Follow us on Twitter | Instagram

“Cute. I wouldn’t mind letting her mess up my life.”

Based on the manga series by Asuka Konishi, the animated adaptation of Yakuza Fiancé: Raise wa Tanin ga Ii starts off on a faithful note to its source material. The series is produced by Studio Deen, who are behind dozens of popular anime titles, including Fate/stay night, Ranma ½, The Seven Deadly Sins, and Fruits Basket.

Plot overview – Yakuza Fiancé: Raise wa Tanin ga Ii follows the misadventures of 17-year-old Yoshino Somei (voiced by Hitomi Ueda), who lives in Osaka and is the granddaughter of the most powerful Yakuza family in the region. She is shocked to learn that her grandfather wants her to marry Kirishima Miyama (voiced by Akira Ishida), a boy her age who is also the heir of a powerful Yakuza family based out of Tokyo. After a lot of push from her grandfather, Somei ends up going to Tokyo to meet Miyama and finds him to be handsome, charming, and unlike a typical Yakuza. So she moves to Miyama’s high school, only to learn that Miyama is a twisted, crazy, sadomasochist. To maintain peace between the two Yakuza families, the sheltered Somei decides to stay on in Tokyo and face the future with Miyama.

About 24-minutes long, the first episode of Yakuza Fiancé: Raise wa Tanin ga Ii swiftly sets the ground for this dark action-comedy. The animation is on the simpler side, like early 2000s anime titles and the character designs are almost the same as the manga. Except for condensing some of the character conversations, the events in the story unfold in the same manner too. From the dramatic opening scene where Miyama sees Somei’s photo for the first time and declares he wouldn’t mind her messing up his life, to Somei’s hilarious fight with her grandfather about finding out that she is expected to marry Miyama from a magazine, the anime unfolds exactly like the manga.

While both lead voice actors for Yoshino and Miyama sound like they are making an extra effort to sound like teenagers, the clashing characters are so entertaining that you quickly get used to their voices. Akira Ishida brilliantly brings out the dual nature of Miyama – from initially appearing like a good guy, he quickly morphs into a psycho, and the voice matches his personality. Somei, of course, is the more likable character, a teen tricked by her grandfather into living with a dangerous Yakuza family in Tokyo, who must now face a different, harsher big-city life than the protected one she lived in Osaka. Apart from the challenge of a psycho Yakuza fiancé, she must also grapple with bullies at the new school.

Episode one of Yakuza Fiancé: Raise wa Tanin ga Ii promises to deliver an exaggerated but entertaining Yakuza-themed action-comedy-romance, where Osaka girl Somei will show Tokyo boy Miyama what strong women are made of. The episode ends with two ridiculously over-the-top, funny twists (though they won’t be funny if you take them too seriously, so don’t), one of which shocks Somei out of her wits as well. I am definitely looking forward to the next episode!

You can watch the series on CrunchyRoll.

Read Next: Nobody Wants This Review – The RomCom We Need

Also Read: CTRL Review: Ananya Pandey Faces Digital Dystopia (Short Audio version below)