Boku no Tsuma wa Kanjou ga Nai

The idea of love between man and machine is nothing new in fiction. Even when looking at just anime you can point to one of the first series to exist. Astro Boy begins with a grieving father creating a mechanical boy to replace his son who tragically died in a car accident. The question of “if love like this can be truly realized” has been on our minds for as long as mechanical men have existed in the imagination of authors around the world.

Many stories feature a robot learning to love although it often requires the robot to change and become more human first. The ... little wooden puppet must first become a REAL boy, THEN we can accept him and see him as one of us. This is mirrored by the common tale of the nerdy girl who must cast off her glasses, let down her hair, and shed the “ugly” parts of herself before she can be loved by the handsome football star. There is a reason this tired trope has been mostly derided by modern sensibilities.

Change, in and of itself, is not bad or unexpected in a romance story. It would be false to say that a person does not change when they are in love. As the iconic meme featuring the long-loved Garfield plush who has become warped and deformed after years of being held reads “to be loved, is to be changed”. This is true for us all. It is another thing altogether to say we must first change ourselves and abandon our identity to even be worthy of that love in the first place.

This story takes a different approach. In this world advanced robots already exist, the uncanny valley already conquered. Superior machines built to be seen as human with soft skin and realistic personalities walk the streets. We are outright told that people choose to purchase these robots to fill familial roles. Regardless of if we are shown directly, we can easily believe that love between humans and these “Super Minas" can exist.

But here we have OUR Mina, our regular Mina. An extremely limited base model designed only for cooking. No realistic skin, no emotive faceplate, seemingly no emotions at all behind her cold monotone voice. Truly a machine that was never built to be loved. And yet, despite everything, she is loved all the same.

The question of “Is the love Mina shows real or just an emulation?” may never be answered. But that doesn't matter. No matter her faults, no matter her shortcomings, She will always be worthy of the love she has been shown. If that's true for her, then maybe it's true for us too.

This is an odd one. The premise sounds interesting and the execution thusfar is, well I don't really have anything to compare it too. Many people mention Chobits thou I haven't seen that. The story sums up to a guy falls in love with a android, shocker I know, and it slowly learns about being human. Initially I figured it would be all in the guys head, but as the episodes go it looks to be more a study of one of the possibilities of AI evolution.

It's not a bad show, thou it feels lacking. Probably because when most people think emotionless they think what ... is it Kuudere which this is not, but it is as the android does not have the ability to change facial expressions. I kind of gives me Bicentennial man vibes but a much slower burn, and the android does not start with human emotions and then work to express them but starts with no to perhaps very basic emotional understanding and grows them. As far as recommending it, like I said at the start it's an odd one. If your looking for Romcom this probably isn't for you, at least not as of ep 3. If your are looking for Strick romance its probably the same. If your interested in AI and its possible implications this may be worth a watch. I think the biggest thing holding this back is the MMC as while again he's fine, he doesn't do much to bring up the show.

The art is solid, good even.

The sound direction is good, OP and ED probably aren't going on any playlists but they are a fun listen too.

and yea that's about it.

This is...
Really, really bad.

The robot is a combination dishwasher/microwave/mannequin.
Yet for some reason the MC feels attracted to it.
Now, coming as an outside observer, I'm pretty sure they are setting up an "I, Robot" Scenario, where the bot is actually a hyper advanced prototype that gets unlocked later in the series, so looking at it from outside, one MIGHT be able to explain the attration.
But when you try to immerse yourself into the situation, getting flustered by a dishwasher doesn't make sense.
I don't get flustered when my dishwasher beeps at me that I need to refill the salt.

It's basically a rip-off of Chobits, only way worse.
...
The bot's eyes were well animated though, especially in the zommed in bits.
The animators somehow managed to double up on the uncanny valley:
They quite literally made the anime dishwasher seem uncanny and creepy, but, more importantly, they somehow managed to make you understand that the people INSIDE the anime ALSO experience the uncanny valley when looking at the bot.

Animation, 8/10, would love to see the studio work on a proper show.
Story, 0/10, because it's entirely predictable and makes no sense in-universe.
Overall 4/10 because the animation saves it.