Kotaro Lives Alone

Kotaro Lives Alone is definitely an interesting, bittersweet anime series that contains a lot of serious and powerful subject matters. I struggled with the logic of this show and the behavior of some of the characters. However, it worked on an emotional level. In practice, that means it managed to move me, entertain me, and make me sad at the right moments. It may have been a bit forced, although not excessively or unpleasantly so. In other words, even though each character was going through something so difficult and serious that it almost seemed statistically impossible for so many people with such similar and serious issues to be in one place within the narrative, it did not bother me. They gave me a coherent view of the issues being discussed from several perspectives that were always somehow related. I also appreciated that this anime series offers the attentive viewer various warning signs of how such serious problems can be recognized and even offers some, perhaps unusual, solutions. However, these mostly correspond to the characters. On the one hand, the male protagonist was unnaturally mature for his age, although given what he had been through and how they presented his character to me, I was able to find it believable. My favorite character was Karino, who I empathized with in many ways and understood most of his decisions. Of course, there were more interesting characters, mostly decently portrayed, so that the viewer could understand a little how they thought and what burdens they carried. I was expecting this to be an emotionally strong and interesting show. However, it ended up being much more complex than I had originally estimated. 8/10. (11.03.2022)