Mousou Kanojo (2015)

The fact this was a mini series makes it difficult to gauge if the quality would have been the same, better or worse had it been a standard series length (ie. 10 episodes instead of 4).

The premise is interesting: 'Forever Alone' kind of guy who blogs about his fantasy girlfriend and the adventures they have suddenly finds said girlfriend has materialized thanks to a magical birthday wish. Fantasy girlfriend is everything he ever wanted, but having what you want doesn't always mean you'll be satisfied. Hijinx ensue.

It was intensely difficult to sympathize with the main character, because he has some very blatant flaws that makes the entire situation rather annoying. He's selfish, incredibly childish, and intensely self-serving. Having the ability to manipulate what happens where his girlfriend is involved highlighted these traits. But it is also these traits which push the story along to reach its conclusion, inevitable breakthrough and moral of the story (if there was one; not really sure if it was demonstrated well).

The problem with this was that the story was looking to deal with some rather in depth themes to do with personality, how the relationships we have growing up shape us, and how we see other people (and, of course, the 'true meaning' of love and being in a romantic relationship), but had to do so within only four episodes. This wasn't nearly enough to properly delve into these themes while also successfully bringing about the resolution needed in getting into them in the first place. It made things feel weird and awkward, and incredibly rushed.

There was the problem that this rushed nature also brought up a lot of confusion and questions left unanswered, particularly to do with how others perceived the sudden existence of his girlfriend, and just what the readers of his blog perceived he was doing.

I really wanted to like this, because the premise was very promising. The cast was great, the scenery and music was well picked. But the development of the story and its end just didn't work. They did try though.

I would love to see this remade into a standard amount of episodes, so it has that benefit of having more time to draw out and elaborate on the story progression; to see better character development and make sense of things - but this is highly unlikely to happen.

Is it worth watching? Sure! It's definitely worth a watch. But it should be taken with a grain of salt that you can only do so much within four 20-minute episodes.

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