Common Name: Tada-kun wa Koi wo Shinai
Alternative Names: Tada Never Falls in Love
Score: 6/10, 4/5
Length: 13 Episodes
Genre: Romance, Comedy, Slice of Life
Summary: Ever since the death of his parents, Tada Mitsuyoshi has worked tirelessly to memorialize them by sharing in their love of photography. So, it's a fairly regular occurrence for him to tour around various tourist locations to catch any chance-of-a-lifetime shots and perfect his art. During one such excursion, Tada runs into a blonde-haired, blue-eyed foreigner named Teresa Wagner. Though the girl's near-bottomless well of energy, optimism, and a strange obsession with an old TV drama called The Rainbow Shogun put him off at first, he eventually comes to accept her into his friend group of fellow photographers. As these two come to know each other better, however, it becomes clear that both have been keeping secrets of one kind or another.
Review: If Hallmark ever decided to get into the anime business, I imagine the first thing they'd create is something roughly along the same lines as Tada-kun wa Koi wo Shinai. I call out Hallmark in particular because they are a company well known for featuring a particular brand of romantic comedy, stories that mostly share the same kinds of character and plot progression without a great deal of thought on how to adapt that for a new story beyond the inclusion of situation or gimmick-appropriate jokes. Now, for the most part, Tada-kun also follows very similar story and character arcs; just without any interesting or imaginative humor beyond all the boilerplate jokes and scenarios you'll find in any teenage RomCom anime. Put simply, if you've seen two or three romantic comedies, anime or otherwise, you've pretty much already seen this show. More than that, you will find yourself more than capable of predicting everything this show has to offer by the end of episode one or episode two, if you particularly care about this show's pointless and ineffectual supporting cast. Even as someone who can and does eat up these kinds of shows in bulk, regardless of their quality, I found myself nodding off to this one. There just wasn't anything for me to latch on to with this show's cast of one-note characters with plots that were either predictable and insanely telegraphed or so contrived that they were borderline insulting, particularly when nothing came of them in the end, making the whole plot a wasted effort.
Sorry if I'm taking pointers from this series and showing my hand a little too early
but, honestly, I cannot be bothered to care with this waste of a show.
Granted, I might have honestly expected too much from a romance anime that's literally called Tada Never Falls in Love. It's not a challenge. It's not even a self-fulfilling prophecy. Before the first episode even airs, this series begins with an outright lie. Yet, for the vast majority of the show, there's a certain level of truth to that statement. Tada is pretty much just a dead fish in a human's body. As a protagonist, there really isn't much to him beyond his one-track mind that distracts him from pretty much everything else. Whether it be the pretty foreign girl that's standing next to him and inexplicably fawning over him or his own feelings, Tada is wholly oblivious to everything but his obsession with photography. To be fair, though, that single-minded obsession does stem from what is ultimately the tragic backstory that offers at least a glimmer of life and characterization in our dead fish. Having lost his parents at a young age, Tada has sworn to take on that same obsession his mother and father had out of some self-flagellatory guilt that he didn't end their last conversation on a good note.
Indeed; strong like a large, emotionally dead rock.
The only thing that ever breaks Tada out of his funk and makes him seem even remotely human is his slow but inevitable realization that he has feelings for the show's female lead, Teresa Wagner. Teresa, by all rights, functionally exists within this series with two roles. Primarily, she is the standard foreign outsider that brings diversity to Tada's life while she functions as his "manic pixie dream girl." Whoever she's with and whatever she does, Teresa exudes a kind of energy and optimism that borders on seeming mentally deranged or, at the very least, air-headed. This latter notion is, of course, only expounded on due to her status as a foreigner and who has come to Japan out of some weeby pride, meaning she actually knows jack shit about Japan's culture and customs. Still, with the guidance of Tada and her hyper-aggressive, female bodyguard, Alex, she manages to get along fine.
Never mind that sniper in the window. He doesn't actually kill anyone...as far as we know.
That is, at least, until her second function in the show comes to light in the least imaginative way possible. As if the fact that she's a weirdly polite and gorgeous foreigner with a red-headed Valkyrie for a bodyguard isn't clue enough, the show introduces Teresa's true nature in the form of a prince who she is currently engaged to since she is the princess of some non-existent European nation that sounds suspiciously like Luxembourg. With Teresa being in love with a commoner like Tada, due mainly to him slinging pretty basic life advice her way, you can likely imagine where their plot ultimately ends--with a lot of drama and crushed feelings to bring them together.
Of course, by "crushed feelings" I mean everyone gets a happily ever after by hooking up the jilted prince
with someone who loves him as much as he loves Teresa, cause that's both fair and healthy.
Beyond these two characters, there really isn't much else to this show. The only other characters worth mention include said jilted prince, Charles, who is actually a super nice guy all things considered, and the school photography club members. Seeing how I've already spoiled everything regarding this show's honest-to-god Prince Charming character, all that's actually left are said club members. Being some of the least frustrating characters of this story, the various members of the club work to express various experiences of love to provide some level of romantic education for our idiot protagonists. The pair of Hinako and Hajime, for example, provide an example of a pair that is perfect for each other, due largely to their shared history and friendship, that ultimately goes nowhere since they are never honest with each other. While it is clear that both have feelings for one another, Hajime brushes off his feelings by fawning over the gravure idol, Hina, who is, not so secretly, literally just Hinako with some makeup to hide her identity. Secondly, there is Kentarou who mainly serves as a plot device and bit of foreshadowing regarding the harmful nature of lingering, one-sided crushes as he crushes on someone, shunning the sudden feelings of Tada's younger sister toward him. Lastly, there is the character of Ijuuin, Tada's oldest and closest friend who may or may not have feelings for Tada, thus representing relationships that never can obviously never go anywhere but remain loyal due to the connection and care both share for one another. In essence, these characters feature some of the show's most compelling moments but are reduced to little more than filler as they are tossed aside without any kind of resolution for them because: "Dear Lord!!! Tada is falling in love with Teresa and there's no way he can be allowed to make the same mistakes these losers are."
It is nothing short of galling that I can literally split this screenshot in half
to separate the main characters from the pointless nobodies.
From start to finish, there is nothing new or interesting about this show that makes it stand apart from any of its contemporaries. If anything, it fails to even stand toe-to-toe with even the idiotic gimmick romances like MonMusu simply because there's nothing original about it. From the emotional ups and downs the main cast suffer on their roller coaster of contrivances to the presence of a mascot character who talks (in internal monologues the human don't understand) from time to time, there is absolutely no appeal to this show's actual story. Quite frankly, the only point of praise I can offer this show is its art and animation that look positively enchanting in a very idealized reality kind of manner. In terms of both the set pieces and character designs, everything about this show is gorgeous and glitters with a sheen of fantasy that makes it feel like a fairy tale. Yet that sheen just doesn't translate well to the actual tale this story has to offer. Instead, I found that the story detracted from the art as it proceeded to be mediocre in every other respect. As much as I'd love to say that art can save a failing show, it just wasn't enough this time around. It's possible, however, that I've just grown jaded to traditional romance stories. Perhaps I've just lost my apatite for the classics since I've gorged myself on them for so long. So, I suppose the best I can offer is that maybe, just maybe, someone else might appreciate this show more than I did--someone totally new to this whole romance anime thing--like the Hallmark Channel. They'd love this garbage.