This Anime Was Made for Losers.

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]What up, y'all? It's the homie Dame. And you might look at the title of this video and to say, "Well, Damian, isn't all anime made for losers?" And you'd be correct, PNG image of San Antonio Spurs superstar Victor Wembanyama. But some anime were made specifically for turbo giga losers, and that's what we're going to be talking about today. For reference, we're going to be talking about two anime that are currently airing this spring season. Gals Can't Be Kind to Otaku and I Made Friends with the Second Prettiest Girl in My Class.

[00:00:30]Here's the challenge for you in the comments. See if you can guess what these two anime are about just off of the titles.

[00:00:37]I bet you can't.

[00:00:43]Uh so, we're going to be talking about Otegari and Kuranika, which are the shorthand names, you know, for the sake of everybody's sanity, of course. Now, obviously, I'm joking and being hyperbolic by saying these anime are for losers. I mean, I like them and I'm not a loser, right?

[00:01:03]But what we're talking about here are anime that are meant to be a self-insert wish-fulfillment fantasies. They always give you an exciting premise to lure you in, and then the rest is just the same rom-com beats we've seen a million times. And that premise is usually a question. In the case of these two shows, it's, "Hey there, loser. What if hot girls were interested in the same weird stuff you're interested in, and because of that, they fall in love with you for some reason?" I'm sure you've seen many of these in the past before.

[00:01:31]So, let's talk about Otegari first.

[00:01:33]Otegari is about this boring otaku dweeb with no friends who is obsessed with Kirariman Pets, which is an anime targeted towards little girls. He finds out that this gyaru, who is just the hottest girl ever, she's perfect and everyone loves her and she'd never associate with a weirdo otaku, is secretly into the same anime that he is, and thus a friendship blossoms between the two, and perhaps a romance, too.

[00:01:59]And she also has another popular gyaru friend who also falls in love with Mr. Otaku because, I don't know, I guess we need multiple waifus so the audience can pick their favorite. Otegari is the most textbook example of the anime archetype we're talking about today. It's meant to be a fantasy that injects you with as much oxytocin, serotonin, dopamine, all that stuff. Yeah, it's supposed to make you feel good. And I say you because, yes, you, the viewer, are supposed to self-insert into the main character's shoes. You are supposed to be living the fantasy and imagine how great it would be if you were in this situation. That's why there's a million scenes like this.

[00:02:44]Literally looking into the camera at you. That's the play. That's what this whole big carnival ride is about. Now, all that being said, none of that is really bad, you know, that doesn't mean the show is bad. It's true that when I say shows like this are for losers, I mean that, you know, someone who fits the description of some geek with no friends and no success with women, >> [music] >> they would benefit from this fantasy the most. It would be the exact kind of wish-fulfillment they'd want or need.

[00:03:08]Well, what if you don't fit that description? [music] Can normal people enjoy such specifically targeted media? That's a great question, PNG image of San Antonio Spurs superstar Victor Wembanyama. I'd say the answer is yes, because it's not as specifically targeted as it seems.

[00:03:24]You may think that if you don't fit the mold of who the show is meant for, you won't get any enjoyment out of it, and I don't think that's true. This will be more apparent when we talk about the next show, but let's stick with Otegari for now. A common point that I bring up all the time on my channel is that you don't necessarily need to relate to the media you're watching to be able to enjoy it. You don't need to play chess to enjoy Queen's Gambit. You don't need to have experienced divorce to enjoy Marriage Story. And you don't need to be a pedophile to enjoy Mushoku Tensei, I think. Of course, you definitely don't need to be a loser to enjoy Otegari. It It really isn't that deep. It's just fun to watch. But I will be real, if y'all watched my video reacting to Spring 2026 anime, I was not a very big fan of this show off of first impressions. Cuz when you watch the first episode, it's like, "Oh, brother, just another wish-fulfillment rom-com." But Otegari is just so inoffensive and so perfectly basic, it just works. Normally, you'd compare a trashy anime to eating junk food. Like, you know, McDonald's sucks, but you eat it cuz it's cheap and it's good for what it is. I wouldn't even say Otegari is like junk food. It's like whatever you have for breakfast in the morning. Just what do you have to eat to start your day. You don't think about it that much. There's no possible way it can piss you off. Like, you got to eat in the morning before you run off to work or whatever. So, the food is just food. That's what Otegari is. And you know, they say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. So, maybe Otegari is the most important anime of the season. Sorry, Witch Hat Atelier.

[00:04:48]Sorry, Re:Zero season 4. Get the [ __ ] out of the way because the streets are standing K Amane and Kotoko Iijichi.

[00:04:58]Which Which one is your favorite?

[00:05:00]Comment down below. Do you have a favorite, PNG image of San Antonio Spurs superstar Victor Wembanyama? Nah, they both look like very uninteresting characters. Yeah, you're right. They are. But again, that doesn't make the show bad. I would say that Otegari is a perfect execution of this formula. And it doesn't really add anything to it to make it special, but it also doesn't do anything horribly stupid to make it bad.

[00:05:23]Now, I haven't read the manga, so I don't know how all that goes, but I'm just going off the anime. Uh yeah, you know, there's a charm in watching as a third-party observer, not self-inserting and just seeing all the goofy stuff that happens. Just all the heartwarming moments, all the fun jokes that they have, sometimes. And in a really weird multiple-layer meta sense, while it's fun for an otaku to fantasize about what it'd be like to have a hot girl be into them, it's also fun to fantasize about being an otaku fantasizing about what it'd be like to have hot girls in interested in them.

[00:05:57]Right? Okay, so we talked about Otegari, and I think it's a perfectly fine show.

[00:06:01]I would recommend it if you want to watch something on the TV while folding your laundry or something. But now, let's talk about the other show that I want to feature in this video, I Made Friends with the Second Prettiest Girl in My Class, or again, Kuranika. This is a show that I'm reacting to episode by episode on Patreon. Shameless plug, [music] it's five bucks to get access to a bunch of reactions on there. You obviously don't have to, but I mean, don't you want to help pay for another bottle? I actually don't drink anymore.

[00:06:27]The doctor said I was developing fatty liver disease, so yeah. Everyone who was expecting me to binge drink for Steel Ball Run, I hate to disappoint you, but that ain't happening. But yeah, Kuranika. Um while Otegari is just a good show, just it's fine, it's good, it's whatever, I think Kuranika is a so bad it's good show.

[00:06:48]This anime is [ __ ] terrible. Like, it's embarrassing to watch. But it's also one of my favorite shows from this season. Because let's look at the anatomy of it, you know, this is the premise of the show. Kuranika is about this boring otaku dweeb with no friends who loves B movies. He finds out that the titular second prettiest girl in his class, who is just the hottest girl ever, she's perfect and everyone loves her and she'd never associate with a weirdo otaku, is secretly into the same stuff he is, and thus a friendship blossoms between the two, and perhaps a secret romance, too.

[00:07:22]And also, she's friends with this white woman, who is the number one prettiest girl, and for some reason, she's interested in Mr. Otaku, too. And of course, she's just the hottest girl ever, she's perfect and everyone loves her, she'd never associate with a weirdo otaku. Oh my god, I can't believe she's talking to me. Wow, don't you wish this could happen in real life? Are you feeling the dopamine hit yet? That's the plot, right? You know, it's literally the same thing as Otegari and all these other self-insert wish-fulfillment stories. But even if it is the same thing we've seen before, there are so many bizarre baffling decisions made in this show that make it so that you can't stop watching. If Otegari was like a normal breakfast, then Kuranika is like trying a foreign dish for the first time. And you know, it's kind of weird, like you don't know what it is you're really even eating, and you're not really sure if you like it or not, but you keep trying it because you're like, "I think I like this. This is Maybe this is good." Cuz here's the thing, and uh this is heavy spoilers for Kuranika, just so you know. The dynamic between the lead, Maki Mihara, and the female lead, Umi Asanagi, is actually pretty well done. And fun to watch. They have good chemistry, they're believable as friends, and their dialogue is fun to watch. I compared it to watching Mai and Sakuta go back and forth in Bunny Girl Senpai. But it's like the great value version, and Sakuta isn't a huge loser like Mihara is. But the big character drama that goes on is that Asanagi is the titular second prettiest girl in class, right? And because of that, she develops an inferiority complex towards Yuu Amami, the prettiest girl in class, even though they're best friends, right?

[00:08:52]All of their friends are really there for Amami, and they don't really give a [ __ ] about her. All the boys like her, and she starts getting close with Mihara, too. Cuz even though Asanagi and Mihara become friends, they keep it a secret because I don't know why. So, Amami becomes friends with Mihara on her own, not knowing that he's already friends with Asanagi. And the reason they become friends is because he got mad at her for inviting him to hang out [music] in an arcade, and I guess she thought that was cool or something. So, those two start getting close, and Asanagi is like, "Oh, [ __ ] it's happening again. She's always taking everything that's mine. I finally have this boy who shares the same weirdo interest as me. I'm comfortable around him, he's interested in me, I have fun with him, and here comes Amami to take him away. I'm always second place to her." This is a legitimately interesting character conflict, and it made me say while I was reacting, "See, this is the kid she should have been the main character. This is like a character This is a conflict. She feels insecure.

[00:09:53]Like, that's That's her homegirl, but like, she's insecure about it. Oh my god, this might have been a like a god-level anime if that if she was the main character and this dweeb was like actually somebody who you know what I'm saying, somebody worth fighting over.

[00:10:11]>> [music] >> Yeah, like who cares about what this dude has to say about all this? Like what is We don't care, bro. We want to see her perspective on this.

[00:10:25]Okay, see that this is the most interesting character stuff.

[00:10:29]Like why would they not have made I know why they didn't because all of this goes outside of the realm of self-insert fantasy. Oh, hot girls want to get with me and they like the same things I like.

[00:10:40]Oh, my god, imagine. [ __ ] all that. Now you're watching like legit character drama happen. And you know, of course, no doubt we all know that other rom-com stories have these things. If you look at some of the best rom-com shows of the past few years, there's always this type of interpersonal drama that makes things interesting. But what makes Kuranika different is all these little weird decisions that make you think huh?

[00:11:04]at least five times an episode.

[00:11:11]Oh, no, yeah, now you getting too comfortable.

[00:11:14]We we cool, but we not that cool.

[00:11:19]Thank you. Reasonable response.

[00:11:30]Did somebody cast like a sleep spell or something? [ __ ] Jigglypuff in there. Jigglypuff.

[00:11:37]Why did he just like literally pass out like that though? Why are these characters doing that? What is happening? Why did she say that? Why did he do that? It's it's so insane. It's amazing. That's what makes it so bad, it's good. It's like watching Love Island or something. One of those trashy reality TV shows. I remember back in the day I used to really like watching Jersey Shore for some reason.

[00:12:02]I get the same feeling watching Kuranika. It's like Jersey Shore. It's just like, you know, what the [ __ ] am I watching? But yeah, that brings me back to the larger point of anime target towards losers cuz Kuranika is still that. It just has all this other stuff piled on top of it. The male lead is still just a boring blank slate with nothing really going on with him. So, you can definitely still watch this as a self-insert fantasy of wow, imagine getting a hot girl you can hang out with like one of the bros and even though you have no friends, she and her even hotter friend will stick up for you when people try to pick on you. Cuz look, I have a daughter that's entering around that middle school age. So, she's a little bit younger and to my surprise a lot of the 12, 13, 14-year-old boys at her school are watching this anime according to what she tells me. I don't know. None of them are probably anything like the main character in this anime. So, what enjoyment can, you know, a normal little boy who is probably the target age demographic of this show, honestly, what can they even get out of something like this? Well, it's what I said earlier about either putting yourself in the shoes of a loser and having fun with the fantasy from there or just watching to enjoy the drama from an outsider perspective. Or, and this is where I'm at, watching to enjoy the dumpster fire.

[00:13:15]I think a lot of people get hung up on watching shows like this because they think, you know, well, I'm not a loser without any friends who is desperate for girls to like them.

[00:13:22]>> [music] >> So, why would I watch this? And you know, that makes a lot of sense, but like I said, my whole point is that there's a lot of enjoyment you can get out of stuff like this that's unrelated to all that fantasy stuff. Cuz at the end of the day, it's really not that deep. It's just a cartoon. Think about all the weirdo media that's out there that's perfectly fine for you to just watch and enjoy and it's whatever. It doesn't say anything about you as a person for the most part. Personally, I think Kuranika would be one of those shows that would be good to put on in the background, you know, when you got a bunch of people over and then once in a while people will tune in and laugh at whatever nonsense is going on on screen.

[00:13:55]But as for Otogi Yaru, I don't know.

[00:13:58]Maybe just enjoy that one on your own.

[00:13:59]Like I said, it's a little too tame and normal to be all that entertaining in a group. There's not much to get out of it. But I do want to reiterate that I think they're worth watching. I would recommend that you go check out these anime. That's all I got for the video though. Leave a like, subscribe, and comment below what you think of Otogi Yaru and Kuranika and consider donating to Patreon for access to full-length uncut reactions.

[00:14:22]What do you think about that, PNG image of San Antonio Spurs superstar Victor Wembanyama? Well, you've made a lot of good points, the homie Damian, but I'm still not going to watch either of those shows.

[00:14:34]Yeah, that's fair. I'm sure you're very busy in the NBA playoffs at the moment.

[00:14:37]Well, not you cuz you're a PNG image.

[00:14:40]I'm obviously talking about the real San Antonio Spurs superstar Victor Wembanyama.

[00:14:45]>> [snorts] [sighs] >> Do you guys want to know who I'm rooting for in the NBA playoffs?

[00:14:56]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> See, the moral of this story, y'all, white women just be in everybody's business. I'm just playing.