Stream It or Skip It?

It’s sad to say that in many cultures, it’s still considered scandalous when women enjoy anime, video games, and eating delicious food. Those are things for “other” people. For “ugly” girls who’ll never find romance. These antiquated ways of thinking are embarrassing enough, but imagine being forced to give up the things you actually enjoy doing as a woman because some irritating little fairy needs you to help raise the birth rate in Japan. It sounds disgusting, but that’s the situation in Romantic Killer. It’s supposed to be funny, a way to turn rom-com clichés on their head, but it ends up falling more than a little flat. It’s also quite creepy when you really think about it.

Opening Shot: A young woman stands in the doorway of her home clutching a bag of snacks and a box containing a video game. She rubs the box all over her face affectionately and recounts her childhood spending time playing games with male friends and eating plenty of snacks, talking about how she’s always eschewed relationships.

The Gist: Anzu Hoshino (Deneen Melody) is a high school girl who absolutely loves gaming. Strike that. It’s kind of her life. She also loves chocolate, snacks, and her cat. She prefers staying home and playing games instead of finding romance in the real world, and she isn’t about to give all that up at random to go out on a date.

But a magical fairy named Riri (Courtney Lin) is trying to change all that. One day, Anzu plays the wrong game — and she finds her favorite hobbies, cat, and snacks taken away so she can live life as if she were in a dating sim game. Riri comes to Anzu straight out of her TV, warning the high schooler of Japan’s declining birth rate, and how she’s been selected as part of an “experience” to help improve things.

The fairy race Riri belongs to can’t run a business without the innocent hearts of additional children in the world. Riri’s plan goes like this: By forcing people who the fairies believe will be “forever single” to find love, the birth rate will skyrocket and things will get back to business as usual. With that, Anzu is forced to live in a world straight out of a shoujo manga. Sure, there’ll be plenty of “hot guys” and all that as well as situations you only see in romantic anime, but Anzu doesn’t want that. So she’ll fight tooth and nail against it to the bitter end.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? You’ll undoubtedly have visions of Don’t Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro, or even Teasing Master Takagi-san, both romantic comedies with decidedly pushy characters and some frustratingly unlikable personalities vying for your attention.

Our Take: On one hand, Romantic Killer is meant to be parodic to a fault and satirical. However, it has a bizarre premise that fails anyone looking for any scrap of feminist ideals. While it’s obviously trying to make light of stereotypes from time to time and doesn’t paint Riri in a positive light, it’s hard to get into a story where the entire goal for this fairy is to ensure a high school girl enters a relationship and eventually gets pregnant so the fairy race can benefit. It’s a little strange, right?

If the premise hasn’t set you off the series by now, the way everything plays out just might. Anzu steels herself against falling in love to defy the fairy who’s forcibly changed her life, but that isn’t how things play out. Almost immediately, the seemingly perfect (and totally hot) Kazuki Tsukasa (Jason Griffith) appears in her life, with all the perfect conditions in place for them to fall for one another.

Riri keeps trying to force the two together in so many cliche and pained ways, and while Anzu is adamant that she won’t fall for these tricks, we all know what’s going to happen. The writing’s on the wall: the pair are going to get together, and this is going to be a painfully slow descent into shoujo manga tropes. Except the heroine has to throw away the things she enjoyed in her life to do so, for…reasons?

Sex and Skin: None in this episode, but the story’s implications, despite being parodic, are frankly quite strange and may not be appropriate for younger viewers.

Parting Shot: Having taken shelter in the rain in a playground, Anzu wears one sandal and one Croc while waiting out the storm. As the rain pours and she sits beneath an oversized slide, Kazuki walks up to her carrying an umbrella and a bag from the convenience store. The pair stare at each other for a beat.

Sleeper Star: Courtney Lin ensures Riri is one of the most irritating characters I’ve seen in an anime series since Madoka Magica’s Kyubey. She’s great at her job, lending Riri this insistent and patronizing personality that quickly grates on the nerves as you question why Riri thinks they have the authority to suddenly do all this to Anzu. That’s a testament to how convincing Lin can be, as she plays Riri fantastically.

Most Pilot-y Line: “We’re here to solve Japan’s extremely serious low birth rate problem,” Riri tells Anzu. There it is, folks. That’s why Anzu has to give up what she enjoys doing so she can…let’s check our notes here…have a child she hasn’t even thought about having.

Our Call: SKIP IT. The first episode won’t convince anyone that Romantic Killer is more than just a reverse harem and the creators’ commentary on what women should be doing with their lives. And despite having read the manga source material, it does tend to add a bit more nuance later on – with Riri having a few changes in store – but you likely won’t want to stick around to see it through. Sure, some of this pilot might elicit a few chuckles, but in the current world climate where women’s bodily autonomy is challenged on a daily basis, the laughs tend to come too slowly to make Romantic Killer a satisfying watch when you really look deeper.

Brittany Vincent has been covering video games and tech for over a decade for publications like G4, Popular Science, Playboy, Variety, IGN, GamesRadar, Polygon, Kotaku, Maxim, GameSpot, and more. When she’s not writing or gaming, she’s collecting retro consoles and tech. Follow her on Twitter: @MolotovCupcake.