Alternate Title: Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou, We Are All Pathetic
Manga adaptation by Brains Base
Simulcast on Crunchyroll

Premise

Usa is an unsupervised high school student, one of those weirdly common things in anime I’ll never understand outside of plot convenience. He wants to live a quiet life and meet an intelligent girl. Upon moving to his new apartment, he finds peaceful living might not be so easy.

Marlin’s Verdict: Certainly Pathetic

This was a pretty divisive show amongst us. I came into this show after hearing opinions from both sides, and I’m afraid I am clearly in the disappointed camp. This show could be a lot better than the sad excuse for a gag comedy with some romance elements that we got.Every character is a horribly flat representation of tired old romance tropes. We have the awkward protagonist, the emotionless heroine, the pervert, and the drunkard bimbo, and nothing they do is remotely fun or interesting. Ritsu gets some points for not being totally oblivious and actually being able to take care of herself, but Mashiro from Sakurasou has set the bar pretty low when it comes to emotionless girls. Shiro the roommate was the absolute worst part by far. He dominates more than half the scenes with his stupid perversion comedy that is absolutely embarrassing to hear. Also, abuse comedy is the very lowest form, so the fact that his character and a few jokes thrived on that was just horrible. This was overall just an unfunny mess that was trying way too hard.

As for any positives, the show was at least pretty, though not as pretty as Brains Base’s other show One Week Friends, but it was hampered by really poor animation. It also didn’t give me that same sense of style that I got from other Brains Base productions, instead opting for a feeling that I could only describe as “loud”. It doesn’t have that simple elegance of the painterly skies of My Little Monster or the soft but colorful backgrounds of SNAFU. Too many random text bubbles and rapid color changes really messed with my head.

Jel’s Verdict: Long Term Lease

I found myself charmed by Kawaisou’s pretty visuals and eclectic cast. I appreciate that main man Usa isn’t afraid to admit that he wants a girlfriend and Ritsu, while quiet, is hardly emotionless. The rest of the weirdos at the complex will no doubt make for some interesting catalysts along the way, particularly Mayumi whose appearance seemed to set the tone for what kind of show this is going to be. She’s the one that gets Ritsu to show a flash of personality, and the bit with Sumiko silently changing dinner plans to cheer her up is the kind of heart I love to see in comedies like this.

I do worry the main relationship between Usa and Ritsu is going to end up mired in clichés and never end up anywhere as that seems to be the path they’ve set us up for. Without the ensemble cast to shake things up, their actual interactions felt pretty hollow. Still, I enjoyed the final product quite a bit and I’m willing to take a chance on writer Ruri Miyahara (Love Lab) putting a slightly different spin on things.

Iro’s Verdict: *Laugh Track*

Where Love Lab played off the expectations of its status as a schoolgirl club show, Hostel Behavior seems all too ready to revel in its clichés. A guy who wants to live a normal life, a quiet bookish girl, the creepy otaku, the drunk older woman… all of the characters are predictable archetypes and none of the writing does anything to shake it up. I enjoyed the show during the scant moments it decided to be a low-key romance, but those were few and far between, not worth trudging through long stretches of unfunny jokes. I’ll give it one or two more episodes to see if things will develop in any meaningful way, but I’m not holding my breath.

Gee’s Verdict: By the Numbers

I find myself echoing Iro in regards to Kawaisou. It’s a decent looking show and it definitely has heart, but the issue is that the aforementioned heart only shows up in tiny smatterings, the rest of the episode devoted to dumb anime comedy. Does not help the show also has a cast of walking clichés. You have the “normal” protagonist who plays the straight man to everyone else’s “funny” man, the quiet (and rather derpy looking) love interest, the weirdo pervert, the older alcoholic lady, etc. They’re all characters we’ve seen before a dozen times, and they don’t feel any newer or interesting than the last time we saw them. I feel like if Kawaisou had decided to stay a down-to-earth romance, I would have enjoyed it a lot more. As of now, the generic anime humor is doing a great job of killing my interest.