From time to time, I like to use my blog to highlight some unconventional titles that I like watching. The back of your mind is now screaming “That’s all the time you fool!”, but for me it’s occasionally. In this case I want to talk about Super Lovers, a series that is halfway through its brief 10 episode run and why I am liking this show as opposed to my usual harem trash.
Super Lovers is an adaptation by Studio Deen from a manga by Abe Miyuki, who does some work in Emerald, which is a sort of BL/shoujo collective magazine in addition to working on her normal stuff for Kadokawa. So you get the kind of story that this is. The director is Ishihira Shinji, whose past credits include Fairy Tail, Log Horizon, Tokyo Majin Gakuen Kenpucho and some porn anime that he probably wishes wasn’t listed in his past credits. That’s about enough for the production stuff anyway.
The basic story of Super Lovers is centered on the relationship between Ren and Haru. They are first introduced in the Canadian wilderness where Haru’s mother lives, and while he is still a high school student at this point, Ren is really just a kid who is more comfortable living in the wilderness than with actual people. The problem is that Ren was adopted by his biological mother and Haru has to spend the summer getting him comfortable around other people.
This plays out in a very shonen ai sort of way where it looks like Haru is tempting young Ren, but there are some gaps in the timeline that are filled in later. The first hook in the story is that after returning to Japan, Haru is injured in a car accident that kills his father and his wife. It also leaves him with no memories of what happened in Canada. The family situation is indeed complicated, but this first obstacle was necessary to build Haru’s character.
After a time skip of a few years, Haru is working as a host to earn money for the pair of twins that are his younger half brothers (Aki and Shima) to support their education. This establishes him as a responsible adult that is committed to helping others, but he doesn’t seem to focus on himself. It’s at this point that Ren appears in Japan to live with him in his small apartment for a while. Haru remembers the connection the 2 of them had back in Canada and after the twins find out about Ren’s existence Haru has a dream of simply finding a way for all of them to live together. After an incident with a yandere office lady who visited the host club to often, Ren has to head back to Canada for administrative reasons, but Haru follows him back across the Pacific a short time later.
That’s 2 arcs covered in the first 4 episodes, so in episode 5 Haru sends Ren off to high school for his first day. Their relationship has progressed beyond far beyond what would be socially acceptable for adopted brothers in the West, but we’re not here to practice cultural imperialism here. As far as I can tell they are close like a married couple, but their relationship is still platonic. Haru kisses Ren before school by the shoe lockers, which is seen by Ren’s classmate Kurosaki Juuzen, who has no fucking problem with that at all. Good. The rest of the episode uses him to get Haru to feel jealous that Ren talks to other guys, but wasn’t that the point of Haru first visiting Canada in the first place anyway.
So the good parts of this series for me are a few things. There’s a complicated relationship with multiple sets of parents. Haru’s biological parents couldn’t work things out, but they moved on with their lives anyway. Haru and the twin brothers have separate living arrangements in the middle section and they still get on with their lives and remain close. When all 4 brothers live together, they all manage to live together amicably. Life just goes on with this group and there’s not as much dwelling on tragedy as there could be. The 10 episode length might be the reason for that, but it’s a definite plus. It’s the same thing with Haru and Ren’s relationship for outsiders. After seeing how they are together, no one really cares beyond that.
On the downside, the part of the story with the office lady is comically bad. At least there was no blood and Haru handled it like a boss. They nailed the dead eyes yandere look for her though. There’s also the unanswered question of how the hell Haru’s mother managed to find a Japanese boy in Canada and easily adopt him. I hope it’s not simply because reasons.
I’m not going to go out and tell you that you should watch this. I’m obviously not the target audience for this as I’m playing the straight guy role who is neither Canadian nor Japanese. I would just say that there are a lot of shows that are out of traditional genres that are pretty good. I happen to find Super Lovers fits the bill for me at the halfway point. If you do end up watching this, but the relationship between Haru and Ren is uncomfortable for you, just stop watching then
Lower Mid-Table 