English Dub Review: Love Tyrant “Sniff Sniff x The Only One Who May Hurt Seiji-kun… Is Me”

Love Tyrant tackles the comedy one can have with the forbidden love between student and teacher.

It took me until this second episode to really get Love Tyrant but I’m starting to better understand the core idea behind the series. Albeit that is partially due to the pilot being more designed as an introduction of the characters more than an exploration of its episodic theming. But now we’re on episode two “Sniff Sniff x The Only One Who May Hurt Seiji-kun… Is Me” where we follow Guri on her new day of writing in new relationships into the Kiss Note. Today she is accompanied by the fourth person in Seiji X Guri X Akane’s love square, Yuzu Kichougasaki, Akane’s half-sister and love stricken stalker. Yuzu becomes a perfect partner in love crime for Guri as due to her intense devotion to love especially of the unrequited variety she is all aboard haphazardly shipping couples together without much thought or care.

Seiji steps in and takes the Kiss Note, pushing Guri to try and be more thoughtful behind the couples she writes to be together. On cue, the appearance of the teacher-student relationship between class representative Mari and her teacher Mr. Kusenogi. Now the four love makers must work together to discern whether the two are actually in love or if it’s only a teacher who is feeling unrequited love.

The setup for the episode perfectly summarizes the episodic nature of the theme for Love Tyrant. The comedy of forbidden love. Looking back over the last two episodes there are already many examples of romance that by most popular reasoning would be deemed immoral or disgusting. To list off these super quickly, the love for a murderer, Seiji and Akane, the love for your sister, Yuzu and Akane, the love for your sister’s boyfriend, Yuzu and Seiji, the love for your teacher, Mari and Mr. Kusenogi, and finally the most fantastical of forbidden love, the love of a god and a mortal, Guri and Seiji.

While it may be overblowing it to call Guri a god as she more acts like an immature teenager the point remains that the series is filling up its over-arcing narratives and episodic formatting around that clear theme and making the point to make what is taboo funny. Now that sort of writing can become very stale quickly if presented in a tasteless fashion like in Adult Swim’s Mr. Pickles. But Love Tyrant at the moment feels like it is avoiding that writing trap and is starting to flex its comedic muscles now that the initial setup is over and one with.

Definitely, since the pilot episode, there is a clearer focus on its episodic format and that focus helps the writing and humor flow more smoothly. It especially helps when the tone of the humor is written in a complete campy over the top nature, making a lot of the taboo subjects come off more cute and charming. I’m already seeing Akane more as cute and darling until she flips the murder switch.

The only comedy oddity would be Yuzu sniffing Akane’s garbage while sitting next to what can only be described as an Akane sex doll. A very ugly as hell one at that. But even then, the absurd comedy thrown in just helps to push the point home of the even more absurd framing device of setting up each forbidden love story as the daily slice of life romance. At the end of it all, I like episode two of Love Tyrant more than the pilot as without the setup baggage it could start being the story it wants to be and be as weirdly funny as it wants.