A Condition Called Love

 A Condition Called Love (花野井くんと恋の病) is a 12 episode slice of life romance based on the manga of the same name by Morino Megumi.  The anime originally aired during the 2024 Spring season.

    First year high school student Hinase Hotaru witnesses a messy break up at a cafe.  Later that day she encounters the boy stunned into a daze in a park under the pouring rain.  Out of compassion for the hurt soul in front of her she extends her umbrella to shield him from more of the rain.  The following day the same boy bursts into her classroom and asks her to go out with him during lunch, much to the amazement of the entire class.  The boy is attractive and desired Hananoi Saki and he has set his sights on Hotaru, who by all accounts is plain and unassuming.  Hananoi pursues her, deeply desiring to date her, but Hotaru has yet to understand what it really means to be in a relationship or what liking someone in that fashion is all about.  Dating and love is something that has not permeated her conscious life yet and she struggles with the uncomfortable attention.

    Hananoi is persistant almost to the point of being possessive.  He convinces her to at least pretend date him on a trial period, only until Christmas.  He hopes that by spending time with her, she will develop feelings for him and they can graduate into a real relationship.  Unsure if anything will of it, Hotaru agrees to the trial period.  Hanonoi does whatever he can to make her like him.  He changes his hair, meets her in the morning, even if it means leaving home hours before hand to ensure he doesn't miss her.  His focus is entirely on her and she begins to be concerned that he is wasting his time, uncertain if the spark of affection will come to life in her.  While battling to win her heart, Hananoi struggles to control his emotions and desires, actions that cause him to hate himself, considering himself to be more of a villain and a knight.  Will he be able to break through Hotaru's detachment to intimacy to win her heart or is he hyper focused on her for the time being only to be rejected once more, due to his desperate and clingy nature.

    The story has a lot of alarm bells regarding Hananoi's personality and obsessiveness.  There are situations where it feels like Hotaru is in danger while being in his presence.  The sheer force of his desire to make her his and his alone is creepy and problematic.  He routinely recognizes that he is a problem and struggles with his desires and wants, fighting an internal conflict.  Luckily for Hotaru, Hananoi is able to control his actions and emotions to the point were he doesn't force himself on her or kill her family, but its not like that possibility doesn't exist.  In the first half of the story his behavior alone serves as a detractor in what should be a cute and fun story about blossoming into your first love, but her creepy stalker tendencies continue to shade their time together in a dark and uncomfortable way.  As the story unfolds and Hotaru, along with the audience, begins to learn about Hananoi's past ad circumstances things begin to make sense, but are still inexcusable.  His parents are doctors who has taken jobs with Doctors Without Boarders, abandoning their own child to care for children in impoverished nations instead, not understanding or caring about the damage they are doing to their own son.  Mostly left to his own, a great void of loneliness has filled his heart in place of parental love.  As he grew older his only focus was to fill that void with a companion who would hold him as the most important thing in the world, so he would no longer feel lost and abandoned.  

    If you can overcome Hananoi's difficult and dangerous personality and traits, you can settle into a comfortable and warm slice of life romance about developing ones own perception of the person next to them.  This story doesn't fall into many of the normal trappings of a high school based romance, instead zeroing in largely on the two characters interactions with each other and their own internal dialogues.  The few side characters there are serve little purpose than sounding boards, especially for Hotaru.  The story doesn't fall into many of the standard tropes and its more enjoyable because of that.  The artwork is fine.  Hotaru is cute and realistically proportioned but Hananoi leans into the stereotypical shojo pretty boy aesthetic.  In the end I started to warm up to the characters and the story, especially when Hananoi became less like a stalker and more like a partner in the relationship he worked so hard to force into existence.  Thankfully we were spared a beach episode or a school festival arc or whatever trope one would expect from a story about first love in high school.

    The series was simulcast on Crunchyroll.