30 Day Anime Challenge (2022): Day 5 – An Anime You Love, But Everyone Hates

And here’s where things get awkward. All the anime I love seem to be universally enjoyed. Could it be that I have no individual taste? Am I simply a trend follower? Surely not. It’s time to dig deep and get really picky about what constitutes loving or hating something.

The anime I’ve chosen seems to actually score pretty well (mostly 7’s). So rather than defending an entire show, I’m going to defend a single element. You see, when discussing this little gremlin, it’s quite polarizing. You either love it, or hate it (and in this case, really hate it). It’s the exact kind of juvenile humor that I love so it clicked with me. I’m talking, of course, about Umaru-chan from the anime Himouto! Umaru-chan.

Oh yeah. We’re doing this.

I’d love to sit here and pretend I have no idea why people hate gremlin Umaru so much. But I can’t. It’s very obvious to me why so many people dislike her. She’s self absorbed, childish, loud, and tries really hard to be cutesy. Every single person who hates her is completely justified.

But hear me out.

As a person with shut-in aspirations, she’s living the dream. She’s the perfect beauty at school, and then spends her free time lazing about in comfort playing games, reading manga, essentially having her every want and need catered to by her older brother. And yeah, it puts a great burden of responsibility on him to care for a sibling like that. But this isn’t about him. It’s about the soda drinking, internet surfing, blanket wearing Umaru. She’s living the dream!

If I’m completely honest with myself, of course I could never treat someone the way she treats her brother (for more than a day, two tops, at least). But I’m envious of that kind of care free lifestyle. Most people I know are. They just disagree with her entitled way of living it. And I get that, I really do. But in the end, she’s an adorable lump and I enjoy watching her live the life I’ll never have.