Bittersweet Aftertaste in A Condition Called Love

Even stalkers can fall in love! Or, even stalkers can be loved? Or, wait a minute, that’s not right.

Whatever.

Forget about all the stalker-ish stuff or the fact that Saki Hananoi has some serious abandonment issues that could use a hefty amount of counseling–this is a fluffy love story after all! We can just put aside creepy hidden shelves out of sight, and thus, out of mind.

If you ignore all of THAT, then A Condition Called Love is actually quite sweet, eventually. It takes a while for us to get there with Hotaru as our main character. She, like us, isn’t so sure about Hananoi at the start despite his fervent dedication. How can anyone talk about soul mates so openly the way he does? How is she supposed to take him seriously? When they embark on a temporary relationship with the goal of learning what it might be to fall in love, I almost was convinced it would never happen.

Because the driving force here, for me at least, was Hotaru’s inherent goodness. She is kind to a fault, allowing others to take priority and her own needs and desires to fall to the wayside. That, coupled with her own trauma, makes for a lonely existence where she doesn’t feel close to anyone in particular other than the very select few.

So when Hananoi fixated on her, put her on this pedestal, I was on edge. I didn’t trust him and was relieved that she didn’t, either.  Thankfully, the more time they spent together, the more he, too, lessened in intensity. I almost forgot about the strange way he acted at the start, could even forgive how he shrugged off any outside influence from friends (red flag, red flag), but then the show had to go and remind us to stay on alert with the flashbacks that revealed that Hananoi knew Hotaru in the past. He was there when her friend betrayed her. Shock! Dismay! 

I half expected there to be a full-on confrontation to bring us straight to the end. Were this any other typical romance show, that expectation would have likely been realized. But, love conquers all, and the writer takes the high road by sliding right past conflict into the promise that he will, one day, tell her the truth. 

I’ll hold him to that promise.

Rating: 0.5 dango

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*Rating system:

• 0 dango – average and forgettable.
• 1 dango – very good in its category.
• 2 dango – excellent show that is worth a try.
• 3 dango – exceptional show one must watch.