Can a Boy-Girl Friendship Survive?

Can a Boy-Girl Friendship Survive? (男女の友情は成立する？（いや、しないっ!!）) Is a 12 episode slice of life romance based on the light novel series by Nana Nanana.  The anime original aired during the Spring of 2025.

    Natsume Yu has a dream, a dream shared by his indisputable best friend Inuzuka Himari.  That dream is to open a store selling jewelry and accessories centered around preserved flowers.   Yu has a deep love and appreciation for the beauty and hidden meanings of the floral world and over time has developed a method to preserve that for 'eternity'.  Himari became enamored with his vision and eye for detail when they were in middle school during an exposition.  She decided then and there that she would be his assistant in every way possible, putting herself before his dream.  In the process of this arrangement she demands that they be best friends as she has no interest in romance.  Yu, focused on his goal with all of his attention, gladly accepts the arrangement and pushes forward with his vision.  As they near the end of their high school career...things begin to shift in their relationship that begin to cause problems with the shared goal.

    hings become complicated when a girl who Yu encountered earlier in his life, by the name of Enomoto Rion, transfers to their school.  She was the first girl he fell in love with and she has mutual feelings for him.  Unfortunately for her, he has moved on and is focused exclusively on he and Himari's goal.  The arrival of a rival puts Himari on edge and she struggles with letting Yu know her true feelings for him.  To complicate things even more, a long time friend of Rion's is stirring the pot, causing all manner of drama, hoping for his friend to get her wish.  All of the adults around them understand that Yu is going to need to reassess his goal and try to make him understand that hes far from the potential he needs to be successful.  As older, more experienced individuals, they try to convince the kids to slow life down a little and enjoy the time they have.  But can Yu really chose the path that will be the best outcome for him?

    Terrible title, somewhat likeable character but really annoying tendencies and muddled internal conflicts.  This story had a lot of problems and self imposed set backs that made the story struggle.  Everything comes down to Yu and Himari refusing to accept the future together that makes sense and has the highest chance of success.  Instead they are focused on a naive sense of professionalism that increasing emotional turmoil impacts the quality of.  Himari is the most problematic character, but I still really enjoyed her as a character, even though I wanted to slap her everything she fucking things up by being too indecisive.  Consistently she would begin to reveal her true feelings and intentions with Yu then blow everything off as a joke, then stress about what Yu really thought about her.  She sabotaged herself at every opportunity.  She didn't need any of the obstacles that other people intentionally put in her way to stop her from being true to herself and Yu, she did that as much as she could.

    Yu as well was so focused on a flippant promise he made with Himari that he didn't even consider how she could have either changed her mind or been lying the entire time.  The distractions did little to impact him compared to what his internal dialogue did.  Literally the entirety of the drama in the story was self inflicted by the main characters.  Everything else, all of the opposition from outside players, had little to no impact on the outcome of their plight...it was all self inflicted.  The story can be summoned as self sabotage the series.  Yet, the characters did not truly learn from their stupidity and in the end they win.  Sorry...did I spoil the series...be honest you aren't going to watch it.  The only reason I continued to watch it was because I did like the characters outside of their relentless sabotage.  Himari was a fun character, brash, forthright and unapologetic.  Unfortunately, Yu was a bit of a wet paper bag and the relationships between all of the other characters barely resonated.  I guess....pass on this story?

The series is available on Crunchyroll.