The Fall Anime 2025 Preview Guide – Plus-Sized Misadventures in Love

What is this?

This is the punishment for a fat, ugly girl like me falling in love with someone as beautiful as you…” Yumeko had a mountain of complexes about herself. Then, a terrible accident befalls her. Though somehow saved from the brink of death, Yumeko wakes up a completely different person. Those around her can’t hide their surprise and wonderment at this 180°change… However, Yumeko’s newfound hyper-positive attitude begins to alter her surroundings as well. Worries and complexes can affect anyone, and Yumeko will chop right through those of her various supporting characters.

Plus-Sized Misadventures in Love is based on a manga series by mamakari. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Mondays.

How was the first episode?

Content Warning: This first episode contains depictions of suicide.

Bolts
Rating:

Wow, the whiplash of those opening minutes was so severe, I think I almost broke my neck. How do you cold open an episode with a supposed attempted suicide only to have the subject of attempted suicide act like a goofy, ditzy, comic relief character for the rest of the episode? When it comes to shows featuring characters that don’t match traditional beauty standards, it’s hard not to worry about how exactly those types of characters are going to be portrayed. Anime doesn’t have the most illustrious history of portraying characters positively with different body types, or at least it’s not usually seen as the norm. In my experience, plus-size characters are often used as a punchline or portrayed as a way of showing that a character is at their lowest point.

There are hints that the show is actually trying to do something deeper with its plus-size character, Yumeko. Initially, it felt like the show was making a commentary on society’s perception of plus-size people and body dysmorphia. The fact that our lead was so humiliated or embarrassed by their physical appearance that they broke any mirror they were in front of is telling. The closing credits also gave me a glimpse into exactly how depressed this young woman was. We see that Yumeko suffered from anxiety, despite being a pretty imaginative person. I like the idea that she is actually competent if you remove all those anxieties and judgments from her, but the show’s premise approaches it in one of the laziest ways possible.

Just have her conveniently get amnesia of all of the trauma and fears that she had! Yes, it turns out that being a naturally positive and bubbly person is so easy if you forget about everything. Now this does tie into the show actually being more of a murder-mystery since this supposed suicide was actually an attempted murder, and we do get hints about the culprit. But my god, these two stories don’t go together, and sometimes it feels the clash can make the show come off as being weirdly insensitive. I am not plus-sized, and I will in no shape or form try to pretend like I understand the struggles of dealing with fatphobic people. Those people still exist in our modern world, and it is a prevailing issue from various angles.

Based on this episode, I’m unsure whether the narrative is suggesting that our main character is naturally beautiful or if it really doesn’t matter if she isn’t. Other characters will still openly ridicule her appearance and her aggressive hunger, but she doesn’t notice or ignores them. We don’t really get an idea of what these types of comments mean to this version of Yumeko because she is now an entirely different person post-amnesia. The show, in various ways, tries to have its cake and eat it too by making occasional jokes at her expense while also glamorizing her in a way that would be typical in a romantic comedy or shoujo series. Oh, and let’s not forget about the random bouts of somber overtones that don’t come off as a joke at all.

I spent most of this premiere scratching my head, rather than enjoying any of it. It’s such a weird mishmash of different stories and tones that it doesn’t come together. Yumeko is pretty cute, and if she’s supposed to be a positive influence on a cynical world, then I can actually get behind that. However, I think the show needs to treat her and its storylines better before I can fully get on board.

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