Two years ago, the death of Naoto Watari's parents left him as the sole caretaker for his sister Suzu and forced him to move in with their aunt. So devoted is he to Suzu that he refuses to join clubs or even hang out with anyone, earning him snide comments and the title of "siscon" at his new school. But as long as Suzu is safe and happy, Naoto doesn't care what everyone else says. However, his sneering classmates may turn out to be the least of his worries. The sudden transfer of a girl named Satsuki Tachibana, a childhood friend-turned-enemy who once destroyed his beloved garden, throws his life into chaos. Nasty secrets begin to surface with her arrival, threatening his new life.

...Wait a fuck, does the "******" (or, in the Japanese title, "XX") stand for "garden?” Seriously? Look, I'm not trying to make too big of a deal out of the expectations set by a ridiculous title, but come on. If you name an anime "Watari-kun's ***** is About to Collapse", you are telling me that the word you replaced with asterisks means something. Probably something sexual, something deranged, something so crude and graphic that it'd even get bleeped out of the Japanese version. There are so many words you could slip into the title, and the creators of this anime have to know the games of Mad Libs that its viewers would be playing before the premiere even got past the opening scene. Except now I'm pretty sure it just stands for "garden", because Naoto's interest in gardening is the one element of this show that stands out in any way.

Oh sure, Satsuki--the girl from the promotional image with the menacing-looking hoe--is a freak, but in a manner that's completely unremarkable for any stupid anime romcom. She sexually harasses men and women alike in her stalkerish efforts to resume her dysfunctional friendship with Naoto, and she would've been arrested several times over before the premiere ended if this show took place in a reality that wasn't composed entirely of stale tropes. The only thing that "collapses" at any point in this episode is the garden Satsuki trashed before peacing out of Naoto's life when they were kids. For reasons unknown, she's also decimating his social life, along with any prospects he has at getting a date with the not-deranged cutie from school, but the gardening material is what the show seems to be relying on to stand out from the crowd.

Does this work? No, absolutely not. I'm sorry to report that a couple of scenes that reference gardening tools and whatnot are not enough to prevent this from being a total snoozefest.

If there's one thing I cannot stand in a narrative, it's deliberate cruelty towards someone who's done nothing to deserve it that forever remains unpunished. That, in my mind, is the damning sin of this episode. Naoto's life may not be perfect before Satsuki comes stalking back into it, but it's at least on a trajectory he's relatively comfortable with. He and Suzu, who were orphaned two years ago, have finally found a place in the home and neighbourhood of their oddball aunt, he's gradually making friends as people start understanding his situation better, and he generally feels like things are going in the right direction. But then Satsuki transfers in and his life promptly goes to hell, because she's terrible about things like appropriate boundaries and consent.

I'll give it this, at least Satsuki is equally horrible to both boys and girls. After she assaults Naoto by forcibly kissing him (and no, him commenting that it's starting to feel good isn't consent, it's a physiological reaction), she comes to school the next day and starts groping Yukari, a girl he's friends with. Her opening encounters with Naoto are framed as a horror narrative, with her stalking him and repeatedly calling out his name in a way that's somehow both obnoxious and creepy. She seems utterly devoted to destroying both his life and his peace of mind, and that's far from okay, even if the episode seems to want to play it for laughs.

In some ways, this feels like a throwback. This is a bit like a harem series from the Love Hina years, where shitty behaviour is handwaved aside in favour of trying to make the unhinged girls look cute 'n quirky. As the episode wears on, there's a clear sense that that's what it's trying to do with Satsuki--she has a reason for the things she's doing that don't involve the state of her mental health. We don't know what that is at this point, of course, but her later actions with Suzu, Naoto's 10-year-old sister, seem to indicate that she has SOME sense of right and wrong. That's nowhere near enough to make up for her other actions, but I suppose it's something.

This show is just fundamentally lacking anything appealing, my friends. None of this is helped by the flat and lifeless animation being so boring to look at. Not a single spark of energy can be mustered by any of the "comedic" scenes, since this cast shares the collective chemistry of a bag of mushy cucumbers that got left in the bottom drawer of the fridge for too long. If it had leaned more into the psychological horror angle, it'd be a very different story, but instead it's just another dumb romcom that fails at both the rom and the com.