Love Machine – Anime Review Senpai

There’s no lack of painful things in this world, but hunger and loneliness must surely be two of the worst.

What do you do when the HOTTEST GIRL in school asks you out to her family gathering outside of town? Hell yeah, I would say yes. Who wouldn’t? Well, that’s kinda what happened to Kenji Koiso. A Kuonji HIgh School mathematical genius and part-time moderator for the virtual reality world of OZ. This kid was pretty much your typical socially awkward nerd who pretty much needs to get some.

One day, Kenji and his friend Takashi were messing around on their part-time job when booooom, Natsuki comes barging in and asks out of them to be her boyfriend. Natsuki informs them that she requires an escort for her great-grandmothers 90ths birthday for about 1 week. Sure why not. Little did Kenji know, that once they arrived at the Sakae’s estate in Ueda, Natsuki introduced Kenji as her fiancé. And little did he know again, the Jinnochis’ are the living descendants of the Takeda clan who challenged the Tokugawa clan in the 1600’s. Talk about a powerhouse lol.

The huge family enjoyed each other’s companies and have a great time. Kenji was fitting in just dandy and everyone thought he was the man. However because the anime world needs a little drama, the producers decide to stir up some shit. Kenji met Natsuki’s half-uncle Wabisuke Jinoichi, a coding expert who was greeted warmly (lol) for stealing the family fortune and running off to America 10 years ago. He is the creator of Love Machine, the Artificial Intelligence created for the military.

Oz is pretty much like Facebook but MUCH BIGGER. It is a virtual world that allows people to create personal avatars and engage in activities such as sports, shopping, communication you name it. OZ HAS EVERYTHING. Because it’s super easy and convenient to use the application, people become overly dependant on the system. Boasting about their super high security and how impenetrable their mega encryption was, this was sure to get hacked lol.

One night Kenji discovers King Kazma was actually a 13-year-old name Kazuma who was Natsuki’s cousin. King Kazma as you can probably tell is the king of e-sports. King Kazma is a tall bunny wearing jeans with long ears. That’s was probably the best description you’ll ever find on the internet by yours truly. That is why I will provide pictures lol. His agile fighting style and power put him in another league than the rest of the competitors.

One night, Kenji was checking his phone and received a peculiar text message from OZ. Rather than ignoring the message filled with numbers, he decides to stay up all night to crack the code. Not only that he sent the answer back lol. ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE THE NEXT DAY. It turns out that the code was actually a password that can be used to override all the systems of Oz. And since Oz is like the lifeline for every service possible in this anime, you can guess how chaotic things got. Hospital, public transport, electricity systems all went haywire. And guess who was responsible……that’s right, Kenji’s face appeared on the news as a wanted man.

It turns out the A.I Love Machine has stolen Kenji’s avatar on Oz to hack the infrastructure that was causing the whole mess. This causes modern world issues such as traffic congestion, waterway failure and even the malfunctions of electronics. The little relatives Shota and Rika Jinnouchi discovered about Kenji’s involvement in the whole incident and got their police cousin Shota to arrest him. BUUUUT because of the huge traffic they had to turn back lol.

This may possibly, nah fuck that, this was the most moving scene I have ever seen in the history of anime. The 90-year-old grandma Sakae had enough of the situation and decided to lend a helping hand. She got out her contact book filled with phone numbers and started ringing important people. She didn’t say much but the words and encouragement she gave enabled the people to work their hardest and minimise the damage. This scene deserves a grammy I swear to god. It was that good!

But, we can’t have the plot go smoothly, can we. You guessed it, the grandma dies the next morning. The doctor uncle, Mansuke explains that Love Machine deactivated her heart monitor app that notifies the hospital about abnormalities. Low blow Love Machine. Now it’s time for payback. The Jinnouchi family team up to take the AI down. A truly beautiful scene, everyone played a role in helping out. One cousin brought a supercomputer, one relative a huge crane and some ice to act as a coolant, one uncle brought some squid. And more squid. And more……. Yes, he brought 3 boxes of Squids lol. But the cooperation they had with each other truly made me want to be a part of their family for a few seconds.

The hunt for Love Machine begins. We’ve got Kazuma leading the main fight. Things were getting heated up and at first, it seems like King Kazma would win. Shit turns to custard and boom, the AI evolves and learns the attack patterns making it incredibly tricky to defeat. Idiot Shota saw the massive ice blocks around the supercomputer and decided to move it to grannys room to keep her body from decomposing. I mean he had good intentions but seriously wrong timing.

King Kazma froze due to the supercomputer overheating and Love Machine just keeps devouring other avatars Kirby lol. Now Love machine got so pissed off, he took over the Arawashi Asteroid Probe and make its crash trajectory towards a nuclear power plant in Japan. Everyone was left in despair until Natsuki found Granny’s will asking everyone to forgive Wabisuke for his actions. Ultimately they were able to get him back and it was revealed that Love Machine loves games.

You’ve probably never heard of this but the game Natsuki used to confront Love Machine was Koi-Koi. They wagered the remaining accounts in desperation to sway Love Machine into the game like 50% discount display signs outside McDonald’s. With the help of Oz users worldwide, Natsuki was able to finally defeat Love Machine. KOI-KOI BITCH! Being a sore loser, Love Machine redirects the space probe towards the Sakae’s estate!

This was the most heated scene in the whole entire movie that will have you biting your nails. Kenji had to attempt and break into the space probes GPS through a series of complex mathematical codes. He only had like 3 minutes to solve 10 pages of code failing multiple attempts to do so. You can literally feel the pressure in your own seat as you see Kenji throwing away the pen in an attempt to crack it in his head and his nose bleed. He succeeded and redirects the space probe away from the household saving everyone!

The Jinnouchi was delighted over the victory praising Kenji as a hero. Being pressured by 20 pairs of eyes, the family suggested that Natsuki and Kenji get married for real to repent for the lie about the engagement. The moment of truth comes and Natsuki and Keni were forced to kiss in front of the whole family. Did he do ittttttt. Nope, he got a nosebleed. On the bright side, he got a peck on the cheek so we’ll take what we can get lol. The support and warmth in this family movie were phenomenal. We can all be pests to one another but at the end of the day, we’re all family. Learn to forgive and forget because life’s too short to hold a grudge.