it feels like my little monster starts out fine sets up the idea that we are going to have a series of miscommunications and so on youre like ok cool we get confessions episode one so lets get on this rollercoaster. but the characters fall flat. the backstories of haru and shizuku who are supposed to be so bad at socializing arent explored in a way that explains them properly. such as shizuku being lonely since childhood and haru being... what stifled by his dad and dealing with his dead mom? the cause and effect simply isnt clear. more importantly the characters dont progress enough on an individual basis. especially haru which makes him unlikeable and ultimately makes the viewer not want to root for him and shizuku to end up together.... which is kind of the point of this whole story. i.e. having him threaten yamakens life because he his jealous of the time he is spending with shizuku repeatedly disrespecting shizukus personal boundaries accidentally hurting her in his violent outburtsts. and with shizuku she never learns truly to consider others needs. her problems pale in comparison to harus though. also especially during the latter half of the show it has a tendency to solve problems between characters in an unfulfilling and even problematic way at times. natsume the girl whos set up as someone who has trouble standing up for herself and gets bullied constantly by other girls because boys wont stop hitting on her is the one who gets dealt one of the worst hands with this. its just shitty writing to make a character like this have to apologize to the group of boys who wont stop tormenting her with their desire when she finally blows up on them. its a shame because the dialogue between characters when theyre talking about how they feel is actually good but then they do something like tell this fucking girl to apologize. okkkk. or like when the audience is told shizuku should feel bad for telling haru to respect her space. HELLO? what the fuck is this. i think the writers confused having her regard her friends needs for letting ppl have their way with her. i dont fucking get it. the show has a good mix of personalities and tropes and then after episode 6 all the writers exposed themselves for either being Men or being women who fetishize being in a relationship with a psycho who will kill someone who looks at you. i think the most interesting thing about this was the relationship between shizuku and yamaken which is fucking stupid because hes just some arrogant guy. but they actually wrote him to change. to be interested in her which was big for him and then to go out of his way to help and offer council when she didnt know what to do about haru. or maybe its just that harus behavior was so fucking cringey that i was relieved to see this poor bitch shizuku spend any iota of time with another person who wasnt him. stupidly the fact it was only 13 episodes combined with the drama between the characters did keep me watching because i was genuinely curious as to what it would look like when haru and shizuku finally got together. EXCEPT. they DIDNT around 10 the episodes start geting more and more off track and finally its like... oh shit. they thought they were going to have a season two. and i looked at the synopsis for the volumes in the manga and i gotta say. even if they thought they were going to get a season two. they really set up the backstories so shittily that i dont think it would have fixed a thing. such a shame. what a waste of a fun group of characters.