If you've watched the first episode of Kotoura-san and loved it, then I have good news for you: you've seen the high point of the show, and you can safely leave the rest untouched to savor the aftertaste of those twenty minutes, or more likely, the first ten minutes. A story about a girl named Haruka who can read minds that begins with the consequences of thoughtlessly repeating the secrets that pop into people’s brains is certainly a break from the norm, even if it gets heavy-handed with the drama. Her friends and family treat her like a monster, which seems a bit overblown except that she somehow doesn’t learn to stop blurting people’s thoughts out loud, and so if the situation is unrealistic, it would only be because she is pretty thick herself. As she is abandoned by her friends and parents, the lighting gradually darkens to match her dying hopes, but as she meets her future love interest Manabe the low light filter shatters as a bright cheery palate emerges. It was clever and visually stunning. And yet it signals the end of any thought put into this two-bit dramedy, and as the generic slice of life opening plays we get a small chance to close the window and keep the good memories pure.
From that episode onwards, a series of wholly unmemorable characters, from a short stereotypical nerdy guy to a lively girl who leads the karate club, and some other side characters to keep the slice of life antics rolling. By episode two we have a love triangle between Haruka, Manabe, and Manabe’s childhood friend, and yet Haruka manages to have a misunderstanding about the situation. Haruka, who can read minds, has to overhear Manabe’s private confession to his friend that he likes Haruka in order to figure it out. Soon she also fails to read people’s minds because she can’t make eye contact with the person, or because she has a cold, or because the writers completely forgot about that central element of the story. This is an atrocious mistake on their parts, as we start to suspect that the mind reading element was only introduced for the first episode and a few other drama points.
And in what universe is the incredibly average Manabe the only person with the potential make a lasting friendship with her? He is unfazed by her powers, only worried that she can see his perverted thoughts, but a kindergartener could have pulled that level of naivety off. In less than half an episode, taking place over the course of a few days, Manabe manages to shatter her preconceived notions of people that have been built up over a decade and a half, formed by her friends constantly abandoning her, up to her mother claiming she should have never been born. He does this simply by virtue of saying “I’ll never abandon you,” and thinking it too I suppose. If the opening scenes are overly dramatic, then the closing scenes of the first episode are a pie in our face, both in their abrupt dismissal of Haruka’s real trauma and in their misguided sense that they are being funny.
You can watch for the karaoke episode, or for the sports relay episode, or for the date at the amusement park or any number of other things if that’s what you want. You can watch for the dramatic confession scenes or the thrilling investigation of a series of attacks on high school girls, to eventually be solved by Haruka’s mind-reading abilities and the problem solving of her wonderful friends. You can watch to follow the daily life of their club, peaceful and free of the anxiety that plagued her life for so long. You can watch it for any of these aspects and more, but every single one is plastic, boring, self-contradictory, and plain uninteresting. Kotoura-san is one-dimensional because it spits on its own premise until it feels that there isn’t enough of a plot to maintain our interest, and when it reintegrates the premise it does so poorly, awkwardly, until I was begging it to stop.