What would you do if you were a high school boy renting a room in a house full of losers and weirdos? You can at last live that experience in this anime. This is Kawai Complex.
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| This title screen only shows a fraction of the craziness in this anime. |
Kawai Complex follows Kazunari Usa through daily life as he lives with these nutcases. What kind of characters will Usa live with? An old lady, a stalker pervert, a 30-year (?) old harpy, a college student who wears too much makeup, and an antisocial girl who he also happens to go to school with and also happens to have a crush on. Yep, they are a colorful cast and Usa fits right in.
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| Kazunari Usa, the protagonist. |
Throughout the anime, Usa is fawning over the antisocial girl, who is rarely seen without a book in her hand. Every episode, he's wondering how he can get closer to her. It's not one-sided either. The girl, Ritsu Kawai, likes him as well, but her nature as a loner won't let her open because she either doesn't trust him or doesn't know how to connect with another person. Ultimately, they decide that reading is they're common ground. Even then, bullcrap helps them keep a healthy distance from each other.
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| Ritsu Kawai, the object of Usa's heart. |
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| Geez, Ritsu. Do you think your skirt is short enough? |
Surely, you caught the girl's name. Ritsu Kawai. The six main characters live in a place called Kawai Complex, which (as you may have guess) Ritsu owns. She doesn't run the place, but she does occasionally threaten to double and triple the tenants rent when she gets pissed. The one who really runs things is the old lady, but Ritsu has the final say in things.
About the characters. They tend to have good chemistry with each other. I wouldn't use a cliché term like "friends" to describe them, but they do have a special connection with each other. The only way to really describe them is by using the term "roommates". They don't hate each other, but they don't hang in the same circles. Sometimes they get together to do things like watch movies and fight. You read right. There is a lot of fighting (or squabbling, if you will), but they don't hate each other. It's kind of like family, but not quite.
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| Just a minor squabble. Nothing more. |
Anyway, this group of disturbed individuals have many misadventures. The anime is quite relaxed in its pace, not really in a rush to do anything. Oddly, it doesn't feel boring. Perhaps it's because of all the quarreling or maybe because the show wasn't just about high school drama, but the show was enjoyable and hilarious to boot. Heck, there's even some life lessons in there (if you're foolish enough to take life advice from an anime).
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| Stuff in the process of getting real. |
On the bad side, as mentioned before, bullcrap keeps Kasunari and Ritsu from getting too close. It just seems like they were artificially trying to lengthen the anime, which is only thirteen episodes. Also, you'd better like subtitles, because the audio is Japanese only. No matter how bad the voices, I will always prefer English dubbed over English subbed for no other than the fact that I speak English, not Japanese.
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| A heart-warming scene? |
So, there you have it. Kawai Complex is a nice little anime that's worth a glance. It's enjoyable, funny, and the character interactions are entertaining. There's a fair share of BS, but nothing too damaging. The only real flaw is the lack of English dubbing. Check this one out.
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