While the anime had a good core idea, it very quickly fails to bring it to any kind of fruition and actually becomes quite uncomfortable and unenjoyable to watch early on.
The premise of the entire show is that the lead character, Kodaka, has the appearance of a thug (due to his mixed race bloodline of Great Britain and Japanese), but is actually a decent and caring person. Because of a few misunderstandings among his peers, he's labeled as basically being a criminal and can't make any friends. He then encounters a girl named Yozora who is also "socially awkward" and basically forces him to join a club she created called The Neighbors Club with the express purpose of learning how to make friends. Now, on its face, this isn't really a bad concept for a slice of life/humor anime. You'd get to see how several socially awkward/outcast individuals try to figure out how to make friends before figuring out that they've already succeeded with one another and come to cherish their little group in solidarity.
Unfortunately, this is not what happens in this show. Instead, you have a really bad version of a harem anime, especially since the main character and only male protagonist doesn't actually seem to have any kind of romantic interest in anyone. That's kind of an important part when you have a harem concept. What's more, while it seems like he's a kind person, he's also a doormat with very little personality of his own. I get that he's supposed to be the "straight man" in the show, but honestly a plank of wood might be more entertaining than him.
The harem itself is just as bad. To make things easy I'll just list the characters off along with their never-changing traits:
Yozora-creator of the club, doesn't actually think she needs or wants friends, is unconscionably cruel to another member of the club for literally no reason other than she's a cruel, despicable person.
Sena-daughter of the school's headmaster, busty (but not comically so), likes video games, probably one of the few characters in the show that can be likable.
Rika-supposedly a genius whose only purpose at the school is to invent things in a private science lab even though we never see any kind of evidence regarding this supreme intellect, an absolute hentai addict, always refers to herself in the third person (no idea why, never explained).
Yukimora-a "boy" (I'll explain later) who looks up to Kodaka as a bad boy idol, yet for 99% of the running time of the series dresses and presents himself as female, despite not being a trap or transgender because supposedly a "real man" could do that and still not be mistaken as a girl, is diminutive and slender in shape, and is clearly voiced by a female voice actor.
Kobato-younger middle-school-aged sister of Kodaka who wants to join the club, is absolutely obsessed with a vampire anime character to the point that she constantly pretends she is the character by dressing like her, talking like her, and even acting like she is a vampire. One of the very few characters in the series that was actually entertaining to watch.
Maria-ten-year-old (yes, you heard that right), nun, FACULTY ADVISOR to the Neighbors Club who is in a constant rivalry with Kobato because... well... she's a nun and Kobato is a "vampire".
That's literally the only character traits for all of the players in this anime. I had hopes that the show would do something more with them, particularly Sena and Kobato because they really were the only two likable characters in the entire show, but the writers squandered the opportunity so poorly. What you end up with is crossdressing just for the sake of what really can't even qualify as "shock value" since the character was voiced by a female actor from the very beginning, really stupid rivalries that made no sense, and horrible nudity that absolutely falls into the realm of pedophilia instead of "loli" regarding Maria nd Kobato (to which our "leading man" never reacts to even though he damn well should have been).
The biggest offender of them all on this one is the way the character of Yozusa is used. This character is cruel just for the sake of cruelty and I honestly felt uncomfortable every moment she was on screen. While things started out pretty tame, what with her perhaps being jealous of Sena's far more impressive breasts, that quickly devolved into the kind of bullying you'd expect from a dark drama or even a horror movie. For one, she CONSTANTLY refers to Sena as "meat", presumably referencing her large breasts, along with a whole host of other derogatory slang in that vein. Secondly, Yozusa is absolutely cruel to Sensa for absolutely no reason other than she derives some kind of sick, sadistic pleasure out of torturing the girl. And yes, I do mean torture. There is a scene where Sensa asks Yozusa to put suntan lotion on her back and Yozusa proceeds to to so... using her foot. What follows in that scene almost had me shut off the entire series for good. While it's nothing graphic, Yozusa verbally and physically abuses Sensa by grinding her foot into the other girl's back, dumping very copious amounts of lotion on her (clearly symbolizing something out of hentai), and sneeringly telling Sensa that she probably secretly loves being treated in that way while also demanding she beg Yozusa to stop like a good little slave. Like I said, it's very disturbing and does absolutely nothing to forward anything even remotely like a plot. What's more, NO ONE SEEMS TO CARE. Seriously, the entire cast of characters is witness to horrible physical and psychological abuse by one of their club members, and not only do none of them say anything about it, it is literally shrugged off in the very next scene like it never happened. Bear in mind this isn't the first time something like this has happened in regard to Yozusa. She does things like this throughout the entire series, though the scene I just described was easily the worst, and no one ever says anything about it. No one yells at her, no one calls her out on being a horrible excuse for a human being, nothing.
This, more than anything else absolutely tanked the entire series in my mind and I don't recommend anyone watch it.
The premise of the entire show is that the lead character, Kodaka, has the appearance of a thug (due to his mixed race bloodline of Great Britain and Japanese), but is actually a decent and caring person. Because of a few misunderstandings among his peers, he's labeled as basically being a criminal and can't make any friends. He then encounters a girl named Yozora who is also "socially awkward" and basically forces him to join a club she created called The Neighbors Club with the express purpose of learning how to make friends. Now, on its face, this isn't really a bad concept for a slice of life/humor anime. You'd get to see how several socially awkward/outcast individuals try to figure out how to make friends before figuring out that they've already succeeded with one another and come to cherish their little group in solidarity.
Unfortunately, this is not what happens in this show. Instead, you have a really bad version of a harem anime, especially since the main character and only male protagonist doesn't actually seem to have any kind of romantic interest in anyone. That's kind of an important part when you have a harem concept. What's more, while it seems like he's a kind person, he's also a doormat with very little personality of his own. I get that he's supposed to be the "straight man" in the show, but honestly a plank of wood might be more entertaining than him.
The harem itself is just as bad. To make things easy I'll just list the characters off along with their never-changing traits:
Yozora-creator of the club, doesn't actually think she needs or wants friends, is unconscionably cruel to another member of the club for literally no reason other than she's a cruel, despicable person.
Sena-daughter of the school's headmaster, busty (but not comically so), likes video games, probably one of the few characters in the show that can be likable.
Rika-supposedly a genius whose only purpose at the school is to invent things in a private science lab even though we never see any kind of evidence regarding this supreme intellect, an absolute hentai addict, always refers to herself in the third person (no idea why, never explained).
Yukimora-a "boy" (I'll explain later) who looks up to Kodaka as a bad boy idol, yet for 99% of the running time of the series dresses and presents himself as female, despite not being a trap or transgender because supposedly a "real man" could do that and still not be mistaken as a girl, is diminutive and slender in shape, and is clearly voiced by a female voice actor.
Kobato-younger middle-school-aged sister of Kodaka who wants to join the club, is absolutely obsessed with a vampire anime character to the point that she constantly pretends she is the character by dressing like her, talking like her, and even acting like she is a vampire. One of the very few characters in the series that was actually entertaining to watch.
Maria-ten-year-old (yes, you heard that right), nun, FACULTY ADVISOR to the Neighbors Club who is in a constant rivalry with Kobato because... well... she's a nun and Kobato is a "vampire".
That's literally the only character traits for all of the players in this anime. I had hopes that the show would do something more with them, particularly Sena and Kobato because they really were the only two likable characters in the entire show, but the writers squandered the opportunity so poorly. What you end up with is crossdressing just for the sake of what really can't even qualify as "shock value" since the character was voiced by a female actor from the very beginning, really stupid rivalries that made no sense, and horrible nudity that absolutely falls into the realm of pedophilia instead of "loli" regarding Maria nd Kobato (to which our "leading man" never reacts to even though he damn well should have been).
The biggest offender of them all on this one is the way the character of Yozusa is used. This character is cruel just for the sake of cruelty and I honestly felt uncomfortable every moment she was on screen. While things started out pretty tame, what with her perhaps being jealous of Sena's far more impressive breasts, that quickly devolved into the kind of bullying you'd expect from a dark drama or even a horror movie. For one, she CONSTANTLY refers to Sena as "meat", presumably referencing her large breasts, along with a whole host of other derogatory slang in that vein. Secondly, Yozusa is absolutely cruel to Sensa for absolutely no reason other than she derives some kind of sick, sadistic pleasure out of torturing the girl. And yes, I do mean torture. There is a scene where Sensa asks Yozusa to put suntan lotion on her back and Yozusa proceeds to to so... using her foot. What follows in that scene almost had me shut off the entire series for good. While it's nothing graphic, Yozusa verbally and physically abuses Sensa by grinding her foot into the other girl's back, dumping very copious amounts of lotion on her (clearly symbolizing something out of hentai), and sneeringly telling Sensa that she probably secretly loves being treated in that way while also demanding she beg Yozusa to stop like a good little slave. Like I said, it's very disturbing and does absolutely nothing to forward anything even remotely like a plot. What's more, NO ONE SEEMS TO CARE. Seriously, the entire cast of characters is witness to horrible physical and psychological abuse by one of their club members, and not only do none of them say anything about it, it is literally shrugged off in the very next scene like it never happened. Bear in mind this isn't the first time something like this has happened in regard to Yozusa. She does things like this throughout the entire series, though the scene I just described was easily the worst, and no one ever says anything about it. No one yells at her, no one calls her out on being a horrible excuse for a human being, nothing.
This, more than anything else absolutely tanked the entire series in my mind and I don't recommend anyone watch it.
