A challenge to get her three most greatest desires back... If she makes it past the Ikemen.
Romantic Killer is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Wataru Momose. It was serialized in Shueisha's Shōnen Jump+ website from July 2019 to June 2020, with its chapters collected into four volumes. The license for English release is held by Viz Media, who released the series under their "Shojo Beat" imprint (despite it being a shonen series). An original net animation adaptation by DOMERICA was released on Netflix in October 2022.
Anzu Hoshino, a Gamer Chick whose three desires are chocolate, games, and her cat Momohiki, has no desire for romance unless it's with a video game character. One day, she get what she thinks is her copy of a highly-anticipated action game in the mail, only for it to turn out to be an Otome Game she's never seen before. Though slightly bewildered by being scammed, Anzu doesn't exactly have anything else planned, so she tosses it into her console and attempts to play the game anyway. And as she marvels over how terrible it is, a small, Mon Squishy Wizard that goes by the name of Riri comes out of the screen and informs Anzu that she has been chosen as part of a program to get romance-inept women to discover the love of their lives.
Naturally, she declines, more than content with her single lifestyle. So Riri opts to confiscate her three greatest loves to force her to comply: she's no longer able to buy or play video games, she's barred from even touching chocolate, and her parents and the family cat are suddenly moving to the United States and leaving her behind. Now Anzu has no choice but to fall in love with one of the three beautiful men that Riri will make enter her life. At least, that's what Riri thinks. If Anzu had no interest in falling in love before, the thought of doing so under the manipulation of this annoying blob is even worse. No matter how many Love Tropes Riri thinks of, Anzu is determined to strike them all down as a romantic killer and regain control of her life on her terms.
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- 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: In the anime, the characters from the in-universe otome game Romantic Thriller are all rendered in deliberately sub-par 3D, which differentiates them from the rest of the cast who are animated traditionally.
- Accidental Hand-Hold: Anzu often accidentally holds hands with any boy she's walking beside (usually Tsukasa). She usually ends up ruining any romantic atmosphere (both intentionally and not) by putting on a Face of a Thug that weirds out both the boy and anyone nearby.
- Adaptational Alternate Ending: The anime ends on the additional plot point of Kate becoming the now mind-wiped Yukana Kishi's wizard, which it combines with a To Be Continued.
- Adrenaline Makeover: After overhearing Anzu saying she likes athletic boys when they were kids, combined with her saying offhand that he'd probably be a good baseball player considering his hand-eye coordination during one of their playdates, Junta gave it his all to change himself by going to baseball practice every day. It's to the point that no one who knew him as a kid can even recognize him, becoming shocked once they realize the handsome baseball star they're talking to was that chubby kid with messy hair they knew back in elementary school. Which is exactly why Anzu spends several chapters thinking he was just some random guy Riri brainwashed.
- And the Adventure Continues: Anzu has all her chocolate, video games, and cat back, but the conditions of the bet have now changed so that she must fall in love or somehow find a loophole by the end of her senior year of high school if she doesn't want to lose them forever. In addition, Tsukasa and Junta are now fully aware of the bet, and Riri is now Rio on a more permanent basis to serve as another romance option.
- Balanced Harem: Tsukasa, Junta, Hijiri, and later Rio himself all become potential love interests to Anzu (mostly because of Rio pushing Anzu to meet them) as the show progresses. While Tsukasa takes the majority of the focus by a slight margin — his relationship with Anzu plays the key role in the anime's finale — the others are also given substantial time to establish them as potential partners.
- Beast and Beauty: Anzu and Tsukasa, as the latter is a loner who rebuffs most interaction (especially female interaction) and is taken aback by Anzu's genuine kindness to him and others without expecting compensation. Later subverted, as it turns out is aloof attitude is a mask he dons due to a terrible middle school experience, with his actual personality being more lighthearted.
- Beautiful Dreamer:
- Subverted when Tsukasa stays over the first night. He starts to admire Anzu's sleeping face, only to have his attention brought to the more pressing matter of her having his arm in a vice grip, meaning he's stuck sleeping on the floor.
- Played for Horror with Yukana drugging Tsukasa, taking photos of them being together in several compromising positions while he's sleeping, and posting them on social media.
- The Bet: Riri states to Anzu that in order for her to get her video games, chocolate, and cat back, she needs to fall in love and start dating one of the love interests provided to her. When Anzu states that she'll resist the urge, this becomes a challenge to get her desires back without falling in love. At the end of the series, she does get her things back, but the conditions of the bet now changed to them being taken away permanently if she doesn't fall in love by the end of her senior year.
- Better Partner Assertion: Hijiri often tries to say he's better than the other boys Anzu met, but Anzu rejects the assertion on the basis that they're based on his wealth and status rather than his character.
- Betty and Veronica: The kind and faithful Childhood Friend Junta and the aloof and broody Chick Magnet Tsukasa serve as the Betty and Veronica respectively to Anzu, who is the Archie in the triangle. However, while she deeply cares for both boys and knows their feelings in turn, she refuses to express any sort of romantic affection for either of them until Riri and the company they work for get off her case. This remains the case even at the end of the series.
- Blaming the Victim: When Tsukasa reveals his past to Anzu, he tells her how he was stalked by an older woman in middle school. When his family learned about this, his father slapped him, saying, "It's his fault for being a people-pleaser!" Even Tsukasa's classmates didn't believe him and called him "the worst."
- Calling the Old Man Out: Anzu berates Tsukasa's dad for blaming his son instead of protecting him when he needed him as he was a victim of stalking.
- Captive Date: Not exactly captive, but before Riri goes on a mock date as Rio with Anzu, at first, Anzu declines. But once he mentions that he'll buy her cat-related clothing, she immediately goes out with him without hesitation.
- Caught in the Rain: When Anzu meets Tsukasa again, it's during a storm. He then goes with Anzu to her house so he can kill the bug she's afraid of, only to end up becoming her roommate when it turns out Riri used the opportunity to destroy his apartment.
- Celibate Hero:
- While Riri is anything but a hero, (well, until later in the last few episodes) they definitely try to be this before they ultimately become Anzu's (very minimal) love interest.
- Anzu seems to have extensive knowledge of love and common Love Tropes due to her love of gaming also extending to romance titles, but tries to avoid them or avert them in a challenge to get her desires back without giving into Riri's demands.
- Cerebus Syndrome: Downplayed. While the tone does start to skew darker in the later half, with the reveal of Tsukasa's backstory and the introduction of Yukana Kishi, a creepy Yandere stalker who was at the core of said backstory, the series still manages to keep its overall comedic atmosphere.
- Changing Yourself for Love:
- Junta (aka Tonta) changed himself for Anzu by going to baseball practice and becoming athletic.
- In a literal sense, Riri transforms into Rio to do this teasingly to Anzu.
- Childhood Friend Romance: Played with. Anzu initially thinks that Riri placed Junta is some poor schmuck that Riri brainwashed into believing himself to be her childhood, just to force her into another romance story cliché. It turns out Anzu is wrong, and Junta was her childhood friend who she loved playing video games with. She simply only knew him by his nickname of Tonta, with the two drifting apart due to him spending less time with her as a result of trying to become more athletic to impress her, and well as moving away during middle school.
- City with No Name: The series takes place in a modern-day Japanese city, the name of which is never mentioned or alluded to.
- Contrived Coincidence: Invoked. The series runs on them, with Riri's schemes having him set these up in spades. Anzu's postal worker father suddenly has a new job overseas and needs to leave right now? Tsukasa's apartment is the only one in the whole building to be absolutely ravaged by a surprise, freak rainstorm? A childhood best friend just so happens to try and reconnect a few days after the love challenge begins? And so on and so on.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: Played for Laughs. Whenever Anzu and Tsukasa get close to doing something romantic, Junta often runs off and cries about it, usually prompting Anzu to run after him to try and explain away the situation.
- Crush Blush: Happens very often whenever Anzu is near one of the three Ikemen.
- Crush Filter: The three Ikemen are often placed in an ethereal light and a vividly-colored background. Ironically, Rio is the only guy who doesn't get this from Anzu's perspective.
- Cupid's Arrow: Initially what Anzu thought Riri was doing. In actuality, all he did was speed things up. Anzu would have eventually met all three boys, but her gaming obsession meant that such a thing wouldn't have occurred for another several months, if not years. He specifically complains about how she and Junta kept having a series of near-misses that would have continued until they graduated if he didn't intervene.
- Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: In Episode 9, "Ginger Ale Is a Force Majeure," Anzu sings the opening song when it's her turn at the karaoke bar. Ryuya and one of his friends also sing different parts of the ending theme.
- Dismissing a Compliment: Purposely invoked by Anzu, as she's trying to avoid falling in love with the Ikemen.
- Dump Them All: Deconstructed. This was initially shown to be what Tsukasa was doing, but the real reason why he does this is that he has deep-seated trauma due to a stalking incident that occurred a few years prior. These days, any woman approaching him with blatant romantic interest puts him at risk for a panic attack.
- Eek, a Mouse!!: Both Anzu and Junta cower at the sight of a roach, and desperately beg Tsukasa to squash it.
- Exact Words: After already witnessing some of Riri's manipulations, Anzu immediately assumes that Junta is a poor soul brainwashed by Riri into believing that he had a childhood crush on Anzu. It isn't until later that Riri tells Anzu that he never said such a thing. Junta's crush is very much real, but Anzu didn't recognize him due to an Adrenaline Makeover — all Riri did was pull some strings to get them to meet again faster than they would have otherwise.
- Fake Relationship: During their mock date, Rio pretends to be Anzu's actual boyfriend whenever someone asks.
- Fate Drives Us Together: What Yukana thinks her relationship with Tsukasa is.
- Gender Bender: Riri has the ability to transform into a human form of a girl (still named Riri) and a guy (named Rio). When asked, they introduce themselves as Anzu's cousin.
- Green-Eyed Epiphany: Towards the middle of the finale, during a talk with Tsukasa, Junta realizes that his feelings for Anzu go beyond a crush into actual love, even if she doesn't see him the same way. Tsukasa comes to the same conclusion as well.
- Held Gaze: This happens surprisingly often whenever Anzu looks at one of the Ikemen and they stare back.
- Holding Hands: Anzu often tries to avert holding hands with one of the Ikemen, but occasionally fails.
- I Didn't Mean to Turn You On:
- Anzu constantly avoiding Tsukasa at first makes him more interested in her, though it's initially due to worries that he may have offended her somehow and a desire to rectify that.
- Anzu denying Hijiri's offers makes him want to try harder to get her to love him, since she's the first girl not to fall over herself trying to gain his affections.
- I Don't Want to Ruin Our Friendship: Anzu to all of the Ikemen. Simply because she's trying to get her 3 desires back without the romance.
- I Love You Because I Can't Control You: Hijiri is attracted to Anzu because she turns out to not have any romantic interest in him — he assumed the car accident was deliberate blackmail so they could start dating — and outright rejects every gift he gives her, even calling him out for thinking he could buy her love. This starts out as just wanting to satisfy his bruised ego before realizing he's beginning to care about her in earnest.
- Inconvenient Attraction: Subverted. Anzu is attracted to the guys Riri throws into her life, but refuses to explore or act on any of these feelings or romantic scenarios because she hates the idea of being manipulated to fall in love.
- It Doesn't Mean Anything: Anzu and the other Ikemen try to invoke this whenever Riri tries to force them into an awkward romantic situation.
- Just Friends: It is what Anzu insists that the other Ikemen are. Apparently, they think the same way about her. Subverted for Junta and Tsukasa near the end, who both eventually gain a true infatuation to Anzu.
- Kissing Cousins: Riri tries to invoke this as Rio by stating that he's the sister of Riri (their Girl form) and how he's Anzu's second cousin during the mock date.
- Knight of Cerebus: Yukana Kishi. Whenever she's onscreen, the cutesy and goofy vibe of this series drops faster than rain.
- A Man Is Always Eager: It's revealed that the reason why Tsukasa transferred to the school Anzu attends is because Yukana spread rumors on social media that they're dating. However, its completely averted, as Yukana's rumors made it seem that he uses his good looks to attract women older than him, and when his father finds out, he angrily blames Tsukasa for leading her on. Later, when Yukana's mom finds out that she's stalking Tsukasa again, she also blames him for leading her on.
- Medium Awareness: Riri, apparently aware of the nature of streaming services, tells the viewers not to skip the credits and ending sequence if they want to know what's coming next.
- Mood Whiplash: The episode "Other Way Around, Dummy" is full of this. First, when Saki bumps into Anzu, Tsukasa, and Junta, she asks if she can spend the night at their place because her older brother kicked her out to have party with his friends, and Saki tells them that she ratted him out to their dad, who looks to be very pissed at what Saki told him. After Anzu goes to sleep, Saki recounts how other girls were jealous of her good looks, and when she went out with an upperclassman that was willing to respect her boundaries, he invited her to his house to study where he tries to force himself on her, but she managed to use a textbook to push him off. The next day at school, he spun the events to make her look like she was stalking him, though Anzu doesn't believe it for a second and angrily confronts him. The next day, Riri, in their female human form, happily announces that they're all going to the summer festival, where Saki runs into Makoto, who laments he can't hang out with her and everyone else because he's his sister's "goffer”; the upperclassman bumps into her, and when Makoto sees Saki starting to freak out, he pulls her away to a food stand. As the group spends the rest of the evening enjoying the festival, a young woman takes a selfie of her and her friend, which shows Anzu and Tsukasa in the background. When the friend recommends blurring the people in the background, the woman says that it's impossible to clearly make out a face in such a large crowd, and posts the picture on social media. A picture that is seen by Yukana Kishi.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Tsukasa has issues with dealing with girls, which is revealed to stem from helping Yukana, a woman he happened to run into one day, pick up her bag after she fell and dropped it. While this was a kind gesture, it made Yukana become dangerously obsessed with Tsukasa, turning her into a relentless Stalker with a Crush to the point that Tsukasa had to get a restraining order against her and was forced to move to a school much father away.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: After Anzu gets discharged from the hospital after Yukana attacked her with a knife, Tsukasa's parents arrive and on behalf of Tsukasa, his father apologizes for him getting her into trouble, still blaming Tsukasa for leading Yukana on, and becoming his stalker. As his father pulls him to forcibly take him home, Anzu makes Tsukasa's father let him go, pointing out that instead of supporting his son in a time of need, he still blames Tsuakasa for something that was out of his control despite how it affected him mentally. As everyone else leaves with Tsukasa and Anzu, Arisa (as well as her and Tsukasa’s mother) can't help but point and laugh at her indignant father.
- Relax-o-Vision: In the anime, when Anzu sees a roach in her kitchen, it's only shown for a few seconds (albeit censored) before a voice over declares that the "unsightly" thing is being replaced with a piece of cake, which the insect is rendered as from then on.
- Reverse Harem: Anzu is given the choice of three hot guys. At the end of the series, the Gender Bender Riri is added to the list as part of a loophole.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Yukana was able to evade consequences for her initial harassment of Tsukasa thanks to her uncle. It's averted after she makes a proper appearance thanks to Hijiri, who makes sure she can't evade the law and promises to be even harsher if she decides to comes back a third time.
- Sequel Hook: Unlike the manga, the end of the anime introduces a new plot thread of Kate being assigned as the wizard for Yukana.
- So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Both Tsukasa and Saki get hit by this. Tsukasa gets followed around by girls who think he's attractive, something that makes him anxious which stems from being stalked by Yukana Kishi. In the episode “Ginger Ale is a Force Majeure”, Riri tells Anzu the reason Saki is not involved in Anzu’s project, despite also not having an interest in dating is due to her popularity, so she won't have trouble finding a boyfriend. However, Saki recounts in the next episode that her good looks made other students take an interest in her, which she didn’t appreciate; it not only resulted in other girls around her becoming jealous of her, but also nearly got her taken advantage of by an older student she had once trusted.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: A random girl takes a rather innocent picture of herself and a friend at a typical summer festival. Her friend says she should blur out the people in the background, but is dismissed and the picture is shared online. Unfortunately for Tsukasa and Anzu, the former's old stalker ends up finding the picture and is able to quickly find the both of them to resume her pursuit of him.
