阿波連さんははかれない

AHAREN-SAN WA HAKARENAI

ANIME

STATUS
COMPLETE
EPISODES
12
RELEASE
June 18, 2022
LENGTH
24 min

DESCRIPTION

The story follows the "indecipherable" daily life of the short and quiet Reina Aharen and Raidou who sits next to her. Aharen is not so good at gauging the distance between people, and Raidou initially felt some distance between the two of them. One day, when Raidou picked up the eraser that Aharen had dropped, the distance between them suddenly became uncomfortably close.

(Source: Anime News Network)

CAST

Reina Aharen
Inori Minase
Raidou Matsuboshi
Takuma Terashima
Mitsuki Ooshiro
Mao Ichimichi
Toubaru-sensei
Kana Hanazawa
Ren Aharen
Misaki Kuno
Eru Aharen
Rina Hidaka
Hanako Satou
Tomori Kusunoki
Miyahira-sensei
Yurie Kozakai
Riku Tamanaha
Ishikawa
Tetsuya Kakihara
Raidou Imouto
Rika Nagae
Futaba
Maria Sashide
Raidou Haha
Eriko Matsui
Atsushi
Natsumi Fujiwara
Nui
Takuma Terashima

EPISODES

Dubbed

| | |

RELATED TO AHAREN-SAN WA HAKARENAI

MANGA ComedyAharen-san wa Hakarenai

Cover Art for Aharen-san wa Hakarenai Mini

ONA ComedyAharen-san wa Hakarenai Mini

Cover Art for Aharen-san wa Hakarenai Season 2

ANIME ComedyAharen-san wa Hakarenai Season 2

REVIEWS

Mcsuper
83/100
It's Iyashikei Greatness
It’s iyashikei greatness. This isn’t your normal run of the mill rom-com, it’s more a slice of life of two classmates, and then it gets a little romantic. Raido’s vivid imagination and Toubaru-Sensei nose bleeding just makes me smile, and I don’t know why. Maybe I’m just a sucker for deadpan humour, but this was better than some other big rom-coms this season. Yes, I’ll say it, I think it was better than Shikimori and Komi this season. Also, a comedy where the romance actually kinda gets somewhere? Who knew that was possible? This was a joy to watch throughout for sure, not because it became more romantic in the second half, but just how consistently funny it was for me.

My grading criteria: Story: /25 Art: /10 Music: /10 Characters: /20 Enjoyment /15 Thematic Execution /20

STORY: 17/25

There’s really not a whole lot going on in each episode, since it’s pretty episodic for the most part, and there’s not a whole lot to talk about in the plot department. Glad that the characters had some development and the comedy was pretty decent throughout though.

ART: 8.2/10

It’s pretty basic, but it is colourful and vibrant, and fits the atmosphere welL.

MUSIC: 8.7/10

Big fan of both the opening and ending. TrySail and Hakoniwa Lily did a great job. The soundtrack itself isn’t too noticeable but from what I heard of it, it fit the vibe of the show well.

CHARACTERS: 17.2/20

This show benefits from having a good main duo, but also a bunch of very fun side characters, which not every show has. Obviously Reina and Raido are fun to watch. Reina is a very small girl who doesn’t really know social boundaries and talks very quietly, but quickly this theme became obsolete as the show progressed. Raido is someone who is also pretty deadpan and doesn’t show much emotion, but has very vivid imagination about Reina’s antics, ranging from thinking she was a killer, even making a Kill Bill reference along the way, to thinking she was a sumo wrestler when Reina ate too much and got fat. The imagination was pretty enjoyable to watch, since it was very different each time.

Now, the side characters. My favourite side character has to be Toubaru-Sensei, since she’s all about esteem, and when Reina and Raido do something cute, or weird, she reacts in the form of nose bleeds, and the sub plots about her and Miyahira-Sensei being together was just honestly hilarious.

And what’s a rom-com without a little side romance? Futaba and Atsushi’s little thing together was so fun to watch too, and how Atsushi regards Raido as “king” was so funny to me too.

Finally, we got Reina’s siblings. They all look like her. That’s basically the gist of it.

ENJOYMENT: 14.5/15

Even though it’s pretty bare bones in terms of production, I still really enjoyed this show, and it gave me a lot of laughs along the way.

THEMATIC EXECUTION: 17/20

The comedic themes were handled great, really loved the deadpan comedy they went for, and it works. The romance themes were a bit sudden, felt like the source material, which I haven’t read, was probably slower paced in terms of romantic developments, but that’s just a guess. Overall, just very enjoyable.

OVERALL: 82.6/100

It’s not the prettiest out there, it’s not a “loud” or “fast-paced” show, it’s iyashikei done very well. The comedy definitely intrigued me more than the romance side of things, but all things considered, there’s not much to complain about. It’s definitely not for everyone, but it was definitely fun to watch every single week.

Oh, one more thing, fidget spinners in 2022? That, I did not expect.
Continue on AniList
LocalChives
77/100
Randomness and Raidou's narration give this show a unique feel.
This review contains minor spoilers. Major spoilers will be marked as so.

To summarise, Aharen-san wa Hakarenai is about a high schooler named Raidou and his constant misunderstandings of his quiet classmate Aharen. In each episode, we are greeted with a new situation where Raidou must decipher what Aharen is thinking.

Story

Premise wise, it's a little boring. High school duo of boy and girl, one of them is shy, one of them develops romantic feelings for the other. It doesn't exactly bring anything new to the table. However, this premise is well executed and is used to produce a good paced show with various exciting developments. I really liked the deadpan and randomness humour in this show, the bizarre situations Aharen and Raidou are placed in did give me some good laughs. One of the advantages this show gives itself is not taking itself too seriously, they can just randomly bring the idea "Aharen starts a café inside an igloo" and just run with it.

As I said at the start of the paragraph, the romance was kind of predictable to begin with but as it develops it really develops into good emotional drama. It was a nice change from all the eccentric randomness.
I also really liked the way the audience was withheld from Raidou's response to Aharen's confession until the last episode, it created some suspense and the way the two actually get together at the end was a nice change from a lot of 12 episode romance slice of life that leave the ending completely open without revealing whether the two characters end up together or not. I've always liked closed endings, and Aharen-san gave me the nice closed ending I was looking for.

Characters

The main duo excels. Aharen and Raidou are perfect for this show because they are completely deadpan. The fact that all this craziness is happening and Raidou and Aharen don't seem phased by anything is absolutely hilarious.

Raidou is my favourite character from this show, and might just be one of my favourite narrators in anime. The reason for this is because, despite being completely emotionless on the surface, Raidou's active imagination leads the audience down whatever outlandish conclusion he comes to assessing Aharen's behaviour. Without his narration, Raidou is simply a boring, emotionless guy, but with it he becomes a creative and funny character that the audience can understand, despite his conclusions being completely wrong most of the time. He's likeable too. Established early from the way he tries to be nice to Aharen, the audience becomes endeared to him and wants to hear what he says. I also really like his "isn't this kind of...?" (じゃね) mannerism. It encapsulates how the audience feels about Aharen, never quite sure what she's doing. Raidou becomes relatable through the fact that the information on what is going on is withheld from both Raidou and the audience equally until right near the end of the scene.

Aharen is also a wonderfully written character. She acts as the root of the narrative. She undergoes the most development, and as Raidou begins to understand Aharen, we do too. Aharen-san is ultimately a story of understanding Aharen's character, and we do that as the story progresses.
Aharen being as deadpan as Raidou, I thought it was wonderful how the romance allowed her at the end to display her smile at the end. We see Aharen gradually opening up to Raidou and eventually her smile.

Aharen's smile marks the end of the story, she's finally able to open up to Raidou and the two get together. It's kind of cliché but it was still a satisfying ending that I enjoyed.

The other characters weren't really anything special. Ooshiro underwent some development but it was pretty rushed and overall not completely necessary to the narrative in my view. Toubaru-sensei was funny but her single defining character trait was fainting whenever she saw Aharen and Raidou doing anything so not really much character there. The rest were one dimensional and I really didn't remember a lot about them. Still, this is the story of Aharen and Raidou so the side characters are less important than the two main characters.

Sound and Visuals

Really nothing special again. The animation and soundtrack were fairly standard and I wasn't really wowed by either of them. They fit the show but they were just kind of standard slice of life stuff. Not exceptional, not terrible, just regular. The art style is fairly unique, though so I thought that was positive. OP and ED also fit the show but not the greatest either. Enjoyable enough that I was able to add them both to my playlist but not good enough to be my favourite opening or ending of the season.

Conclusion

Aharen-san wa Hakarenai is a pretty fun anime. If you just want some light-hearted, cheerful slice of life then this is the show for you. With the extremely popular and highly acclaimed Spy x Family and Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai 3 releasing in this season I doubt it will be considered the best anime of Spring 2022, but still a reasonable and funny comedy that entertained me enough to look forward to new episodes. It made me laugh, so maybe you will too?

Did I say Spring 2022? I meant Spring 2017 because this show has fidget spinners.

Continue on AniList
Cramerd
80/100
The way this anime tosses aside usual rom-com tropes and instead creates its own is unique and enjoyable.
Aharen-san Wa Hakarenai is the embodiment of rom-com. From the use of character-focused tropes to build comedy to the progression of Raidou and Aharen's relationship, this anime nails everything. When I rate an anime, I take five categories into consideration: sound/music, visuals, characters, story, and ending. The sounds of this anime are good, the visuals are nothing special, but not bad, the opening is really good, and the ending is good as well. There are many characters in the anime so I will do a quick bullet-list of the supporting characters. Ooshiro isn't a dynamic character, but she isn't boring. Esteem-sensei is just that. Futaba has some interesting dynamics with her "relationship," but that's pretty much it. Aharen's siblings aren't very special, but the older one has a bit more complexity than the youngest. Raidou's sibling isn't very interesting, but she has potential. Ishikawa and Satou don't have anything special about them, but they make the anime feel more natural. All of these characters add to the screen time and variety of the trope usage in the anime. I keep mentioning tropes, and they aren't bad things in this anime. I will touch on this more in the story category. Aharen is one of the two main characters in this anime. She has two conflicts during the anime. Her first conflict was the feeling that she was being bothersome to Raidou, and the second conflict was the progression of her feelings for Raidou. These conflicts make her an interesting character. Despite being mostly expressionless, the expressions she achieved during the climax of the anime made her even more interesting.
Raidou is even more expressionless than Aharen. He also doesn't have any conflicts over the anime. Despite this, he isn't boring to watch because he's the bridge between every character, and his thoughts and quirks develop into an interesting personality. I wished that he had experienced some sort of emotion or expression during the kiss scene instead of remaining expressionless.
The story in this anime is solid. The progression of the romance between Aharen and Raidou doesn't drag along and actually progresses. The other portion of the story is the way this anime uses tropes. This anime creates many tropes. Misinterpretation for Raidou, esteem-obsession for Toubaru-sensei, hiding in unusual places for Ooshiro, challenging Aharen for Futaba, and Aharen winning every time in Raidou versus Aharen battles.
None of these tropes are bad. It doesn't let the misinterpretation go out of hand and quickly solves it before it becomes annoying. It also is very creative with the misinterpretations. The creativeness that the anime expresses with the usage of its tropes makes them enjoyable and funny instead of boring. The subtle comedy like the growing of plush toys Raidou has also made this anime more enjoyable.
The ending of the anime was nearly perfect. The anime tells us what happened during the kiss scene, fixes up Ooshiro's misunderstanding, and solidifies Aharen and Raidou's relationship. The only problem I have might be the way it hides what happened in the kiss scene and waits until a misunderstanding happens with Ooshiro to clear it up, but I didn't mind it too much.
The final thing to discuss is whether or not it needs a season two, and the most trope thing in the hobby of anime is the necessity of good anime like this to have a season two.
Continue on AniList