Review for My Love Story (Ore Monogatari) Complete Collector's Edition

Introduction

If you’re an anime fan in an English speaking territory, you will no doubt associate Monogatari with the long running Nisioisin franchise, the epic supernatural tale of high schooler Koyomi Araragi, and the fantastic females that he encounters. The popularity and size of that franchise certainly warrants such an association, but it is a little misplaced, although less so since the franchise moved away somewhat from the portmanteau wordplay nature of its titles. The thing is that ‘monogatari’ merely means story, and there are plenty of manga, anime, films and so on with the word monogatari in the title. One of my favourite films, Kamikaze Girls was called Shimotsuma Monogatari in Japan. Such titles tend to get translated on the way to the West, and especially more so now that Nisioisin has cornered the market. And so it is that Oremonogatari becomes My Love Story.


Takeo Goda has resigned himself to the inevitability of always being alone. He’s not conventionally handsome. His tall, wide physique, his short cut hair, his full lips and deep voice are all more intimidating than attractive, and Takeo has come to see himself as sidekick material, especially when his best friend Makoto Sunakawa is the textbook definition of handsome. All the girls that Takeo has ever crushed on have fallen for Suna instead, although the standoffish Suna invariably turns them down. So when the chivalrous Takeo rescues a petite girl named Rinko Yamato from the attentions of a train molester, and she gets in touch to thank him, he naturally assumes that she’s interested in his friend. But this time, a girl has actually fallen for Takeo...


The 24 episodes of My Love Story are presented across three Blu-ray discs as follows. This limited collector’s edition Blu-ray with physical extras comes out first, with a standard DVD release following in a few months.

Disc 1
1. My Story
2. My Romance
3. My Blue Ogre
4. My Boyfriend
5. I’m Dense
6. My Wish
7. My Strength
8. My Friend
9. My Friend and I


Disc 2
10. My Mountain
11. My Ocean
12. My Scores
13. Today, It’s On Me
14. My Jinx
15. My Girlfriend
16. My Pupil
17. My Christmas
18. My Birthday

Disc 3
19. My Mom
20. My Chocolate
21. Me and the Letter
22. The Letter for Me
23. My Spring Break
24. My Heart

Picture

My Love Story gets a 1.78:1 widescreen 1080p transfer on these Blu-ray discs, and you’ll be unsurprised to hear that other than the slightest of digital banding, the image comes across with great clarity and consistency. There are no problems worth mentioning with the transfer on this release. My Love Story follows the usual aesthetic for gentle comedy romances, that of cute girls and elegant and handsome guys, all presented with soft lines and warm pastel colours. That’s with the exception of Takeo Goda of course, the unlikely love interest of typically cute and petite Rinko Yamato. He’s the intimidating man mountain of the show, over twice her size, and built like a brick wall, the unlikely pairing being the selling point, indeed the whole point of the story. But the character design is achieved in such a way that it works with this show’s aesthetic, without compromising the unconventional looks of the character.

Sound

You have the choice between DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo English and Japanese with subtitles and signs locked to the appropriate track. It’s a dialogue focused piece, although the music and the odd moment of action comes across well. I went with the Japanese audio and was happy with the dub, the characters cast well, although I did give the English dub a try and was surprisingly impressed with the main cast, with voice actors suited to their roles. The same couldn’t be said for some of the supporting roles and background characters though, some of which made me wince. The subtitles are timed accurately and are free of typos.

Extras

The discs present their content with static menus and translated English credit reels after each episode.

Disc 1 autoplays with a trailer for Monthly Girls Nozaki-kun.

Disc 3 has the textless credits, three openings and one closing, as well as trailers for The Kawai Complex Guide to Manors and Hostel Behavior, My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU Too!, Sakura Trick, and Monthly Girls Nozaki-kun.

Conclusion

My Love Story is something of a rare show in the UK. Even now, with the glut of anime that reaches our shores, there is a distinct shortage of shows aimed at the young female market, the so-called shojo genre, while romantic comedies with two protagonists as opposed to harem comedies are rarer still. We’ve had a couple in the UK in recent years, shows like Toradora and Golden Time, but nothing quite as light and as gentle as My Love Story. In my opinion, this show is closer to anime like Honey & Clover and His and Her Circumstances, although it could be argued that it has even less in the way of relationship angst than those two shows. But My Love Story is very much worth watching, as it’s a love story between two unlikely protagonists for an anime show, both of them more liable to be sidekicks in any other story.


Certainly going by appearance, you’d expect Makoto Sunakawa to be the star, and his oversized best friend Takeo Goda to be the loyal support. Even Takeo feels that way given the experience of seeing all the girls that he’s ever crushed on, confessing their love to Suna. At the other end of the scale, Rinko Yamato is sweet, gentle, cute and relatively perfect in terms of personality. She isn’t the tsundere, the clumsy girl, the quiet girl, or any of the stereotypes that we’ve come to expect from main female characters. She’s pretty, she’s chatty, and she likes to make cakes and sweets; a degree of normality and perfection that once again, usually applies to the best friend of the female protagonist.


My Love Story’s premise is initially deceptive. The towering and intimidating Takeo has something of an inferiority complex about his appearance, expecting girls to go for his best friend. So when he saves Yamato from a molester on a train, and she shows up at his door professing gratitude, he immediately assumes that she’s got the wrong door, and she wants to see Suna instead. Over the first few episodes, she keeps trying to spend time with Takeo, and he keeps assuming that it’s an excuse to be close to Suna. There’s a rom-com anime premise right there. But the truth of the matter is that Yamato is not just sweet on Takeo because he saved her, she actually thinks he’s a dreamboat. It turns out that big, strong, skyscrapers are her type. And rather than belabour the mistaken identity comedy, the show resolves it in the space of a few episodes and gets Takeo and Yamato together.


The show’s all about first love, and how it slowly develops over the course of 24 episodes. As well as his low self-esteem when it comes to girls, Takeo’s also got an idealised view of Yamato, puts her on a pedestal, and treats her as gently as a delicate flower. That’s understandable in one respect, given that a hug from Takeo tends to engulf, and when he holds hands, he tends to hold all the way up to the elbow as well. But Yamato’s first challenge is to get him to understand that she’s not as pure and angelic as he thinks she is.


My Love Story really is a warm, gentle, occasionally daft and silly, but wholly heart-warming romantic comedy, with the protagonists slowly becoming closer over the episodes, facing the odd impediment with the help of their friends. There is the odd bit of light drama, and there are story arcs following the supporting cast as well. The traditional threats to true love are there; Takeo finds to his utter surprise that Yamato isn’t the only girl who’s attracted to him, and his lack of confidence threatens their relationship when another guy comes on the scene who Takeo thinks is more suited to be with Yamato, but the drama never gets too angst-ridden. It’s a lot of fun to root for the couple who are usually never the main characters in a show like this. It’s also a positive message to send, that true love isn’t only for the Hollywood hunks and supermodels of the world. One thing is for sure with this show, you’ll never look at cling film in the same way again.