Common Name: Tsurezure Children
Alternative Names: Tsure x dure Children, Tsure x zure Children, Tsuredure Children
Score: 6/10, 3/5
Length: 12 Episodes
Genre: Comedy, Romance, Slice of Life, School Life, Short-form
Summary: Pursuing love in high school is, of course, a messy endeavor. It's awkward, embarrassing, and frustrating at the best of times. Tsurezure Children follows the stories of several kids trying to connect with their special someone with various degrees of success.
Review: It's kind of an overdone truism at this point that love, particularly young love, is a funny thing to watch. I mean, it's obvious to see why Rom-Coms are such a popular genre. On the one hand, they can offer a sweet and relaxing narrative that can reaffirm people's ideas of what makes a good relationship. On the other hand, schadenfreude is just kinda ingrained into human nature. When we watch someone mess up or do something embarrassing, we can't help but laugh or cringe because most people have gone through that trauma at some point and walked away stronger for it. What I've been wondering for a while, however, is whether or not a show built entirely on the schadenfreudic humor or Rom-Coms could turn into something noteworthy or interesting in its own right. I mean, surely, such a concentration of things going right or wrong, depending on your point of view, would have some revelations to offer about forming relationships with people despite everything that can and will go wrong at some point. Unfortunately, Tsurezure Children doesn't offer much hope of that idea being realized.
If anything, it made me feel like I got ripped off for getting as invested as I did.
The thing about Tsurezure Children is that it focuses in on roughly a dozen different couples in high school at various points during their relationships. As distinctly unique and different people, it goes without saying that all these relationships move at their own pace, hit their own trouble spots, and find their own resolutions that are unique to who they are as individuals and couples. Yet the main problem with this approach is the fact that jumping from scenario to scenario, perspective to perspective starts to become jarring over time. It becomes next to impossible to focus in on or grow attached to one particular couple. While I get that the show is trying to express a wider picture about young love, it becomes difficult to find a solid point or message that'll somehow unify this otherwise messy and frustrating narrative filled with uniquely different but interesting characters. Frankly, the best message I can find in this show, after hours of thought and summation, is the idea that a strong and wholesome relationship can only be accomplished so long as both parties are willing to be honest with themselves and each other.
The most concerning part of that revelation, however, is that it hinges on realizing
the show's mildly abusive and manipulative couple is the only one that
forms any kind of stable and supportive relationship.
While I get that why such a message is important, I can't help feeling that either I or this show messed up somewhere along the way since it took me a long time to reach even that half-assed and corny conclusion. In the end, this show just doesn't really have anything solid to focus in on. As the show jumps from couple to couple and gag to gag, it's impossible to stop and think why each scene and character matters when the show can't even be bothered to settle on any one group. Not only that, but the show even goes so far as to ignore some of its couples outright toward the end of the series. While I was able to formulate that overall message from the trials and tribulations of the show's main half-dozen couples, there's easily another half-dozen that I have no clue what to do with. There are multiple groups we see once or twice at best over the course of the show but are never heard from again. We never get any kind of conclusion with their stories or a solid explanation why they were in the show in the first place. Heck, some of the best development we see in some of the "main" cast just returns things to a kind of noncommittal status quo that is more than content to just wait for a relationship to eventually blossom.
Looking at you, "indecisive guy meets never-serious girl couple."
So, the best I can figure is that this show was quite simply a half-assed waste of my time. It's like the production team behind this show just followed the original manga verbatim until they realized that approach wouldn't get them anywhere as a 12 episode long, short-form anime. After that point, they just cherry-picked the progression of a few select couples until they reached an ending with a semi-coherent message. Now, don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed this show in spite of its flaws. I got a few good laughs out of it which means it succeeded as a comedy but it utterly failed to be anything more than that. Maybe I'll find something more if I read the manga, but as far as the anime goes, it's just not really worth my time. Put simply, I'd rather watch a solidly thought out Rom-Com with something I can reasonably sink my teeth into. Give me a story! Give me characters I can grow to love and hate! Give me something I can actually work with! So, would I recommend giving this show a shot? Not really, no. There are just too many other actually good comedies, romances, and Rom-Coms out there to reasonably say this should take precedence over those. I mean, if you have nothing better to watch and this garbled mess of a Rom-Com somehow appeals to you, by all means, give it a shot. Frankly, I'd rather just recommend watching Toradora or Tsuki ga Kirei over this waste of time.