Takumi, a gifted chef, was just let go from his job. He lands a gig at an old boarding house called Astro-sou, but hesitates to accept after learning he must also live there full-time. That is until he meets the beautiful and charming caretaker, Mira, and he’s sold. The two begin to work together and their connection deepens. But Mira has a secret: she isn’t from this world!

Source: Crunchyroll

This series seems to be engendering many extreme opinions on anime-planet. Someone claimed this series is a grand excuse to put a child in a dress. Someone else claims that this show is a grand absurdist experiment and a pastiche on romance anime tropes.

Eh. Can we maybe try to play this straight?

At about seven episodes in, I’m honestly leaning slightly negative so far. It’s just not doing anything for me. The characters and plot are just a veneer of what we’ve been seeing for decades, and you can’t easily put that to the side.

In theory, this show is a supposed to be the grand genre pastiche, as one review claimed, but I’m seeing little more than takeoffs of several shows that are just much, much better. Quality is a measure that irony can’t simply dispel.

At the end of the day, I’d rather just recommend that you watch the original shows instead: Urusei Yatsura, Maison Ikkoku, Kimagure Orange Road. Yeah, they’ve aged quite a bit, but they’re still eminently watchable.

Let’s see how the remaining five episodes of this series go…