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Love Flops

Love Flops (Japanese: 恋愛フロップス, Hepburn: Ren'ai Furoppusu) is an original Japanese anime television series produced by Kadokawa Corporation, animated by Passione, and directed by Nobuyoshi Nagayama. The series tells the story of a young boy who lives his normal life as a high school student until the day he watches a fortune telling program on television, culminating in a series of risqué encounters where he is surrounded by five girls who are then chosen to become his bride, and they have been invited by his father to live at his home.

The series aired from October to December 2022 on AT-X and other networks. Sentai Filmworks the licensed the series for English-speaking regions, streaming it on its Hidive platform with an English dub that premiered in November 2023.

A manga adaptation by Ryūdai Ishizaka was serialized in Hakusensha's Young Animal magazine from June 2022 to July 2023.

Plot

One day before he heads to school, Asahi Kashiwagi watches a fortune telling program on television. Every prediction turns out to be true when he encounters five girls along the way, with each one eventually giving him a love confession. Asahi now has to find a way to deal with this unexpected situation.

Characters

Main characters

Asahi Kashiwagi (柏樹朝, Kashiwagi Asahi): Voiced by: Ryōta Ōsaka, Mayu Minami (young) (Japanese); Jeremy Gee (English); Asahi receives five love confessions on his first day of school after seeing a fortune telling program on television, which annoys him. It is later revealed that he was recruited for a virtual reality program to experience a computer generated world with simulated characters.
Aoi Izumisawa (和泉沢愛生, Izumisawa Aoi): Voiced by: Miku Itō (Japanese); Natalie Rial (English); A Japanese student and one of Asahi's classmates. She wears glasses and has a bright and cheerful personality. She is also a talented cook for her housemates. It is later revealed that she is actually a simulated character and that she was the first among the artificial intelligence girls to be created. Because of this, she is said to be the most similar to the AI girls' base, Asahi's childhood friend Ai Izawa.
Amelia Irving (アメリア・アーヴィング, Ameria Āvingu): Voiced by: Ayana Taketatsu (Japanese); Brittney Karbowski (English); An American student and one of Asahi's classmates. She is always seen wearing headphones with cat ears. She wants to be good at Japanese by studying kanji. It is later revealed that she is actually a simulated character. Later on in the series, she becomes a magical girl like Karin and Irina.
Irina Ilyukhina (イリーナ・イリューヒナ, Irīna Iryūhina): Voiced by: Rie Takahashi (Japanese); Juliet Simmons (English); A shy Bulgarian student and one of Asahi's classmates. She is actually a cross-dressing girl who has been forced to live like a boy under the name Ilya Ilyukhin (イリヤ・イリューヒン, Iriya Iryūhin) by her late father. It is later revealed that she is actually a simulated character. She later also becomes a magical girl.
Bai Mongfa (白夢華, Bai Monfa): Voiced by: Hisako Kanemoto (Japanese); Maggie Flecknoe (English); The class' teacher who comes from China. Because she is still young, her relationship with her students is more like that of an older sister. She also has a clumsy personality, particularly at home. She is a former tai chi assassin of an underground organization and has the codename "Bloody Tiger". It is later revealed that she is actually a simulated character.
Karin Istel (カリン・イステル, Karin Isuteru): Voiced by: Marika Kōno (Japanese); Cat Thomas (English); A self-conscious German student and one of Asahi's classmates. She is also active as a model whose billboards are a common sight in Tokyo. She is also a magical girl, becoming one after an encounter with an alien familiar. It is later revealed that she is actually a simulated character.

Supporting characters

Yoshio Ijūin (伊集院好雄, Ijūin Yoshio): Voiced by: Jun Fukuyama (Japanese); Blake Shepard (English); Asahi's classmate and self-proclaimed best friend. He comes from a rich family which owns a beach house. It is later revealed that he is actually a simulated character and an alter-ego of scientist Yoshino Feynman.
Loverin (ラブリン, Raburin): Voiced by: Shiori Izawa (Japanese); Kira Vincent-Davis (English); A rabbit-shaped alarm clock which says things to Asahi and the others. Loverin has a screen that can display both time and other information.
Ai Izawa (井澤愛, Izawa Ai): Voiced by: Miku Itō (Japanese); Natalie Rial (English); Asahi's childhood friend. She died from a brain tumor two years prior to the start of the story, but her consciousness formed the basis of a new AI model. Additionally, her memories were implanted into the five simulated characters created by the international VR companies.
Yoshino Feynman (好乃・ファインマン, Yoshino Fainman): Voiced by: Yukiyo Fujii (Japanese); Molly Searcy (English); A strange scientist who works on AI in a technological company called Cavenish. She informs Asahi that the girls he was living with were all part of a VR simulation. She is also investigating what led the simulation to prematurely end. She appears in the simulated world in the form of Yoshio Ijūin.

Media

Manga

A manga adaptation illustrated by Ryūdai Ishizaka was serialized in Hakusensha's Young Animal magazine from June 24, 2022, to July 28, 2023. The first tankōbon volume was released on September 29, 2022.

Volumes

Anime

The original anime television series produced by Kadokawa Corporation and animated by Passione was announced on March 25, 2022. The series was directed by Nobuyoshi Nagayama, with assistant direction by Midori Yui and Fujiaki Asari, scripts written by Ryō Yasumoto, character designs handled by Kazuyuki Ueda, who also serves as chief animation director, and music composed by Kenichiro Suehiro. It aired from October 12 to December 28, 2022, on AT-X and other networks. Konomi Suzuki performed the opening theme song "Love? Reason why!!", while Miku Itō, Ayana Taketatsu, Rie Takahashi, Hisako Kanemoto and Marika Kōno performed the first ending theme song "Flop Around". Itō performed the second ending theme song "Lost in the white" and the insert song for episode 12, "With You". Kadokawa collected its episodes on two Blu-ray box sets, released on January 25 and March 24, 2023.

In North America, British Isles and Australia, Sentai Filmworks has licensed the series, who streamed it on Hidive. An English dub produced by Sentai Studios, under ADR director John Swasey, premiered on November 28, 2023. It was released on a Blu-ray set on January 16, 2024.

Episodes

Reception

The series' first episode received negative reviews from Anime News Network's staff during the Fall 2022 season previews. James Beckett critiqued that the series failed to replicate the tightrope concept of "nonsensical shenanigans" and sincere relationships that Wet Hot American Summer captured, saying the premise had "no clever commentary on those hacky clichés, no subversion of expectations, nor anything else of merit or interest". Richard Eisenbeis felt the series did not go further with its deconstruction of the lucky pervert trope in romantic comedy anime and had a "compelling mystery" regarding Asahi's surroundings being a dream or virtual reality, but concluded that "it's not enough to bring me back for week two—and neither is anything else in the show for that matter." Nicholas Dupree was put off by the "escalation of bad taste" following the episode's elongated take on the first two minutes of A Sister's All You Need's opening episode, saying "if somebody wanted to make a parody of lazy dating sim games and the ridiculously contrived ways they deliver cheap fanservice of flat characters to an increasingly desensitized audience, it would certainly look like Love Flops."

Notes

References

External links

Official website (in Japanese)
Official manga website at Young Animal (in Japanese)
Love Flops (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia

Text submitted to CC-BY-SA license. Source: Love Flops by Wikipedia (Historical)

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