Yep, the age gap passes the realm of strange and lands in incredulous. I’m not actually sure how much older Duke is, 5 years? Most of the comments on MAL are saying that Duke is way out of line.

Episode 1 dropped heavy hints, so it’s not so surprising. Reincarnation romance is almost always going to be a little hairy, just not usually in this way.

Makeine is more like Alya in that they romantic comedies. Makeine is heavier on the comedy, with a heavy reliance on failed-romance to drive the comedy/plot forward. Alya has a more prominent non-romantic drama plot that runs alongside the romance/flirting. Both feed a bit into a basic male sexual fantasy (Alya more so, but episode 2 of Makeine had a pretty unnecessarily spicy scene).

Days with my Stepsister is more of a romance / coming-of-age story without much comedy and I feel like it doesn’t excessively feed into a sexual fantasy. There’s like 1 exception early-ish in the season, but even that kinda felt like the main purpose was to shake up the story, rather than getting the viewers horny.

but if you believe AC

Every time I see an AC ranking with shows I’ve watched I’m reminded that I shouldn’t trust AC.

An 86 minute start to the season. You gotta love it. There was a lot of setup, a half-dozen story threads started (or maybe a full-dozen), but they got to a very impactful scene at the end and left us with a good hook.

Absolute banger, highlight of the summer 2024 season.

I liked season 3’s talking around a table more than season 2’s talking around a table, for the most part.

But if things finally shake out in the next season, that sounds like a lot of fun.