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The Spring 2025 anime season is underway, and there are a number of titles that have had a lot of attention going into the current season, while many more are lost in the hype surrounding other shows, like the return ofFire Force. There’s an exciting romance title airing this Spring that gives anime fans everywhere something they’ve been asking for, for a very long time; something that they gobble up every time they get it, and pine for even more afterward.
We’re talking aboutromance anime that aren’t set in high school, with adult characters; titles that combine romance and science fiction in ways that are equally important to the plot. The title in question is none other than Arvo Animation’sKowloon Generic Romance,an anime series that shows immense promise in its first two episodes.
What is Kowloon Generic Romance About?
Romance and Sci-Fi Come Together In a Unique Way
Kowloon Generic Romanceis set in the future in which people who long for the old way of life live out their days in Kowloon Walled City. The story follows the “budding” romance of Hajime Kudou and Reiko Kujirai, two real estate agents who work at the same office. The two share a love for Kowloon that soon brings them together and binds them, but for some reason, there remains something strange between them;a certain feeling of nostalgia. When Kudou plays a prank on Kujirai that ends awkwardly, she ends up stumbling upon a past between them; one she has absolutely no recollection of.
The anime is produced by staff at Arvo Animation, with Yoshiaki Iwasaki (director,Love Hina) serving as director; scripts and series composition byOshi no Koscriptwriter Jin Tanaka; storyboards by Yoshiaki Iwasaki; music by Ryōhei Sataka; character designs by Yuka Shibata (animation director,Gunbuster vs Diebuster Aim for the Top! The GATTAI!!); chief animation directors Yoshiko Takemoto and Yukiko Nakatani; art director Yūji Kaneko and sound direction by Jin Aketagawa. The series is based on the original manga by Jun Mayuzuki (After the Rain), which has been serialized in Shueisha’s seinen magazine, Weekly Young Jump, since November 2019. It has been collected into 10 volumes as of October 2024.
The Adult Cast Isn’t Even the Biggest Draw
A Truly Intriguing Premise and Unique Atmosphere
What’s particularly interesting aboutKowloon Generic Romancefrom the perspective as a romance anime, is the fact that the central pairing isn’t quite in the kind of situation where the series is building up to their attraction and subsequent courtship, but fromwell into their relationship as colleagues. We immediately get a sense that there’s romantic potential between them, and the conversations they have in the first episode sometimes have a leading quality. At around halfway through the first episode, Kujirai acknowledges that she has romantic feelings for Kudou; in fact, it isn’t quite anything so minor: she is aware that sheloveshim. Their interactions happen largely outside of work, with them sharing many meals together and Kudou trying to get Kujirai to appreciate the nostalgic feeling of Kowloon.
What really moves the series from kinda interesting to intriguing is the way the potential for the sci-fi element to really take off in the series. In theKowloon Generic Romanceuniverse, a technological development known as “Generic Terra” has enabled people to create perfect duplicates of human memories, thus creating the potential for people to live forever. However, the whole project is run by a certain pharmaceutical company that definitely has nefarious intentions. The contrast of Kowloon’s “old skool” vibe and the premise ofsome kind of looming futuristic dystopiacreates a unique atmosphere in which the setting allows the series to get away with not looking quintessentially futuristic, but has a constant reminder floating in the sky that is most likely tied to Kujirai’s lack of memories.
The Brilliant Central Dynamic
A Great Way to Use Amnesia as a Plot Device
Not only does the character we follow most not have memories of her past, but she finds a photograph of a woman who very clearly looks just like her together wtih Kudo, and when she goes to a tea shop they often visit together, the manager recognizes her and remembers taking the photograph to commemorate Kujirai’s engagement to Kudo. What drives curiosity inKowloon Generic Romanceis how it isn’t clear whether Kujirai’s lack of memories is because she is the woman in the photo, or if she lacks memories because of some other mysterious reason. However, given the way Kudo interacts with her, it is more likely thatsheisthe woman in the photo.
Without letting on in the first episode ofKowloon Generic Romance; unless you pay attention, Kudo often lets slip comments that indicate an even deeper relationship between the two of them. It isn’t until the brilliant sequence at the beginning of episode 2 that we learn what kind of relationship Reiko Kujirai and Hajime Kudo actually have. It turns out that their restaurant crawl in the previous episode had blow-for-blow the same interactions as when Kudo was just a newbie at their realty company and Kujirai was the one actually taking him around town, showing himthe restaurants and hangout spotsthat we saw him show her in episode 1.
Kowloon Generic Romance: A Potential Gem
Spring 2025’s Adult Cast Romance Off to a Strong Start
The amount of tenderness and connection communicated in Kudo’s actions over the first and second episodes ofKowloon Generic Romancegive the budding romance between them a tragic quality, as we now realize that Kudo has been pretending not to know the woman he’d been planning to marry, gently trying to nudge her memories back into place. It’s a strangely brilliantly painful setup to have characters who are clearly into each other and got as far as wanting to marry each other, and are still in each other’s lives, unable to really connect romantically. One half of the pairing remains hopelessly in love with a lost version of the other, while she, in her amnesia, retains her habits and tendencies from before; as if she is almost the person he met all those years ago. There are many reasons to be excited aboutKowloon Generic Romanceas a fan of romance anime, and with its strong start, there’s no reason the series can’t go on to be one of the leading titles of Spring 2025.
Kowloon Generic Romance is available to stream on Crunchyroll. New episodes air on
