Key Takeaways
- Season 1 finale ends with fake date plan for losing heroine Anna.
- Strong dynamic between Nukumizu, Anna, and Komari established.
- Teasing finale leaves it unclear whether Nukumizu and Anna kissed.
Make Heroine ga Oosugiru! (Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines) was one of the most popular anime titles of the Summer 2024 season for its fun and often grounded approach to the slice of life and romance genres through its centering on “losing heroines”; girls of various personalities who have found themselves on the business end of rejection from their love interests, and how they all become friends with the protagonist, Kazuhiko Nukumizu.
Following each of their respective journeys with rejection, love, romance and their personal issues, the series developed a cast of intensely likable characters and hilarious escapades, with the season 1 finale being centered on Nukumizu and a few others brainstorming ideas to help the main losing heroine, Anna Yanami, give the impression that she has a boyfriend, but the entire episode kept teasing the audience. What does the ending of season 1 mean for the future of Too Many Losing Heroines?
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Forging a Date For Anna
Anna Tries to Appear Like More of a Normie
Considering the embarrassing manner in which Anna Yanami is introduced to the series as the losing heroine, the idea that she’d want to fake a relationship on social media to improve her reputation with people she attended middle school with is really on-brand for her. Nukumizu, Yakishio and the newly-appointed Literature Club President Komari help Anna create and refine the perfect fake date scenario that emphasizes her maturity. It’s a lighthearted, joke-filled way to end the first season of Too Many Losing Heroines in a way that’s comparable to the way it began, with poor Nukumizu finding himself caught up in Anna’s goofy hijinks and obsession with her non-existent romantic life.
Naturally, with a lot of time spent together and the things they went through, this episode shows the once friendless, boring Nukumizu’s closest friends, Anna and Komari, and the best thing about the final episode of Too Many Losing Heroines is the dynamic between Anna and Nukumizu that was established from the first episode, and the increased trust that has developed between him and Komari, who is timid and unable to speak her mind around most people. Komari’s harsh judgment of Nukumizu is usually a funny aspect, but her short but resounding interjections with the phrase “Drop dead”, stammering as she always does, to admonish Nukumizu for anything that could even be seen as mildly untoward was especially funny and shows that they’re now friends.
The Fake Date Plan
A Staff Member’s Intervention
While thinking about what to do for a “grown up date”, Nukumizu runs into the school nurse, who gives him tickets to Non Hoi amusement park, which has a zoo and botanical garden. Komari suggests that they try getting some pictures of them hitting the rides, because being able to pay for that kind of entertainment suggests an adult’s budget. With that, Anna pulls out some money (for once) and pays for their entrance to various attractions to build an album of photos taken of her “date”, but since all of them are pics of herself, they may not be entirely convincing. While the fake date element is the reason they’re there, the series is clearly teasing the audience by making it look like a date between Nukumizu and Anna, a possibility that she vehemently rejected earlier in the series when she thought Nukumizu was going to confess to her.
Anna even jokes about it feeling like more of a date when she and him rode a go-kart together. At some point, the two end up riding the Ferris wheel, a popular date and confession spot, not to mention a staple of romance anime. When they were in the gift shop earlier, Anna took the addition of more elements to the fake boyfriend story a bit too far and wounded herself with the thought of a hypothetical woman hypothetically getting close to her hypothetical boyfriend, effectively making herself a losing heroine even in the swirling torrents of her imagination.
The Ferris Wheel
Did They Kiss Or Not?
For the entirety of the outing, Nukumizu and the others were being monitored by the school nurse and by his little sister, who had been keeping track as photos were uploaded to the cloud. However, Nukumizu and Anna were conveniently separated from Komari and Lemon, and ended up taking a ride on the Ferris wheel, where they had a conversation about her desperation to find a boyfriend. He was supportive at first, but now feels that the effort isn’t really worth it anymore, and it’s something that he thinks happens naturally when two people spend enough time together. She notes that they spend a lot of time together but no such romantic development occurred between them. When he asks what she thinks about letting it go, she teases him a bit, implying that he might be feeling weird about her being “taken away”, and she changes position to sit next to him.
This is when they appear to share a kiss, but given the lack of reaction from them, the series just wanted to tease the audience with what looked like a certainty in their “will they, won’t they” situation. Anna’s behaviour throughout the episode showed glimmers of hope for the possibility of a romantic connection between them, especially when she took pictures of him to add weight to the fake date; or when they had a “say aah” moment (another romance anime staple), but there was ultimately no confirmation of this in the final episode. As the audience, all we have to go on is the fact that other characters see the same potential for a romance between them, with Lemon and Komari going as far as to force them back onto the Ferris wheel as soon as they got off; this time for a much more romantic ride as the sun set. Essentially, Nukumizu and Anna are definitely closer than they think, and she might begin to develop feelings for him because after their ride when the others ask about the juicy details, Nukumizu’s clueless reiteration of their status as “just friends” is something Anna pokes fun at, alluding to the idea that her opinion of him might have changed.
Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines!
In “Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines!” the story revolves around the lives of several young women navigating their personal and professional challenges.