English Dub Review: Love Flops “I Figure We All Have Our Own Pleasures and Predilections”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

After Aoi’s sudden confession, Asahi suddenly starts seeing the other three girls he met (and Ilya, who DEFINITELY isn’t one) pop up suddenly and begin confessing themselves and proposing marriage, despite Asahi’s protests. When he gets home, he finds out that his father set up all of them as potential brides, so Asahi storms out of the house, but Aoi eventually convinces him to come back.

OUR TAKE

I honestly have a hard time figuring out if this is a parody of the extreme reactions in harem comedies or just another example of them. Surely having five characters confess their love and propose to the main character within the second episode and barely a day or two of knowing him has got to be a record of some kind. Then again, given the premises of some of these things, it could be the plot of their first episodes for all I know. The only point of these kinds of shows and stories is that a bunch of women inexplicably crawl all over themselves to get the attention of one regular dude who is dull as dishwater. At least, that’s what happens in the more derivative versions of them. There are plenty that play around with the formula in interesting and subversive ways. It’s just that this, Love Flops, seems to not be doing that. OR they could be deliberately leaning into the more derivative versions to make a point of some kind? Being on the second episode, it’s hard to say. It’s the Schrodinger’s Cat of Harem Comedies at the moment.

With that in mind, I don’t really have a pick for who might end up with Asahi at the end. Part of that is Asahi himself is not a very interesting or discernable character, but also that all of the candidates seem to be on pretty equal footing at the moment. They all had weird meetings, followed by slightly better second meetings, followed by sudden and quickly rejected confessions, and then all ended up at his house, which he did not like. Aoi MAY have a slight advantage for a couple reasons. For one, she went looking for him when he left, knew where he was, and was able to convince him to come back. And second, she had a strange flashback to a previous interaction that the two of them don’t seem to fully remember, so there’s probably more to explore with that down the line. But we’ve got ten more episodes to go, so I’m sure we’ll get similar moments with the other four, including the one who is definitely a boy and most certainly won’t turn out to be a girl, no sir. Also not stoked that one of them is a grown woman who is his teacher, but I’m also keeping THE TWIST in mind, which we’ll get to when it becomes relevant. And notice how I have nothing to say about the other two? BECAUSE THERE IS NOTHING TO SAY. Okay, two episodes down.