Tada-kun Never Falls in Love First Impressions

“You’re not fine, no matter how you look at this. Let’s go to my grandpa’s shop. It’s nearby anyway.”

It hadn’t occurred to me that I had gotten tired of the particular light watercolor and pastel aesthetic that series like citrus and 3D Kanojo Real Girl appear to favor until the opening moments of Tada-kun Never Falls in Love. Before a single line was uttered, I was convinced I’d find this episode refreshing due to its solid linework and textured colors alone. That’s not to say I had any form of premonition regarding the series’ quality, merely that I was pleased to see an artistic style that set it apart from its recent fellows in the genre. If anything, what followed was actually a relatively standard, but well executed romance with some decent comedy thrown in for good measure. Still, given it’s been a while since I had anything better than a lukewarm response to a romance series, I found this to be a refreshing breath of fresh air despite the occasional quirk.

The series’s lead is, unsurprisingly, the titular Mitsuyoshi Tada, a rather deadpan teenage photographer and part-time worker at his grandfather’s cafe. In terms of both character design and persona, he bears a bit of a resemblance to Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun’s Nozaki, which I don’t find to be a bad thing. He does, fortunately, appear to have far more tact than that particular comparison would imply, since I feel that oblivious quality may not work as well on the lead character. While taking photographs at Edo Castle, he runs into a somewhat scatterbrained foreigner named Teresa who asks him to take her picture. He then proceeds to notice her around the grounds as he comes to realize she is a lost fan of a comedically cheesy samurai series that often uses the location for filming. He offers to bring her back to the cafe where she can get something to eat and contact her traveling companion. As previously mentioned, there aren’t too many surprises in this first episode. Teresa is from the made up country of Larsenbury, and is implied to probably be nobility, though the episode only hints firmly and never directly states that is the case. Made up countries tend to be a little bit of a pet peeve of mine. It’s not a game breaker by any means, but it will probably take a little while for me to get used to that particular plot point.

On the presentation side of things, Tada-kun is a polished and well presented show. On the character design front, the show employs a more realistic approach, particularly where hair colors are concerned. Hair colors like blonde and red are reserved for our European characters, Teresa and her… bodyguard? Alexandra. Of the character designs we see in the first episode, Alexandra’s was the only one that I had issues with. On the nitpicky side, I found the shade of red that they went with for her hair could have been toned down a bit, but the other problem is, given her height, attire and demeanor, I thought she was an adult who was serving as Teresa’s guardian. However, in the post-credits scene where it reveals Teresa will be joining Tada’s class at school (Which is a reveal that is prominently spoiled in the OP), we are shown Alexandra will be joining the class as well. This means my estimates for her age were off by roughly a decade. The humor surrounding her character is a bit more abrasive than what is present in the rest of the episode. There is a recurring joke where Tada’s showboating friend and classmate, Kaoru is terrified of Alexandra because when she first encountered him she thought he was threatening Teresa. It’s an over-the-top joke and, not only does it feel discordant with the more peaceful tone of the episode, his fear of her is a punchline that gets revisited multiple times in the second half of the episode. I’m glad to confirm that the rest of the comedy, both physical and situational, functions better and avoids disrupting the spirit of the episode.

Before I wrap up, a few Notes and Nitpicks:

• It isn’t necessarily an indictment against Real Girl, but I completely blanked on its title. When I was writing I actually typed out “… what was the other one I reviewed? It was this week. Oh!” before I remembered what the show was called.
• I’m wondering if Tada’s school is a liberal arts one. That would make sense for a foreigner to transfer to Japan to attend it, and it’s made clear in the episode that Kaoru is also preparing a portfolio, so that would be consistent. It might be an odd thing to ponder, but I’m legitimately curious.
• There are numerous coincidences present in the narrative, but they appear to all be somewhat justifiable which is more than I can say for a lot of romance series.
• There is a fun little visual gag of Golgo appearing as a customer of the cafe who is brought to tears by the episode of Rainbow Shogun which is airing.
• I’m always eager to see an anime original story, so I figure the studio, Doga Kobo, deserves a shout out. They’ve had a few notable works in the past… including Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun. Well, that makes sense.