I’ve been dreading writing about this series. Initially, I was really hyped for this light novel adaptation, which started airing back in Fall 2025. Several English-speaking friends had raved – repeatedly – to me about how great the translated novels were, and the fact that in 2021 and 2022, on two separate occasions, the series was ranked first in the bunkobon category by guidebook Kono Light Novel ga Sugoi!, suggesting that it’s also popular in its homeland. And then came ANN’s Fall 2025 Anime Preview guide, with no less than four separate reviewers absolutely slating the anime adaptation’s first two episodes.

Although I always endeavor not to let others’ criticisms color my own judgement of the media I consume (to the point where I’ll often avoid reading other reviews until I’ve written my own), I do have to wonder if, in this case, my fellow reviewers’ negativity was infectious? I found myself actively disliking the main character so much the first time I watched the show that I seriously considered dropping it like almost everyone else seemed to. Yet, something niggled at the back of my mind. Something about this story must have connected with my friends, and possibly millions of Japanese readers, and I was curious to learn what that was.

Production problems can mark the death knell for many a show, especially when its final episodes are delayed weeks or months past the end of a season, and its viewership drifts elsewhere. I’ve never gotten around to watching the final two episodes of Whisper Me a Love Song, for example. Chitose‘s first season was a similarly cursed production, with lengthy delays between episodes that compounded to delay its final three installments by three whole months. In my case, this delay allowed me time to return to revisit the show and attempt to appraise it on its own terms, by starting from the beginning, with a clearer idea of its trajectory and intentions. Did it make my opinion of it improve? The answer is… complicated.

Full disclaimer: I did not enjoy secondary school much. I didn’t fit in with my peers; in fact, I actively disliked many of them, and made most of my friends elsewhere. Anime that tends to idolize the school experience as the best years of one’s life absolutely turn me off. However, I still enjoy intelligent school-based dramas like My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU, Bottom-tier Character Tomozaki, and Too Many Losing Heroines!, to all of which Chitose is a close cousin. All of these shows really delve into what makes their characters tick and explore the complexities of adolescent socialization. What marks Chitose out as different is that the titular protagonist isn’t a lovable loser or snarky curmudgeon. He’s one of the popular kids, apparently oozing with confidence, animal magnetism, and physical prowess. That already makes him difficult to empathize with, especially for viewers who perhaps spent many years in school being victimized by such people.

The point, I suppose, is that Chitose as protagonist is an inversion of the usual trope of a socially awkward character improving himself through interacting with others, and in a way, I see how that could be clever. It’s a shame, then, that Chitose, at least at the beginning, comes off as an utterly insufferable, smug know-it-all. I can completely see why the preview guide reviewers all bounced off this show, hard. It’s not like there aren’t other anime out there with unlikeable protagonists. Look at Re:Zero. It takes many episodes for Subaru to evolve past his nature as the personification of nails scraping down a chalkboard. Chitose doesn’t have the benefit of being horrifically, violently murdered multiple times every episode, only to be resurrected to try again. No, the worst that happens to Chitose is that his nature is lamp-shaded by his mean, nasty peers calling him a “fuccboi” or a “manslut.” Oh, how unjust. How my heart bleeds for the poor lad.

The first arc, being by far the weakest, doesn’t help, either. Shut-in boy Kenta is so initially off-putting with his cowardly, ill-informed put-downs of both Chitose and his various pretty girl friends that it’s justifiable for the viewer to want him to stay in his damned room and rot. That’s probably what we’re intended to think, so it allows the saintly, messiah-esque Chitose to smash his way in through Kenta’s window with a baseball bat as a way to shake him out of his self-inflicted complacency and negativity. By itself, this is a cool scene, yet the story in which it is employed is quite underwhelming.

Kenta’s depressed because he’s been rejected by a girl who intentionally manipulated his feelings for laughs. It’s a sucky situation, true, but Kenta’s attitude to women, and people in general, stinks, so it’s up to Chitose to fix this by… psychologically abusing him? Although Chitose’s questionable tactics do ultimately improve Kenta’s life, he very deliberately misleads him and withholds important information, which more than crosses the line between playful banter and bullying. While Chitose’s stated aim is to help Kenta interact with others naturally without judging them unfairly, his own actions invite negative judgment of his own behavior. This isn’t helped by the fact that almost every major character repeatedly enthuses about how Chitose is so god-damned wonderful. Not only does he clearly enjoy huffing his own farts, almost everyone else in the show is queueing up to take deep, full-bodied breaths of Chitose-guff too.

The second story arc, which focuses on love interest Yuzuki Nanase, is somewhat better, though with one major caveat we’ll get to shortly. Nanase reminds me most strongly of Aoi Hinami from Bottom-tier Character Tomozaki, in both appearance and personality (though she’s not quite as Machiavellian). At six episodes in length, it overstays its welcome, but it’s an interesting story of how an otherwise confident, cool girl can find her world crumbling around her because of the actions of shitty, entitled men. Chitose fully engages his hero complex here, putting himself in danger multiple times despite friends begging him not to do so.

Chitose’s actions are almost always calculated (and sometimes very underhanded), and the fact that he seems to be in control of his own reactions most of the time makes his “fake” attempted sexual assault of Nanase in episode nine even more unconscionable. He intends to shock her out of her passive mindset and get her to advocate for herself, but forcing himself onto a vulnerable girl, in the privacy of his own home, with no adults around to stop him, is beyond the pale. I almost turned off the TV in disgust. Of course, he doesn’t go through with it and receives a swift (deserved) kick to the balls in retaliation, but what stretches credulity even further is that Nanase doesn’t just leave in distress, as she should, but instead thanks him for his actions! In what world would something like that happen?

Contrastingly, the story arc’s resolution in episode ten is mostly very strong, feeling almost like a season finale (which it unfortunately more or less became). Chitose’s confrontation with Nanase’s abuser is relatively restrained, yet cathartic, and almost worth watching the show for alone. The subsequent “reveal” of Nanase’s stalker – yes, a different character – is less effective, leaving more of an “is that it?” feeling. At least Nanase’s speech about how she’s just a normal girl who menstruates and masturbates, hence destroying her stalker’s idolized vision of her, is bold and entertaining.

The final arc for this season is only three episodes long, and adapts the first half of the third volume, with presumably the rest to be adapted later. It leaves the story on a reasonably effective cliffhanger. This would be exceedingly unsatisfactory if the second season hadn’t already been announced, with the episode ending on a tease for the as-yet unreleased episode fourteen. White-haired older girl character Asuka Nishino is the featured heroine for this arc, and she’s the only one for whom it’s obvious Chitose harbors true affection. He’s not shy about the fact that he finds the other girls in his class attractive, but at least he’s always honest with them that he has no intention of reciprocating their blatant infatuation with him any time soon.

Nishino is fun, if a little manic pixie dream girl-coded at the beginning, but of course, there’s more to her than that. It’s completely understandable why someone like Chitose would fall for her, and I’m actually interested to see where her story arc goes next. The other girls have mostly only played bit parts in others’ arcs so far, but considering the pattern these kinds of stories take, they’ll almost certainly get their own time in the spotlight soon. Chitose Is in the Ramune Bottle is a lot like the Monogatari or Rascal Does Not Dream series, but without the supernatural elements or the wit. It’s rarely as entertaining or emotionally deep as those examples of the “boy who solves others’ problems” genre. Good grief, does it have try so hard to be, though?

Apart from its exceptionally irritating protagonist, Chitose Is in the Ramune Bottle‘s main issue is with its writing. It tries too impossibly damn hard to be profound and lyrical, but comes across as the most excruciatingly contrived ramblings of a fourteen-year-old who has just encountered poetry for the first time. Filled with painfully flowery expressions not only in Chitose’s tiresome narration, but also in the deeply improbable dialogue between these hopelessly verbose and self-obsessed teenagers, it’s hard not to unintentionally guffaw multiple times per episode. I know Monogatari can err way towards the end of loquaciousness, but at least it’s written playfully and well. Chitose‘s dialogue gives me hives.

On the more positive end of the spectrum, it’s a gorgeous-looking series, filled with beautiful depictions of real-life backgrounds and an eye-poppingly bright color palette. It’s a show aimed presumably at teenage boys, so the girls are all extremely cute, their movements well-captured by the above-average animation. Apart from a handful of prominent fan-servicey moments, they’re mostly drawn respectfully. It’s not the kind of show that’s filled with egregious panty-shots, for example.

I really like the music, especially the rock-tinged opener “Liar” by Kucci, and its hyperactive, colorful accompanying animation with its shimmering, bright motifs of water and glass. While it may sound like I’ve been overly negative about the show so far, I am genuinely interested to see where the series goes next. Later episodes begin to delve into Chitose’s backstory, and it’s obvious there’s more going on with him than initially meets the eye. I live in hope that there’s some reason the original author wrote him to be such an irritating douchebag, and that his characterization, along with the rest of the anime, will improve with the upcoming second season. As an author, it’s only worthwhile inverting reader expectations of your protagonist if you intend to do something truly special with them eventually.