Kuroiwa Medaka ni Watashi no Kawaii ga Tsuujinai

There is not a single room that Mona Kawai enters where she does not become the center of attention—dealing with this everlasting spotlight is but a fact of her daily life. Mona's absolute confidence in her own charms, however, is shaken when she meets Medaka Kuroiwa, a recent transfer student to her highschool. Unlike all other classmates who constantly fawn over her, Medaka frowns every time they interact. Seeing his disinterest as something to be rectified, Mona pulls out all the stops in the hopes of winning Medaka over, only to be met with one stern face after another.

Turns out, Medaka's indifference to Mona stems from his wish to one day become a monk, and hence must leave all worldly desires behind. As the unknowing Mona ramps up her attacks on Medaka, all her antics might lead her into falling for him instead.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kawai, Mona Main

Serizawa, Yuu Japanese

Kuroiwa, Medaka Main

Iwasaki, Ryouta Japanese

Shounan, Asahi ing

Amamiya, Sora Japanese

Shirahama, Minami ing

Maeda, Kaori Japanese

Nanba, Tomo ing

Yano, Hinaki Japanese

Haruno, Tsubomi ing

Hanazawa, Kana Japanese

Kido, Yuzuru ing

Hatanaka, Tasuku Japanese

Nikuyama ing

Ochiai, Fukushi Japanese

Hoshino, Yume ing

Terasawa, Momoka Japanese

Tsubomi's Sister ing

Aida, Rikako Japanese

Okumura, Yoshiaki Director

Konuma, Noriyoshi Sound Director

Fudeyasu, Kazuyuki Script, Series Composition

Aida, Rikako Theme Song Performance

Reviews

Mar 24, 2025

Stark700

Recommended

Funny

Watching Kuroiwa Medaka ni Watashi no Kawaii ga Tsuujinai (Medaka Kuroiwa is Impervious to My Charms) feels like a social experiment between main characters Mona Kawai and Medaka Kuroiwa. The school is part of their experiment where from the first episode, Mona tries to get Medaka's attention through her charms. And his response? Medaka is seemsingly imprevious to those charms.

Mona is the campus queen at school and it shouldn't take long to see why. She has the look, personality, and presence of a girl everyone looks up. Wherever she goes, almost everyone ires her. In the hierarchy of school steroetypes, her status is among ... the highest tier and Mona of course is the poster girl of her own show. But this isn't just about Mona because a boy named Medaka is seemingly immune to her charms. This is where the bulk of the storytelling takes place. Every week, the rom-com involves the two in some type of shenanigan.

Medaka should be labeled as a misunderstood character. His physical demeanor gives the impression of an unfriendly person when in reality, he is a selfless, kind young man. The way he responds to Mona's flirtious advances is because of his training as a monk to avoid with girls. In a social experiment sense, this anime feels like a test for him and his biggest obstacle is Mona. Ironically, the harder Mona tries using her tactics, the more she seems to fall for Medaka herself. While it isn't too obvious at first, she often can't get Medaka out of her head. Although this type of rom-com trope isn't an unusual plot twist, it does add more context to Mona's character. She's obviously a character with flaws, whether it's her own insecurity or feeling jealous towards rivals.

Yes, you heard that right. While Mona is the campus queen, she doesn't have every single person's undivided attention. In fact, she encounters rivals such as basketball star Asahi Shonan. In the most rom-com fashion, the two often gets into contests to get Medaka's attention. This extends beyond the classroom doors and even into Medaka's personal life. And the funny part, both of them seem to always come up with mischievous ideas on the spot. There are some moments where either of them have some prep time but the results are mixed. Like a social experiment, Asahi adds another layer of rom-com drama to the show. On Mona's side, she also does have ers to push her to be Medaka. These include her secret irer Tsubomi and childhood friend Tomo. Their character debuts are almost like polar opposites but for a rom-com's sake, they fit to this show's tropes.

Perhaps Mona is a make or break for most people watching this series. She can be a polarizing character for the audience because underneath her seemingly perfect persona, she is a vulnerable character. Her feelings can be all over the place at times, challenging herself whether she keep up her act. In reality, she tries her best to appear to be perfect but is a character full of flaws. Her overreactions and being jealous when Medaka gives attention to other girls is just an example. Fundamentally, she is a friendly person at heart and isn't malicious even though she uses some questionable tactics at times to get Medaka's attention. But the most oblivious part about her character is that she doesn't understand what love really is. It seems at several occasions, other characters realize that Mona developed feelings for Medaka yet she doesn't realize it herself. This is a recurring gag that is explored later in the show, and whenever we see how Mona reacts about her own feelings, it gets downplayed by herself.

As viewers may expect, Mona is the most lavishly decorated character in the entire show with her cute looks and expressions. Sure, she puts up on an act most of the the time but the anime wanted each of her moments to shine. This is especially highlighted in early episodes whenever Mona's face is close up towards Medaka's. Through usage of colorful body language and expressions, she really does represent the poster girl. Almost each episode has her wake up and dress up as a character highlight. The camera angles also adds fan service at times and Mona is often at the receiving end of those angles. In contrast, Medaka has a seemingly cardboard box face that is easily misunderstood by others. It's through their character chemistry that pushes the boundaries at what this rom-com can accomplish.

Regardless how far Mona is willingly get Medaka's attention, this anime stays true to its main premise from start to finish. The concern of a 12-episode adaptation does make this look more like an advertisment of the manga than a full series. But at the end of the day, Mona does her best to be what the show d and taking the 'notice me senpai' meme far than anyone else this year.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Mar 24, 2025

KANLen09

Mixed Feelings

Well-written

Medaka Kuroiwa Is Impervious to My Charms — Dear Shinto God, can you help me get someone off the face of the Earth so I can focus on strengthening my "Clear mind, clear spirit" pure beliefs? What, you can't do that because you can't control who I fall for? That's blasphemy!

"He fell first, (but) she fell harder." This trope has been forthcoming recently in AniManga these days, so it's increasingly difficult to not notice such tricks like these, which quickly become annoying to ignore. Case in point, mangaka Ran Kuze's Kuroiwa Medaka ni Watashi no Kawaii ga Tsuujinai a.k.a Medaka Kuroiwa Is Impervious to My ... Charms, a rom-com so incredibly ridiculous that you might be wondering if the MCs eventually get to the "will they, won't they" moment, plain and simple?

No matter how much time you've been watching anime, there's one absolute thing that you need to know when it comes to romance series: either get to the point (like Kono Kaisha ni Suki na Hito ga Imasu a.k.a I Have a Crush at Work) or tread between the lines by being wishy-washy about it, and predictably, Kuroiwa Medaka falls into the latter spectrum by being a generic rom-com, but with a twist.

You know how in every rom-com series, especially in the school setting, there's always the handsome boy or pretty girl that is the talk of his/her own school? Well, here I welcome you to the self-proclaimed Queen Bee that is 2nd-year student Mona Kawai: her A++ looks, style, and personality all fit to impress both sexes with her easy-to-get tactics, which have all pairs of eyes dawn on her for an impression that people will not forget. Of course, this extends to her class, where the same rhetorics play all the same...until she reaches one particular guy named Medaka Kuroiwa. As much as she attempts to play her ideals all the same, et al., he does not get through to her, always shifting his focus away from her as much as possible with his "clear mind, clear spirit" mantra since he is a monk-in-training for his family's temple. Obviously, the word "romance" doesn't apply to him from the get-go, which frustrates Mona a lot. She tries her best each and every time with her goody-two-shoes personality, only to be met by the boy's cynicism of "Why is she trying so hard to win my favour when she can just leave me alone and let it be"? This then, creates the rom-com tale of an egoistic girl wanting validation against a boy who just wants a pure life, at the cusp of entering into a taboo relationship that destroys his faith all the more.

At first glance, there is just nothing going along for both Mona and Medaka, even though they're like Komi-san wa, Comyushou desu. a.k.a Komi Can't Communicate's MCs Shouko Komi and Hitohito Tadano, only taking off what's pleasant about them and filling in almost every rom-com garbage that you can stick to their faces. The endless cliché comedic gags that sometimes veer much into fanservice territory are the extent of "misunderstandings" that Mona tries to win Medaka over to her side, but the latter would not give her any time of his day, even alongside his friends Sho Kobayakawa and Yuzuru Kido, as well as Tsubomi Haruno, who's the obsession queen for Mona, and are the mediators between the two to try and make their relationship work. It's a point of irritation, really, until the arrival of rivals in the forms of Asahi Shonan (alongside her best friend Minami Shirahama) and Mona's childhood friend Tomo Nanba, which really gets the rom-com rival aspect going to persist the Queen Bee that she's in love with the Shinto boy, and vice versa. At times I just want to say that this comedy kinda falls flat on its two feet, but it's this same comedy feature that ironically makes the source material work in the first place. So have it what you will, because you'll either come to love it or hate it with a fiery ion.

It's clear that there isn't an ounce of effort when it comes to the production of the show overall. I mean, this is not like some noteworthy work that revolutionizes something out of nothing, but for storyboarder-turned-director Yoshiaki Okumura and studio SynergySP, this seems like the most mediocre to fine effort that does enough to service fans of the manga that's translated onto the small screen. It's just there, but with how repetitive the opening frames with Mona's A++ sequence really are, it turns old very fast.

About the best thing that the anime can muster is definitely in the OP song, which comes from Hololive VTuber sub-unit AyaFubuMi (consisting of Nakiri Ayame, Shirakami Fubuki, and Ookami Mio). It's a perfect song for the show and is quite the catchy tune, if I say so myself. While the ED songs with Kaori Maeda and Rikako Aida are nothing much, at least they're decent alongside Akiyuki Tateyama's OST for the show.

I telling myself eons ago that Kuroiwa Medaka ni Watashi no Kawaii ga Tsuujinai a.k.a Medaka Kuroiwa Is Impervious to My Charms, is a manga that's been on my PTW list long before the anime came out and was into romance series at the time. Though I can say now that with the anime, Medaka Kuroiwa is more or less a guilty pleasure than anything, if the worth is worth calculating by. It's like Mean Girls, but replace the bad with the cringes from cutesy to forced love innuendos that even I will cringe at best at how not to write sufferable characters this way.

It's an attempt at giving the rom-com genre a twist, alright, but this just isn't it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Mar 25, 2025

Chuy_diazz

Not Recommended

Funny

Despite the fact that it constantly tries to brainwash you into ing the cult that praises its female protagonist... this wasn't the worst of the season. It was only the second worst.

The story is about a pretty girl, her only charm is being pretty, and everyone loves her, or should love her, just for being pretty. Then there's our protagonist, who follows religious beliefs, which causes him to ignore the main character's "flirting." This is an anime that repels you due to the personalities of the girls in this series. In the first half, the story is more about a cult's desperate attempt to gain ... a new follower. Something I feel is forced within the script is that the ing characters constantly have to say something positive about the protagonist. It feels as if the story itself can't highlight these points in an organic way. This ends up making the ing characters' words feel robotic and automated. They're just attempts to convince the viewer to see in the girl what this anime world sees. In the end, all you see is a script with no basis and detestable characters, to the point that for the first time you want an episode to be less than 20 minutes long. Continuing within the first half of the anime, there is no respect for the protagonist or her personal space. The girl displays behaviors and actions that, beyond romance, border on harassment. Even so, the anime wants you to believe that the main character is to blame for not allowing himself to be kissed or hugged by force, and you for judging the main character in this story.

On the positive side, we have the second half. A section of the story that decided to balance its weaknesses with strengths it didn't know it had. What serves to patch up the dull aspects is the integration of more secondary characters who serve as a counterweight to the protagonist. As the story progresses, it becomes more tolerable. I can't say it improves substantially, but the episodes aren't as tedious as the first ones of the season. By having these counterbalances, the protagonist goes from a Madonna with no personality or charisma to a Madonna with no personality or charisma who's a little more likable. No matter how hard the anime tries to sell you on the protagonist as the ideal girl, other girls end up catching your attention. Not because they're pretty or anything like that, but because they have a personality beyond just being pretty. She can be a cool athlete who flirts with the boy she likes or a best friend who likes to observe others, whether to hang out with them or just annoy them.

While Kuroiwa Medaka wasn't the worst of the season, I still can't say I recommend it. On the contrary, if you can ignore that this anime ever even existed, your quality of life will improve exponentially.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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