The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague (2023)

[氷属性男子とクールな同僚女子]

Director: Mankyu
Studio: Zero-G, Liber
Starring: Yui Ishikawa, Chiaki Kobayashi, Yumi Uchiyama
Episodes: 12

Synopsis:
A man descended from snow women falls for a coworker he meets on the first day of his new job.

Impressions:
I've seen a few office romcoms in recent years and what makes this one stand out is the fact that there are supernatural beings fully integrated into society. You could take that element out and it wouldn't hamper the character work much at all. It's more of just a bit of spice. So how is the character work? Not being a shounen or seinen romcom, there's no compulsion to have zany antics or ecchi excess. What we get is a fairly low-key, chill (no pun intended) workplace romance that makes slow steady development as the two leads grow closer together. Yui Ishikawa has a talent for playing dandere types and she does here thing well in the role of Fuyutsuki with the occasional deadpan quip that played well for me. It's a bit of an amusing irony that the yuki onna descended Himuro is the one with the more passionate personality (the fact that he lapses into his native Kansai-ben when he gets worked up wins him points in my book). You also have a decent beta couple in Saejima and Komori, with Komori's exuberance in particular serving as a good counterbalance to our two leads. I liked the character designs, especially the eyes, and the production values are solid, but there aren't any big action scenes or anything like that to really make big demands on the animators. While this didn't light any great passions within me, it was a nice comfort watch that avoids so many of the pitfalls I hate in romcoms, so if you're looking for something along those lines, give this a watch.

Rating:
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