English Dub Review: Love Tyrant “I’m Getting In on This, Too x Whoa! Forbidden Love?!”

It’s the love version of Death Note. But is it even more deadly?

Love is very much a cornerstone of everyday life. From true love to forbidden love the concept and celebration of love stem human interaction together to help propagate society itself. Love Tyrant asks though, instead of a being who understood the complexity and seriousness of forming loving relationships, what if the world’s cupid were an immature libido stricken otaku girl? The result is even wackier and nonsensical then that implies.

The series follows Aino Seiji as he is involuntarily roped into the mystical shenanigans of the Kiss Note when the angel Guri writes his name in the book in trying to write in more gay couples to fulfill her yaoi fantasies. As Guri states, any two people written into the Kiss Book with an X between them are destined to kiss and get married and if the people don’t get kissed like in Aino’s case, Guri will die and the person will be a virgin forever. So, obviously freaked out Aino begs Guri to help him and Guri finds the solution, a forcibly made love triangle between him, Guri and his hot yet psychotic and murderous classmate Akane Hiyama. Thus, shenanigans begin as Aino and Akane are now forced to help Guri with her angel duties and Aino is now trapped in a love triangle of vicious murder, laziness and fan service. Which will soon become a love square then love Pentagon.

Love Tyrant, if I were to boil it down, is an ecchi fan service romantic comedy with a cute and light stylized art style by EMT Squared, a strong and energetic voice cast and quick lighting-paced jokes with silly and immature adult humor. Whether you’ll like the show or not will be based primarily on if you think you can enjoy a series like this. Personally, I was enjoying the rather LOL random over the top humor the show was firing off one after the other. From having Guri, taking an archetypical otaku role, act as the childishly self-absorbed and immature angel to Akane, the archetypical tsundere, acting all manic and insane when Guri moves in on “her” Aino while also showing some delightfully cute girly tendencies, the writing prevails in bouncing back from both extremes of their personas. The extremes of the characters’ archetypical habits to their own individual characteristics that define them.

Although phrasing my analysis like that would leave the impression the show is initially framing itself like some sort of allegory for the pros and cons of relationships and the shenanigans are the struggles one’s goes through during a relationship. But this is the same series where an angel gets two guys to kiss because she thinks it’s hot and fun. Love Tyrant’s goal is to have as much silly fun as possible while squeezing in any forbidden love trope to the brim and I can’t fault it for that.

I do wonder though what is the end goal of the series? If the serial narrative elements of the show will lead to a slightly serious romance of sorts or if it’ll be nothing but a lampshading of love while the main character grows a harem of girls he’s clearly not fully interested in? I would like to see some seriousness in light doses as even just a light amount of serious love or drama makes the levity the comedy brings all the stronger due to the juxtaposition of tone. However, as Love Tyrant stands, it’s shaping up to be a cute and silly show that I’ll be looking forward next week to watch more of.