Anime vs Manga: Aoharu x Kikanjuu

I have recently both watched and read Aoharu x Kikanjuu and as such I have it all clearly fresh in my mind and the differences were made clear rather easily.

Strangely watching the anime directly after reading the manga took away from the experience of actually watching the anime itself. There were times I was tempted to skip ahead to the parts that I really wanted to watch rather than carry on watching the entirety of the episode. I managed to stop myself from doing that though and some scenes I really wanted to see animated sadly did not see the light of day so I am hoping they get snuck into season 2, should we be getting one.

While watching I was curious to see where the anime would be stopping in the plotline and I think that they ended it at a good point. I felt that they had cut back on any undercurrent romance that seems present in the manga between Tachibana and a few of the characters. Although, if we get a season 2, they have no choice but to include the romance aspect otherwise a significant portion of the story will be missing. 

They did not add unnecessary scenes or fillers to the anime that I could pick up on. In fact, they cut some scenes that I had wanted to see. Although saying that, there were some parts of the anime that I did not really see why they extended it or why it made it to the anime when others had not.

Tachibana’s best friend, Kanae, is one of the unsung heroes of this story and the anime helped highlight this with one of the episodes when she goes all out to remind Tachibana that she is not a quitter when she starts to question whether she should carry on with Toy Gun Gun and survival games. It is a pity quite a few of her scenes did not make it to the anime.

The one scene I really had wanted to see animated was Matsuoka’s dream. It occurs after Tachibana rejoins Toy Gun Gun after challenging Masuoka. He dreams that Tachibana is wearing a skirt as part of her uniform to go to school and telling him that she is a girl. He panics and wakes from the dream wondering why he is dreaming about Tachibana and why did his heart skip a beat and he keeps reminding himself that Tachibana is a guy.

The end of the anime covers the scene directly after that one so they have left it out. When I watched the OVA I had hopes that it was going to be the dream but instead it was a cosplay survival game that was complete filler.

I was disappointed when they touched on Matsuoka’s past. They did not give much clarity on why he has such an issue with being left behind instead making it seem like he is just oversensitive. Although, knowing his past I can understand why he has an issue with abandonment and why having people promise not to leave is such a big deal to him.  Overall I am really glad that they stayed so close to the original manga only deviating slightly by extending a couple scenes and cutting out those that won’t make too much difference to the story.