With its simple premise and surprisingly nuanced characters, Horimiya manages to be one of the few romance animes I actually tolerate. Horiyma doesn't go very deep into any of the themes it explores except for a few, but it shows an awareness of them. It is no mistake that the anime is an easy watch that nevertheless feels like it has substance.
I rate this show highly but this review will be critical - out of love.
First plot. There's not much, it's very slice of life and that's fine.
Second, the themes. Obvious spoilers since I reveal how certain conflicts are resolved.
Horimiya explores ideas of being yourself and finding your friends.
Miyamura is tasked with crossing the gulf that has been widening between him and others since middle school. With Hori his social confidence grows - he figures out how to be himself around others, and realises that people do accept him. This ends up with him gaining quite a large friend group over the duration of the show.
Of course, Hori also has this challenge. Usually, she is very focused on her family but by the end of the show she has managed to incorporate her friends, especially Miyamura, into her life.
The side characters also have variations on this theme. Yoshikawa cannot ask for what she really wants, Iura has a different personality with his sister and with his friends, Sengoku only learnt to be the softer version of himself after falling for Remi.
Between these characters the theme of being yourself, becoming comfortable around others, is explored in an appreciable breadth but no great depth since these side stories often take up less than an episode. This is what I mean by the show has an awareness of how it's themes might be extended although it choses not to go too deep into most of them.
One theme that *is* explored in depth however is the fear of not being good enough for a relationship with people. Miyamura is oblivious to the fact Hori likes him at first because he is sure he's not a good match for her (in part, because he fears for her reputation), Sakura knows she is consider 'the beast' compared to her best friend Remi and this holds her back from expressing her feelings to her love interest. For a moment, Hori's younger brother is worried that he will lose his sister because she has a boyfriend. Tanihara is jealous that Shindo might like Miyamura more than him at first. Miyamura struggles with this repeatedly; he fears for a moment that he's not really a part of his friend group even if they hang out with him, and then he fears that Yanagi might steal the friends he had just found.
Every character's fear comes from a slightly different place, although most of these hinge on social expectations. Regardless, during each and every one of these examples the solution to the fear is obtained when one realises that *everyone* can be friends.
Hori doesn't lose her reputation; she and Miya create a tight-knit friend group. Sakura decides she is happy for Yoshikawa and Ishikawa when they end up together, Shindo assures Tanhihara that he is still his friend. Hori's younger brother is assured that he has *gained* someone in his life and not lost Hori. I could go on, but you get the idea. The show drives home the idea that the solution to the fear of social inferiority is that everyone can appreciate everyone.
This is wholesome and I am glad Horimiya is so consistent with this idea. However, the idea itself comes with some caveats that are not really touched on.
For instance, it takes two people to forge a connection. Every character in Horimiya is willing to forge connections with everyone else, even if the other person had hurt them in the past. A prime example is how quick Miya is forgive and forget the bullies who made his middle school life close to unbearable. Another is how Hori is able to be friends with Sengoku and Remi despite them exploiting her labour.
While this ease of forgiveness lends to the light and comfortable atmosphere, it creates a disconnect between how the world is and how Horimiya's world is. Maybe the idea is to show what could be if we were all like this. Maybe it's just meant to be escapism and this theme could not be brought in without ruining that.
Most other ideas are only explored in breadth. Such as discovering one's own way of experiencing sex, not just intimate relationships. Of course, we're now going to talk about Hori's kinks.
Hori's S&M interests, while not exactly wholesome and often toxic in how she pressures Miyamura, is actually a pretty good representation of how one starts to explore their kinks in a new relationship. It would be too much to expect Hori to know how to communicate about these things perfectly right off the bat. Yes it's not quite right that Miyamura is made to go along with it, or that he feels that if he doesn't, he could not be in a relationship with Hori, but these are genuine feelings that people often have when first entering relationships, especially ones that involve the intensity of kink.
Other reviews have claimed this is just the author inserting her kinks into the anime without thought. I think that is uncharitable, although I see where it comes from. There is no improvement in the way Hori expresses her desires throughout the anime and zero indication this is a bad thing apart from how it makes Miyamura feel. Ideally it would have been addressed, but this is of course a 13 episode anime. This could easily be rescued in a second season.
Another theme that definitely could have been explored in more detail is queer relationships.
Throughout Horimiya, the characters are trying to form meaningful connections with each other despite social pressures to like or not like certain people, or how to behave or not behave. The show does this really well in fact and it's one of my favourite things about it.
This is why the lack of queer relationships really bothers me be. Because they are consistently hinted, but all pairings in the end are male/female. Hori even finds it unpleasant to consider the fact that Miyamura might like guys. Queer relationships go excellently with the theme of loving someone as your real self. Also polyamorous relationships although I get that is a bigger ask since I've only ever seen one anime that had that. Sakura + Yoshikawa + Ishikawa would work really well, especially with the aforementioned idea of not being good enough and the consistent way the show cures it.
Lastly, let's talk about characters. Characters and themes are hard to untangle, but it is time to start discussing the characterisation in more detail which is one of the show's stronger points. Miyamura has the strongest characterisation (and the most distinct visual design to go with it); he begins lonely, and becomes sociable. But actually it's more nuanced than that; he interacts differently with every group of friends he has and his interactions with each group change over the course of the show. Impressively, this is done in a way consistent with Miyamura's internal logic. He is crude with his oldest friend, he is romantic and pining with Hori, is his polite and friendly with his new friends. As the show progresses he becomes bolder in interacting with Hori, more relaxed around new friends, and is consistent to his old ones.
The most powerful part of the whole show, I feel, is Miyamaru's reflections on his former isolation which is a shame because it only comes in bits and pieces; he comments on it himself in the final episodes, that he had been ignoring who he used to be. This makes sense; sometimes one's life changes and you have to adapt before you know what's happening. My favourite scene is when Miyamura contemplates what his life would be like if he hadn't met Hori; he is aware it was just a coincidence, of the fragility of his happiness.
Hori's character is the second most well developed, but is less overall emotional.
The side characters get much less development, which is to be expected for the constraints of 13 episodes. Within these constraints they do get their own little arcs though which serve to support the main themes of the show.
Overall, this show left me feeling cautiously hopeful about building relationships with others. It's not as easy as the show makes it out to be, but it certainly makes me feel like I could have something a bit like a close network of friends where everyone is generally comfortable around each other.
Oh and the animation is gorgeous too.
