The winter slate for romantic-comedy anime has been enjoyable enough as I’ve kept a keen eye on The Dangers in My Heart season two, A Sign of Affection just starting up, and The Foolish Angel Dances with the Devil airing right now. I did my due diligence to catch up with seasons that I’ve missed and Our Dating Story: The Experienced You and the Inexperienced Me which ended around Christmas.

Seeing the protagonist Ryuto encounter one of his first loves and turn what should have been a quick relationship into a blossoming, heartwarming mutual love sounds like a great premise. Is it worth the watch?

The main man we follow in Our Dating Story is Ryuto Kashima, the typical introvert who doesn’t have any outstanding qualities, and thus, isn’t necessarily a guy the girls pine for. Despite this, Ryuto asks out one of the most popular, beautiful girls in his class, Runa Shirakawa.

Much to his surprise, she accepts his confession, but soon learns that Runa tends to date around for a few months and has a long list of exes. Things are more than they seem as the season progresses, with tons of swerves and plot twists that took me by surprise.

The dynamic between Runa and Ryuto is simply adorable – even with Runa’s vast experience in dating, she experiences a lot of new “firsts” alongside Ryuto. The effort that Ryuto puts into showing his respect and admiration for Runa is magnificent, from researching her interests to planning out several dates.

As far as pervy protags go, Ryuto is leaps and bounds ahead of the pack as an honorable gentleman, as he declines an easy opportunity and instead opts to wait until Runa is ready. Compared to Rent A Girlfriend, it’s like a night and day difference.

Our Dating Story isn’t all about the good parts of relationships either. There’s massive strife and disconnects that put the perfect companionship into jeopardy more than once throughout the inaugural season.

With a jealous sister in Kurose who will go to great lengths to drive a wedge between the two, I almost yelled at the screen at this detestable character who went way too far several times. Past that, the resolutions to such issues did bring me to tears – something the romcom genre rarely does – with a particularly emotional scene in the episode before the finale. The buildup across the season led to such a heart-wrenching climax that massively paid off.

I consume so many different romcom anime offerings that only a few truly stick in my mind. Our Dating Story closed out a strong 2023 for the genre in a big way, and the show as a whole is highly recommended. With its compelling dynamic between the main couple, it outweighs the filler side stories that don’t carry much weight that hold it back from being close to perfect. Nonetheless, with a succinct ending that ties all loose ends, it is worthwhile to binge this show as all episodes are available now on Crunchyroll.

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Our Dating Story

8

Score

8.0/10

Pros

• Lovable Protagonist
• Gutwrenching Drama
• Excellent Ending

Cons

• Middling Side Romance
• Kurose is Awful