English Dub Season Review: Love Tyrant

Through this series of unconventional romances, we’ve seen things get very kooky to just plain cringy. Love Tyrant has been from day one an unstable viewing experience. When it’s the story of straight man Seiji Aino coming to terms with feelings for his yandere girlfriend and her tsundere half-sister then it’s a very endearing narrative coupled with funny yet nonsensical humor. However, when it’s about the titular Love Tyrant, Guri, everything comes across jumbled and half-hearted. It feels like a narrative that has all the necessary beats for a romance realization tale but its structured by a quartet of characters that play against it.

But let’s go back to basics, the series main character Seiji Aino is visited by one of heaven’s angels acting as a cupid, Guri, who has accidentally written Seiji’s name into her Kiss Note. Death Note references, am I right? Unfortunately for Guri this little mistake means that unless Seiji kisses someone Guri will die, which results in Seiji kissing Guri. But this is a wacky misunderstanding and Guri explains that he must kiss someone else that is not her so after some prodding Guri pushes Seiji to kiss his high school crush, Hiyama Akane, who he believes is way out of his league. However not only is Hiyama not out of his league but she loves Seiji too but clearly to an unhealthy, obsessive and clearly psychotic degree as when Guri spills that Seiji kissed her first Akane brandishes two kukri knives and attacks the two. Seiji, showing a truly caring side to him, protects Guri from Akane and with some more mishaps, that I won’t spoil here, not only does Seiji become girlfriends with Akane when Guri writes their names in the Kiss Note together but peaking her interest Guri writes her name next to Seiji’s. Akane would cleave Guri’s head off for this but with their names now written alongside Guri’s they have immortality and are forced to now help Guri keep up with her love making quota much to their annoyance. Plus, to add to the wackiness Akane’s half-sister and full time stalker Yuzu Kichougasaki gets written into the love triangle so now Seiji’s growing small harem of high school girls and his never-ending parade of headache and shenanigans can start.

Looking back on the show there is a clear love-hate feeling I have towards it. At times, I can find some of its clever thematic writing towards the most uncommon of relationships and its charmingly endearing writing towards it so adorable and heartwarming I could sit and watch the show completely content. However, then there comes the burden of the show’s titular character, Guri the Love Tyrant, and she just drags the show down like a pack of cement. Now none of that is directed at the voice acting or the animation style, Funimation’s voice cast pull off a great performance all around with Jad Taxton (Guri), Amber Lee Connors (Akane) and Monica Rial (Yuzu) as highlights of the cast. Amber and Monica in particular display such a beautiful range of emotion for each of their characters from Amber’s portrayal of Akane’s burning rage to broken solemnness to Yuzu’s hyperactive protectiveness and fragile emotional moments. Jad Taxton and Austin Tindle (Seiji) are truly the odd one’s out as while I do feel they pull off great performances the writing at times for the duo of them can make their characters come off unnaturally stupid which is at no fault of the actors themselves.

The crux of the show can be best described as split down the middle, with story A and story B. Story A is a story of Guri finding out what love is with the help of Seiji so that she may one day ascend to being the new god or just figure out what she wants to do in life. Story B is a story of the Hiyama and Kichougasaki families, their controlling nature over the love lives of Yuzu and Akane, and Akane’s desire to truly love another and be loved back for who she truly is. Ignore my bias laden over description you can see Story B is the more grounded story, in the emotional sense, it still includes women pulling infinite weapons out of nowhere and creating force fields, but it’s a narrative that directly links with romance and challenges all the characters on a personal level to interact to sort them all out. Story A putters about just like Guri and really has no idea how it wants to end, letting Guri just have episode upon episode where she can nonstop goof off and act oblivious to everyone’s feelings around her with our only solace to try and excuse her actions is because… she’s wacky LOL.

Akane and Yuzu take action in their stories. They wrestle with inner turmoil and they bring conflict to the group so that everyone is involved. Guri’s story sadly feels too reactive during the great majority of the show and by the time Guri starts proactively learning 3/4 of the series is gone. But that isn’t an issue exclusive to Guri, Seiji himself is a very inactive character when it really counts. There can be an argument made that he can’t make big choices like deciding who to romance as in a romance show like this that would kill the narrative pacing. But that sort of decision is no what I’m talking about, compare a moment where he protects Guri, a girl he has only met today and decides to defend her from his knife wielding crush to a moment later on where Akane has been put under house arrest by her family and her mother even puts a hit out on Seiji. In this situation where a girl who, while a bit overbearing has shown nothing but love and devotion to him, is being locked away Seiji shrinks down and ponders if she really wants to see him save her. It is only when his sister Aqua kicks him that he straightens out and goes and saves her. It is moments like this and one other big one near the end that show’s that the nice guys Seiji Aino that I liked so much has a definite commitment issue, but that is to be expected in this sort of show, and selective nobleness.

Defending his sister from a demonic penguin and protecting an angel girl who can’t die from a girl with a knife shows a character who while quite scrawny and weak physically has a heart that is devoted to caring for others. But acting aloof to the decision of whether he should go help a girl who thoroughly says she loves him and a finale character change that further emphasizes this point just pictures Seiji as a spineless ass. I can understand writing the character being scared to go and face the mob and even the ending where he is obviously upset at Guri for her shenanigans. However, the way the writers portray Seiji’s relationships to these girls is completely detached. No warmth, no kindness just a jarring coldness to Seiji that just doesn’t gel with Seiji’s character.

There are many other characters and thematic bits of writing that I could weigh to further explain the dual love and hate Love Tyrant can hold but now that would be fruitless. All that matters is whether you as a viewer can accept the LOL random humour and sometimes unnatural character writing of Seiji and Guri while also receiving funny thematic romance writing and very endearing relationship writing with Akane and Yuzu. If I were to watch the series again, I would skip over all the Guri scenes as they are the weakest parts of the show but if I were to give it an overall recommendation to a newcomer to the show? Love Tyrant will show you the true duality of love, literally as you love the sickly-sweet parts and loathe the LOL randomness.