English Dub Review: Love Flops “A Bone-Shakingly Fine Woman”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Asahi is kidnapped by a group trying to lure Mongfa out, revealing her to be a former assassin known as “Bloody Tiger”.

OUR TAKE

I guess it’s green hair’s turn to get the limelight, but she’s not gonna get any extra points just because green’s my favorite color. What will get it an extra point is that this episode actually has some action and intensity happening, making it a little easier to pay attention to what’s going on. A shame then that the characters involved are so boring. Asahi is your standard factory model harem anime protagonist, while Mongfa is allowed to have a personality now that we’ve reached her episode. Being a former tai chi assassin is certainly an interesting backstory on paper, and her monologue about how she left the killer life behind to become a teacher is…not nothing, but it’s undercut a bit by the fact that the flashbacks played over her words only show moments where she was basically not a character, almost as if it’s poking fun at itself for lack of substance. Still, you could do much worse than having a fight scene with a mustachioed Terminator knock-off, even if he is ultimately done in by electrocuting him with lotion. Honestly, if this were a proper dating sim, I’d probably be going down the Mongfa route because I might stay awake for most of it. Heck, just make the whole anime about this!

But of course they can’t do that. Not only do we still have orange hair left to get to get an episode focus, it’s clear there’s plenty more happening in the background, specifically with Aoi since she gets the most focus in the Opening. And I gotta be transparent, I…am just kinda bored. Heck, not even kinda, I’m just plain bored. This is a boring show. Not even boring in an annoying way like I Shall Survive Using Potions, it’s just so mechanical and rote. And I know that’s kinda part of the point and it’s leaning into the cliches of the genre of Harem anime, but it doesn’t make it any more clever, it just makes it feel like no one’s having fun, even the people making it. It’s decently animated and the designs are colorful enough that they stand out, but then there’s little more fun than just watching cardboard cutouts wander around aimlessly with no rhyme or reason. And we’ve still got seven episodes to go. But I count the episodes left even when I like a show so whatever. Let’s move on.