Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! Episodes 1-7

So, I've added Kyoto Animation to my list of studios (after Shaft and Gaianx) that I will just watch everything they produce because it's gold.  Their current project is an adaptation of a two-volume Light Novel series of the title seen above.

(Man, I'm watching a lot of series these days that are just long strings of words in Japanese.  "Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai!" is usually translated "In spite of my adolescent delusions of grandeur, I want a date!")

It's about a boy (Togashi Yuuta) who, before entering high school, was a delusional sort who wore a long jacket, carried a oversized fantasy resin sword, spoke in an incredibly melodramatic fashion and called himself (in Engrish) "Dark Flame Master."  However, at some point he realized how incredibly embarrassing this is and stopped doing it, trying to forget everything about it and move on, making a fresh start in high school.

Unfortunately, a girl (Takanashi Rikka) moves into the apartment above the one where he lives, and she still does stuff like that, wearing a medical eyepatch (to seal her 'Wicked Eye') and a bandage on her left arm (covering a seal on the power of the harbinger of darkness), making combat poses at everyone she meets and talking a lot about her  mana, chimera familiar (a stray cat she put wings on), the evil Priestess who shares the apartment she lives in (her big sister) and how she must be ready for battle at all times.  Due to a momentary indiscretion when Yuuta is attempting to cleanse himself of his past forever, his neighbor (also his classmate) overhears of him being Dark Flame Master, and attempts to befriend him as a dark sorcerer who is also facing the threats that she faces.

... And we've all been there?  Right?  ...Right?

Anyway, as someone who is only about 90-95% over his own adolescent delusions of grandeur (Chuunibyou literally translates as 'Eighth-grader disease'), I find the premise to be nostalgic and amusing (and that's without mentioning Kyoto Animation's eye-melting artwork), and the execution to be effective and interesting.  Rikka and Yuuta are hardly the only characters who have ever suffered from chuunibyou, and it's not portrayed as a life-destroying disease as much as a phase that may or may not have deeper roots.

A part of me wants to write an entire essay on the idea of adolescent delusions of grandeur and how they figure into society, grow and evolve and how accepted they are even in adults, but this is an anime blog.

So, instead, I'll say that Chuu2Koi (that's the official abbreviation, apparently) is pretty good, so far, and is likely to be high on my list of recommendations to my more grown-up nerd friends.  Since we all were like that, once upon a time.