#FEATURE: MY love STORY!! Encourages Us To Embrace All the Small Things
“#FEATURE: MY love STORY!! Encourages Us To Embrace All the Small Things”
For a majority of its length, the anime MY love STORY!! is about people in love. Not about people falling in love. There's a difference. Shows about the latter tend to consume themselves with questions like Will They/Won't They? or How Could They? — stuff that implies that the most important (and dramatic) part of a relationship is the build to it. It's not a bad thing to center a show around — the lead-up to grand romantic gestures and heartbreaks creates interest and investment in the relationship before we get to those big events. It's just that MY love STORY!! isn't that kind of show.
To call MY love STORY!! pleasant is an understatement. It's so enthralled by the tender minutiae of young love and of deep friendships and the gentleness that's often inherent in caring about other people. The main character, Takeo Goda, is a towering high schooler who begins a relationship with the kind, petite Rinko Yamato, so a lot of its humor is derived from "Don't judge a book by its cover" antics. Takeo is so wide he can barely fit through doors, to see him handle things with such preciousness belies the immediate reaction most people have to him. That's another thing MY love STORY!! gets around to in short order — its establishment of Takeo's goodness, which isn't performed in spite of his size or loud demeanor. The series isn't about a huge, clumsy man that learns to be good, but rather a good man whose new relationship brings out the best in him.
To focus solely on MY love STORY!! as the tale of the love between a boyfriend and girlfriend would do the show a disservice, as equal importance is placed on the relationship between Takeo and his best friend Makoto Sunakawa, or "SUNA!" as Takeo is fond of shouting as he enters Suna's bedroom. Suna's quiet demeanor is also a contrast to Takeo, but they rarely enter "odd couple" territory due to just how much they complete one another. Takeo often has a problem believing in himself as someone who can get organized or be charming, and Suna's guidance helps to steer him into entrusting in his own competence. Meanwhile, Takeo provides Suna with an emotional outlet that he usually doesn't provide himself. When Suna's father experiences a health emergency, he blames himself, but luckily Takeo helps him to see that it wasn't his fault in the slightest. Like with Takeo's relationship with Yamato, his bond with Suna releases the best version of himself.
So what makes this so important? The power of friendship is a pretty common theme in anime, whether the anime is about average high schoolers or giant robots or a pirate crew. But MY love STORY!! isn't just a series about the power of friendship but the power of stability and reliability. Relationships between friends or family or partners or co-workers are rarely dramatic. I mean, they can be, but the beautiful moments in them usually aren't Hollywood-worthy climaxes of betrayal or renewal. It's in the small things — the ability to call someone when you're feeling depressed, to lean on someone when you need help, to embrace someone when things seem uncertain. The feeling of walking through the door and feeling at home, not because of where you're at but because of who you're with.
MY love STORY!! is about that. Yamato brings Takeo and Suna things she's baked because she likes to … and that's it. Takeo is protective of Suna and Yamato because that's just who he is. Suna hangs out with Takeo and Yamato not because he's worried about his friend being awkward but because he finds them to be generally pleasant. These are small, continuous things that create the wonderful rhythm of the show. You can rely on them just as the characters rely on one another. It's what makes MY love STORY!! such a good watch.
MY love STORY!! is a brisk 24 episodes, and to this day, I wish there were more. It seeks to provide comfort, not as the end goal but as the general circumstance. The characters are intricate and funny and loving and each has their own flaws to work through, but they also have each other. Always.
Daniel Dockery is a Senior Writer for Crunchyroll. Follow him on Twitter!
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