Medaka Kuroiwa is Impervious to My Charms (黒岩メダカに私の可愛いが通じない) is a 12 episode romantic comedy series based on the manga of the same name by Kuze Ran. The series originally aired during the Winter of 2025.
Kawai Mona is used to being the center of attention. Her entire life everyone around her has fawned over her beauty and grace. She has never spent a moment of her life where the ground she walked on was not worshiped. That is until a boy, Medaka, in her class actively avoids her and appears agitated at every instance of interaction. Mona considers herself the queen bee, relishing in her worship. She absolutely can not let this slight to her magnificence go unaddressed. It is now her mission to do whatever it takes to make Medaka recognize and appreciate her status as a goddess. She knows what excites boys and figures if she is deliberately blatant when around him, it will convince him to obsess over her. Yet all of her efforts, some of which cause her to debase herself, continue to fail to move his heart. Sometimes he seems more upset and bothered than before. How far does a girl have to go to make this stray worker bee fall in line with everyone else and pay her the tribute she deserves?
Little does Mona understand, but Kuroiwa Medaka is the heir to a very strict temple in which he needs to remain chaste. Its not that he doesn't find her worthy of his attention. He is so fully invested in his future at the temple that he does everything he can to not stray from his path. Every time she rattles his conviction he has to fall back into his training to center himself and remain focused on his chastity. This constant pressure and test of his conviction causes him great amounts of stress. He works hard to avoid her and not become trapped in her allure, but the harder he resists, the harder she tries. The endless loop and his outward annoyance at her attention causes him problems with everyone else as well. Mona is worshiped by everyone in the class, obviously, and when he openly ignores her or becomes agitated with her focused attention, it dismays the boys who envy his position.
The premise of the series is a little bit outside of the norm, the narrative character is the female lead but the audience is absolutely male in nature. Instead of it being a vehicle for self insertion we largely get a scenario of wish casting in that the story revolves almost exclusively around the internal struggle Mona has with the Medaka not willing to pay attention to her. This leads her to debasing herself in a number of scenarios until she actually begins to develop feelings for him.
The series was a bit of a roller coaster when it came to its enjoyment. I liked the premise of the first episode and used it as an example of how to use fanservice in an interesting way. As the first half progressed it struggled to dig its self out of that scenario and became more uncomfortable than interesting. When moved into the final arc the story once again became interesting as it really focused on Mona's internal struggles and things around her forcing a change of perspective. In the end this series was OK, if a bit exploitative. The female perspective for a shonen romance is a nice change of pace\. Ultimately though it travels down an easily predictable path. However, the way to got to that path was enjoyable. What was lacking though was a bit more depth to Medaka himself. I kept expecting a final reveal that he was misinterpreting his tenants. Its also unknown if Mona understands why hes reacting the way he does to her advances, the assumption is a resounding no, but its not explicit. The boys in his class, or at least the ones he could consider friends, seem to be aware of his circumstances. I might actually check out the manga. i suspect there is quite a bit more story than was shown in the anime and it may be worth the time.
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