Sukitte Ii na yo. - 04

This is not your usual high school slice-of-life romantic comedy series!

Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun - 04

The many faces of Haru!

Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun - 03

Tonari is surely taking my expectations of a rom-com and turning them upside down!

Sukitte Ii na yo - 01

And it's another kiss in the first episode!  What is the anime world coming to when kisses happen in the first episode instead of the last?

All jokes aside, I thought this was a really brilliant first episode.  At first glance, it seems to resemble Kimi ni Todoke a lot.  The main character, Mei, is an outcast and scorned by her classmates, but still manages to catch the eye of Yamato, the school's most popular boy.  That's where the similarities end.  Mei, unlike Sawako, chose isolation instead of friends and is perfectly okay with that, especially if it means never being betrayed or hurt.  The tone is seemingly darker, and from what I've read, the manga that the anime is adapted from touches on a lot more mature issues. 

Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun - 01 & 02

A kiss in the first episode and a confession in the second?  Holy smokes, that's not how the formula works!