YMMV / Shikimori's Not Just a Cutie

• Base-Breaking Character: Izumi is one of the more polarizing characters in the 2020s. Many fans like him for his straight-forward optimism and determination in the face of overwhelming bad luck, while maintaining an active social life, and see his appearance and traditionally feminine attitude as cute. The other half despises him for not being masculine enough and find his bad luck to be an excuse to hide his general incompetence. It didn't help that the anime included additional material which made Izumi look more inept than he ever was in the original manga.
• Fan Nickname: Inuzuka's design and the fact the original Japanese and English dub cast Nobuhiko Okamoto and Clifford Chapin respectively earned him the nickname "Calm Bakugo" really quickly. Being best friends with Izumi, in addition to their interactions with each other, has also earned him the nickname "Bakubro" among the fandom.
• Fandom Rivalry: With My Dress-Up Darling due to both being early 2022 romantic comedies and the popularity of the female lead. This appears to be more timing than anything else, being released in back to back seasons, as the two series don't have a lot in common otherwise with My Dress-Up Darling being a Fanservice heavy traditional courtship drama series and Shikimori being a fluffy, safe, cute Slice of Life about an established couple and little drama.
• Growing the Beard: The series started as a short 4 page "Gag of the Week"-style manga posted by the author online. After about 15 chapters it shifts to a more traditional Slice of Life after it was picked up by a publisher. Most fans agree that the manga gets better over time, and that this is the point where it really started to find its footing.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Who is that hot guy?" "Dude, chill. That's your girlfriend." Said scene is very popular for redraws with characters and couples from other series and franchises.
  • ShikiOMORI: the Sunburn/Sunbrey anime. ^Explanation The main couple, Izumi and the titular Shikimori, have an uncanny physical resemblance to Omori/Sunny and Aubrey, and their dynamic of shy boy and assertive girl is the same dynamic Sunny and Aubrey are often depicted by shippers as having.
  • Izumi is a would-be isekai protagonist. ^Explanation  So many fatal accidents happen to Izumi so frequently that fans joke that he is supposed to be the protagonist of a Reincarnate in Another World story as an OP save-the-world hero, but Shikimori saves him and so that story never happens.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: A common criticism of the series is that, for being the title character, Shikimori herself is generally not given much in the way of focus or development compared to Izumi. The story is largely about Izumi's relationship with Shikimori or other characters, how it impacts him, and more often focuses on Izumi's feelings or past, with Shikimori usually being used to prop up Izumi's character over her own. Due to this, Shikimori is almost entirely just "Izumi's cute and cool girlfriend", rather than being her own character, which, considering she's the title character, resulted in some readers feeling like the series was more about Izumi rather than Shikimori.

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