Kanojo Mo Kanojo

The vast majority of the time, we see concepts of polyamory in media being a sexual device and not much else. We see one aspect that is possible in ethical nonmonogamy, rather than the full breadth of topics present, the obstacles, or anything else involved. And that's without coming across the ideas of secrecy, cheating, and unhealthy behaviors.

So when Kanojo Mo Kanojo came out last year, I worried that it would be more of the same. Someone just trying to sleep around, with girls too dumb to put two and two together. Instead, we got an awkward, fumbling, and realistic example of navigating polyamory for the first time that created a healthy perspective by the end of the season.

Even the initial aspect of a polyamorous relationship comes about by accident, when our male protagonist finally starts a relationship with his childhood crush, and before everyone knows about it, has another girl professing her feelings for him. He finds the brazen confession endearing, and rather than turn her down, confronts his new girlfriend about the idea of dating them both. He pours his heart out to the two girls, talking about how he would never want to break either of their hearts, and would instead rather figure out how to navigate something frowned upon by the world, and be with the both of them. This isn't the overtly hormone driven male protagonist we're used to, but a young man who is exploring who he is in the bumbling way we all do as teenagers.

And this does create a collection of very normal struggles when coming face to face with nonmonogamy. We see the two girls occasionally fighting quietly with themselves over topics of wanting attention, navigating the ideas of shared physical intimacy, or wanting to feel like the top priority. The boy, fairly oblivious as one would expect in anime, takes a while to figure these things out, but eventually tries to reassure everyone that he will do his best to create the balance that will meet their needs. While typically I try to enforce that someone needs to learn how to maintain one healthy relationship before taking on multiple due to the amount of work it demands, this is a realistic view of that flailing cry of trying to truly balance the needs of multiple people.

It's refreshing, honestly. So often we see these situations either in a picture perfect space, an excuse for cheating, or an outrageously toxic space. To see something that covers very real things everyone tries to get through when practicing polyamory for the first time, and reframe their relationships in a very different way than society teaches us, is a wonderful change of pace. There's far and away enough things we all need to deal with when learning how to love multiple people, that we don't need the fantastical scenarios that media often throws at us. This series manages to show how a group of people can truly want healthy connection, while not wanting the exclusivity of a monogamous relationship, and that is a beautiful change of pace to the competitive nature of most non-monogamy in media, and especially more harem style scenarios.

This is a wonderful example for anyone familiar with polyamorous spaces, to laugh at the shared retrospective, as well as anyone simply looking for similar genres of anime, for the decently written comedic pacing. It's got a lot to offer, through every episode, and there's a good number of things I can hope to see happen with it should further seasons occur.