move too fast gives me really bad anxiety, so I don’t know how it is in Japanese, but in the English version that he does a British accent as a joke in a few scenes and a Southerners accent and other scenes. Which is really funny. I already know that I can’t wait for season two and I would probably binge the show all over again if another personal crisis happened and I needed a get up. I love it.

Okay, so blue box… I have some conflicting opinions.

Overall, I think the anime is really good. I love the mix between romance and sports anime because I am personally a really big fan of romance anime. I think I’ve seen every single one on Netflix and a few others on pirate sites. I also really love sports anime. So the show was very entertaining.

The first 15 episodes were very engaging in my opinion, for various reasons we were following the characters as they trained for nationals, and the slow burn of observing the characters falling in love with each other.

However, it’s at this point where the show started to fall off me.

I was shipping Taiki with Hina almost immediately after I saw their funny banter, and how comfortable they were together and their chemistry together as friends I immediately started to realize that there was a lot of potential between them and as the show progressed and Hina confessed. I was so happy that I was right.

The further the show went the more it seems he was trying to reciprocate her feelings, which I really liked.

Because Chinatsu and Taiki or admittedly, a very boring couple, in my opinion.

It takes like 17 episodes for Chinatsu to start liking him or even realize she likes him and even she admits he has more chemistry with the other girl, they’re very boring. He admires her more than he likes her. There is barely any chemistry. There’s nothing interesting about the two of them. In my opinion.

Can I see them ending up together? Yeah. But they don’t really deserve a whole fucking love story. Because their love story is boring as fuck.

Which is so disappointing because every other aspect of the show is great, and if Taiki really reflected on things, and you know, woke up suddenly and found himself falling for the other girl more and admitting that to himself I think it would’ve been a much more interesting love story and a much more interesting plot, and a twist and everything because they just have a better chemistry as a couple. It’s more entertaining them than the other girl than the mean girl and it’s boring.

Which really just it just really infuriates me because this show had all the elements to be great and instead it just is so aggravating.