It’s too bad she doesn’t have a speaking role yet

Tomatsu Haruka playing a kuudere twin-tailed heroine, Hanazawa Kana set to voice another meganekko role, ELEMENTS GARDEN doing the background music, beautifully-made and written romantic comedy, main character putting her love interest in a chain leash, etc. Amazing how Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun has all of the things I like. This is a great start for the Fall 2012 anime season indeed! There was once a notion that definitely not go wrong if you pick-up a romantic comedy from the shoujo demograph, and this series just reinforces that notion. And yes, I’m very impressed. Time to cover this after my examinations!

It’s not my first time seeing a Brains Base-produced series, but boy, it’s the first time I’m WOWed by the sharpening and smoothness in their visuals. The visuals present in their production of this series is highly-reminiscent of the ones we see in BONES, P.A.Works, and Sunrise productions. Character designs are well-detailed and they portray the characters well. It’s quite funny to observe that some of the design queues are similar to some recent and earlier anime series. Background art is bright with heaps of aid from smooth computer graphics, which helps in boosting the eye-candy the series provides. The animation however, isn’t as smooth and progressive as what we saw in Another, Code Geass, Hyouka, STAR DRIVER, and Sword Art Online though.

This series is another proof to the argument that high budgets can make an astounding listening experience. Top billed voice actors present in the first episode totally fit their respective roles, and their work definitely passes as excellent in my standards. Think that’s the only good in the audio experience? Wait until you realise that ELEMENTS GARDEN worked with the background music. It’s another excellent work from them! The director was even able to fit them properly with the different scenarios present in the episode! The opening music is a little YMMV, however. Whereas the ED music might be giving us another catchy tune thanks to 9nine.

The title could be roughly translated as “Monster Beside me”, “The Monster Neighbour”, or “My Monster Neighbour” in English. I feel that the foremost would be the most befitting of all the title translations. That perfectly describes the premise for this romantic comedy. The main character got closer with a troublesome but highly intelligent boy. He’s even seated beside her in class, but he got suspended for going after the bullying upperclassmen. While the entire episode totally felt to be like the typical shoujo romantic comedy fashion, the direction and scriptwriting totally made watching the entire episode feel refreshing and fun. I can’t wait for more episodes of this, and I shall be covering this series once my final examinations are finished.

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