Common Name: Renai Boukun
Alternative Names: Love Tyrant, the Very Lonely Tyrant of Love
Score: 5/10, 1/5
Length: 12 Episodes
Genre: Comedy, Romance, Harem, Supernatural
Summary: Aino Seiji has never really had much of a peaceful life, but he's turned out to be a decent and fairly average guy in spite of it all. Still, when the otaku cupid, Guri, appears on his doorstep demanding that he let her find his true love, he doesn't even bat an eye and just slams the door in her face. Despite her strange appearance, Guri really is an angelic being, one who has promised to get Seiji a girlfriend because she'll die if she doesn't succeed. Unfortunately for Seiji, Guri doesn't really understand what love is. She's more interested in forming stilted harems and homosexual pairings than any kind of simple or straightforward love story.
Review: So, real talk: when exactly does an awful show become so awful that it can be called a genre-aware parody? That is the question I am forced to ask myself with Renai Boukun because I seriously can't tell if it's just bad or one of those self-aware shows that's making fun of its peers. On one part, I can see an argument for this show being a parody in that its characters seem to be dull, two-dimensional cut-outs of the old archetypes and overdone stereotypes that are typical of the rom-com genre. Each and every one of these characters is built off of a format that is intended to be twisted in some way to mirror those old ideas. They follow a creation format of "This character is X but is also Y," and that's fine for a gag parody, so long as the characters are aware of the descriptors that define them. The only one who seems to follow that logic, though, is the show's titular "lonely tyrant of love," the ditsy cupid, Guri. Despite the fact that her character is supposed to be an idiot, she's the only member of the cast who ever makes comments about the stereotypes and laughs when the characters fulfill the labels the show assigned them at creation. Since she's the only one that does this, though, the parody aspect of this show (assuming it even exists) feels forced and stilted--two descriptors that can be generally summarized as "unfunny."
It's almost like Guri's brand of humor is the equivalent of pointing at
a duck and saying "Hey, why does that bird go quack? Because it's a duck!"
As much as I hate to use the term "unfunny," since I'm well aware of fact that "funny" is a purely subjective descriptor, I fail to see the humor in this show. Even if you removed Guri from the show, you'd still have an utter mess propped up by two-dimensional, twisted characters that are only funny because they're stereotypes. Let's take for example the first romantic interest of the show, Hiyama Akane, who can be described as "the main character's buxom love interest" who is also "a kukri-wielding yandere." Then there's Kichougasaki Yuzu who is "a stalker lesbian" but is also "a bi-sexual tsundere" as well as Shiramine Shikimi who is "a yangire (someone who loves inflicting pain on others)" but is also "a lonely, attention-starved misfit." The format, while overly simplistic, is basically the whole of who these characters are. They never move outside these predetermined roles until another character comes along to force them into a tertiary role that usually has some supernatural significance.
Big surprise! The yandere is actually a trained assassin
who can summon kukris into her hand à la Archer from Fate/Stay Night.
The thing is, though, these supernatural traits these characters possess are given about as much attention as the characters and gags the show introduces to pad out the show's nonsense plot. Over and over, there are elements that are introduced just to create the illusion of progress of the hint of a character motivation that doesn't go anywhere. Entire arcs come and go without any lasting changes to the cast's personalities and the show's hair-splitting gag formula. For a self-aware comedy, sure, a lack of character development is nothing new, but I can't honestly convince myself that's what this show is. Outside of Guri, every character plays out their personal dramas and acts the way they do with straight faces. No matter how weird things get, and trust me when I say things get weird, the characters just act the same way Seiji does when Guri first appears and claims to be a cupid who can create love between two people just by writing their names in a notebook--like all this bullshit is totally normal and doesn't deserve their attention.
I can't believe I nearly forgot to mention this important reference and key part of the plot; one that is
mentioned a couple times, gets destroyed, and is then forgotten for the rest of the show; just like every other character and gag this mess has to offer.
In all honesty, I think the only reason I try to call this show a parody is because that's become something of a defense mechanism in the industry. If a show is built out of memorable stage props and flimsy character models, then it doesn't matter if it all burns down to the ground. The fact that it burned down becomes a "feature" of the show that is meant to "symbolize how flimsy the industry's tried and true methods really are," rather than a fault of the source material or the staff that attempted to adapt it to the screen. To be fair though, I think my categorizing this as a parody of the rom-com genre also stemmed from a desire to rationalize why I bothered to watch this toxic bonfire. For almost any other show, I'd be able to just shrug my shoulders and accept that I get a kick out of watching bad shows since bad can easily turn into funny, but that just isn't the case here. Even when viewed as a parody, I just couldn't bring myself to laugh at it. Now, it's entirely possible that I just "missed the point" or maybe this show just wasn't built with my ideas of "funny" in mind. Even so, I cannot bring myself to recommend Renai Boukun to anyone. I won't fault anyone who gives it a shot like I did, but I fail to see the value in a show incapable of finding worth in its own characters and scenarios.