Masamune-kun's Revenge Review — A Petty Premise Played for Laughs

Who is this for? Viewers who like their rom-coms with a streak of spite — who hear "boy transforms himself to make his childhood bully fall in love with him, purely so he can dump her" and grin rather than wince. That's the whole engine of this 2017 comedy: Masamune, once a heavyset kid humiliated by the beautiful and vicious Aki Adagaki, returns years later as a polished heartthrob with a single goal, revenge by heartbreak.

The fun, when it lands, comes from mutual fraudulence. Masamune's charm is a costume he maintains with gritted teeth; Aki's icy cruelty is clearly armor over something unexamined; and the show gets good comic mileage from two performers slowly forgetting which parts of the act are acting. The supporting cast — particularly the servant who knows too much — keeps the scheme from stalling, and at twelve episodes the whole thing moves briskly enough that no single gag overstays.

The honest caveat: the series can't commit to its own nastiness. A revenge plot needs either genuine bite or genuine growth to pay off, and this one hedges — softening Aki when convenient, resetting Masamune's resolve when the plot needs another lap — so the emotional stakes never accumulate. It ends up pleasant where it wanted to be delicious. Worth a look for rom-com completists; the first episode is free here and tells you exactly what you're signing up for.