Don’t worry, you’re supposed to find them odd now.
Summary:
- The relationship between the main leads is rather odd.
- Hananoi is too love-struck, while Hotaru doesn’t know what love is.
- It was done intentionally for them to learn about love together.
A Condition Called Love (Hananoi-kun to Koi no Yamai) is this season’s fresh shoujo romance anime based on the manga of the same name by Megumi Morino.
The series follows the peculiar relationship between two high school students, Hananoi and Hotaru. You may ask what exactly is so peculiar about this couple, and we’d answer that the two leads are very strange.
Hananoi and Hotaru became a couple very quickly. The girl saw Hananoi sitting alone outside after a breakup, and extended an umbrella to protect him from the snow. Next thing you know, he shows up in Hotaru’s class and asks her to become his girlfriend.
Both Are Bad at Romance
It’s a wild beginning indeed, but what makes their relationship even odder is the way they interact with each other. Both have little experience in romantic relationships, and they treat each other in a weird way.
It feels like the entire relationship is more of an experiment for Hotaru. She’s never been in love before, but wants to know what it feels like. She gives Hananoi a chance, hoping that he’ll be the one to teach her about love.
Hotaru doesn’ know how girlfriends usually act, so she asks her friends for advice, she watches other couples, she experiments. It’s like she’s getting her Master’s degree in love, and it’s adorably strange.
Hananoi is even stranger, though. It doesn’t feel like he just has a small crush on Hotaru, his every action screams “infatuation.” First he spends hours in the cold looking for the girl’s hairpin.
Then he arrives almost two hours early (again in the cold) to wait for Hotaru and greet her. He wants her to be completely his and fans sense something possessive about him.
Hananoi is trying too hard to please Hotaru, it’s so obvious and intense that you may feel like it’s almost artificial. It’s like he’s pushing the girl too hard, but she needs more time due to her lack of romantic experience.
They’ll Learn Together
Manga readers ask you not to jump to any conclusions just yet, the relationship between Hotaru and Hananoi is meant to be weird for now, it was done on purpose.
Hananoi is too serious about love while Hotaru doesn’t even understand this concept properly. Which makes them both terrible at romantic relationships, they’re just bad at it in different ways.
And this had to happen for them to figure out together what love really is. This is the entire point of the series: two characters who know nothing about love, learning to handle this feeling side by side and trying to make something good out of it.