Rikei ga Koi ni Ochita no de Shoumei shitemita, Episode 1

Ayame confessed her feelings to Shinya, who then tries to prove love exists scientifically.

Proof 1 – “Science-types Fell in Love, So They Tried to Analyze It.”

First Thoughts.

With a long title like Rikei ga Koi ni Ochita no de Shoumei shitemita (Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove it), I thought for sure this anime produced by studio Zero-G was a light novel adaptation. However, RikeKoi is an on-going romantic comedy manga, which re-calibrated my expectations for how much the featured couple would progress in their relationship. In an awesome twist on the rom-com convention, the love confession happened in the first couple of minutes, which means we’re going to be treated to lots of situational comedy and cutesy lovey-dovey moments. Is your heart ready to go kyuun~? My body is ready!

Hmm.

RikeKoi feels like it was just made for me! I was an astrophysics major in college, but my colleagues and I had a lot of contact with students from the mathematics department because we needed their coding and equation solving skills. The main characters in Rikei ga Koi match my experiences with the applied math geeks well, but my friends didn’t look as good in miniskirts and pantyhose as Ayame does.

The math and science concepts in RikeKoi all sound familiar and I didn’t see anything that was incorrect. Well, the characters might be incorrect in trying to apply statistical methods to such a small sample size, but that’s the fodder for the jokes and gags. Besides, it’s clear that Rikei ga Koi‘s main couple shares the same hobby in using their science-based perspective on any real-world problem and that includes dating. They entered a romantic relationship the moment they decided to run experiments on each other. Mathematically, so cute!

Heh.

Rikei ga Koi‘s opening credits make sure you know we have beautiful scientists running experiments on love-related things.

The end credits show the applied mathematics lab has friendly members who get along just fine and there may be more than one couple developing relationships during the course of the season.

Ayame is very precise with her turns. Ah. These two are applied math geeks. Ha! She just confessed her love, straight to his back.

Shinya’s in trouble. He can’t even type anymore. Ayame is worse. She’s just typing, “I went and said it aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.”

Fun. Ayame’s ponytail does a cute wagging thing. This poor girl. The dude has no experience in romance, so he goes the deflection route in trying to “prove” love mathematically. Well, she’ll play along and spend time with him this way, so what’s the harm?

Wow. She’s obsessed. Or makes very detailed diary entries. Dude, just jump her bones already! Rikei ga Koi puts us in prima facie love territory. They’re such mathematicians. They can’t prove love right now, but they can try to prove love prime, which is a projection, or some such, of love. After that, then prove love prime is equivalent to love, QED. Gah!

Oh man, she’s totally hot for him. So cute! How lewd! She dreamt she and Shinya held hands! He dreamt the same thing about her! These goofy kids just need to hold hands in real life. These narrator placards are great. “Even when science-types fall in love, the progress is slower than a turtle’s.” Yup. Rikei ga Koi has 12 episodes here.

Ayame and Shinya are going to start dating now, but they’ll call it collecting data. Everybody needs a hobby and this counts as a shared interest.

Har. The first experiment is the kabedon (wall slam). A 147 bpm heart rate is fast for just standing around. Ah. It always comes back to shoujo manga. Kotonoha is the “normal” one.

Oh my. Rikei ga Koi is definitely drawn for fans of pantyhose and short skirts. It doesn’t matter what they do for their experiments, as long as they put their hands on each other. I’ve never seen this sleeve roll maneuver. When do you do this? Mixing dough? Sheesh, look how much Ayame is enjoying all this contact. Her dreams are coming true.

Hahahahaha! The glasses removal maneuver just killed her! This is fine, Ayame. Just do all the stupid experiments your socially awkward boyfriend wants. Obviously, love isn’t just about heart rate if Ayame enjoys being so close to Shinya that she falls asleep. She’s more like a cat napping in his lap.

These goofballs are grasping at strange straws to invalidate the love hypothesis. Menopause? Flying saucers? Love has totally made them crazy too.

Okay, now Rikei ga Koi has a teddy bear explaining the scientific method. The 95% confidence level is the most abused concept in statistics.

Hoh. There’s somebody sleeping in the lab with nice pantyhose too. This is dedication. 100 wall slams with diminishing heart rate returns. I’m sure Ayame was still having a good time being close to Shinya.

Rikei ga Koi‘s eye catch emphasizes Ayame’s legs and the number of petals each flower has. Ayame needs to go for those odd-numbered flowers to make sure Shinya lands on the right “he-loves-me, he-loves-me-not” answer.

Oh dear. Ayame used animatics to turn Shinya into a sumo wrestler! Oh, don’t even try to use common sense and experiences with these goofy nerds, Kotonoha! Rikei ga Koi‘s main couple doesn’t want to hear about love being qualitative instead of quantitative. Just let them have their own kind of dating experience. Besides, it’s quite arrogant to dismiss all of recorded history’s experiences about love and only use the statistical methods developed within the last hundred years. Only socially awkward goofballs would try to do that… Oh!

Blargh! Let’s not use set theory with only a couple of examples from the math department! Whatever. Shinya and Ayame are having fun in their own way. Nice. Kotonoha noticed that Ayame is self-aware of her lack of social skills.

Wow! That’s a genuine emotional wall slam. Ayame felt that and I’m sure it wasn’t even close to sumo wrestling wall slapping.

Oh! So that’s who was sleeping on the couch this entire time. Ena likes pantyhose too.

Rikei ga Koi ni Ochita no de Shoumei shitemita premiered on January 11th, with all 12 episodes available on Amazon Prime in Japan. Crunchyroll is streaming the show weekly in North America, but they made the first three episodes available on the first day.