I’m going to just say it now:  this first half was so much better than the second.  We already know Tomoya is an otaku and given that he’s inviting a girl into his room this is becoming all too similar on purpose.  It’s funny however, it would have been nice to see a bit more of the outside world before venturing into Tomoya’s apartment.  Speaking visually I feel that Saenai is intentionally being more like a SHAFT series with some awkward camera angles.  I’m a bit on the fence about this after having seen three episodes move towards this style of material.  I do want to mention that A-1 Pictures is putting this series and Shigatsu first and foremost, apparently from what I’ve seen of Idolmaster: Cinderella Girls there has been quite the drop in quality with that series.

After Tomoya has taken notice that Megumi is the girl that made his dreams come true here:  I like how its dismantled completely.  He’s so dissatisfied seeing how Megumi really is:  boring, without much interest on anything and it doesn’t help his visual novel game endeavors that she has without a doubt a single shred of energy to become a girl filled with moe!  This is great because while he’s pouring his heart at that cafe about how she should act for the sake of his game–  Eriri and Utaha show up to make this encounter much more awkward than it has been.

I have to hand it to Tomoya’s seiyu for doing a great job:  Yoshitsugu Matsuoka has probably done one of his stronger roles here and it really comes through with his screams of surprise and dismal behavior.  The relationship between Eriri, Utaha and Tomoya is fantastic because we’ve got the perfect setup for what Tomoya wants:  a story that features a male character with two beauties right under his nose that follow stereotypical anime tropes one in particular:  tsundere.

I think my favorite character so far is Megumi because she’s entirely out of place for this series that it works wonderfully in adding as much realism that’s far away from the romance game they play at Tomoya’s apartment and even the design he’s had in his head all along about developing a game that would sell millions. As much as I like the way she reacts to Tomoya I felt this would have been much better for him to have the all-girls scenario with Eriri and Utaha tagging along for commentary while Megumi tries out her first visual novel game.

OVERALL IMPRESSION: 7/10

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