Hatsukoi Monster

Freshman Kaho Nikaidou is from an influential family, and as such, no one has ever said anything even remotely mean to her, for fear of incurring her household's wrath. Wishing to be around people who will not treat her as special because of her background, she leaves home to live at a dormitory for her new school year. Shortly after arriving, Kaho accidentally wanders into traffic and is saved by a tall, handsome stranger. When she asks for his name, he tells her she is weird and walks away. Having finally met the only person to ever say an unkind word to her, Kaho falls head over heels for her savior.

After meeting her rescuer yet again and discovering that his name is Kanade Takahashi, she confesses her love to him. Kanade says he would like for them to be a couple, but that Kaho may not want to date him after she finds out his secret. To her shock, Kaho discovers the startling truth: Kanade is a fifth grader!

Deciding that she can't date a fifth grader, Kaho intends to break up with him. But as she spends more time with Kanade, she begins to care for him even more and continues dating him. Hatsukoi Monster follows Kaho's first steps into love with Kanade, her immature, yet kind, fifth grade boyfriend.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Takahashi, Kanade Main

Sakurai, Takahiro Japanese

Nikaidou, Kaho Main

Horie, Yui Japanese

Shinohara, Kouta Supporting

Okamoto, Nobuhiko Japanese

Noguchi, Kazuo Supporting

Murase, Ayumu Japanese

Taga, Atsushi Supporting

Ishikawa, Kaito Japanese

Renren Supporting

Aoi, Shouta Japanese

Nagasawa, Arashi Supporting

Tsuda, Kenjirou Japanese

Sannomiya, Ginjirou Supporting

Sugita, Tomokazu Japanese

Makurazaki, Munemitsu Supporting

Eguchi, Takuya Japanese

Nikaidou, Daikoku Supporting

Midorikawa, Hikaru Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Itou, Youhei Producer

Suzuki, Renta Producer

Urasaki, Nobumitsu Producer

Reviews

Nov 2, 2025

ruemorgue0

Recommended

The low rating on this makes me cackle. I feel I must throw my hat into the ring and give people a proper vibe check when going into this show. This will be spoiler free.

Firstly: one does not watch first love monster and expect plot, character development, or even sense, logic, or rationale. You must throw all of that straight into the trash, leave your morals at the door, similar to playing cards against humanity and similar games. You are here to consume straight garbage, laugh at ridiculous nonsense, and enjoy a spectacle like your neighbors are having a public crashout in broad daylight. You ... revert to your basest form, get some snacks, maybe a drink if you drink, and watch this with some friends, preparing to trash talk and laugh out loud.

This show makes fun of so many tropes, throws your expectations out the window, and does whatever the h*** it wants. This is the fun of it, and in a way, its a trainwreck masterpiece. If you cant appreciate it for what it is, leave it alone. Its been made so ridiculous that its incredibly clear that its not to be taken seriously. I honestly cant believe anyone really rated it low thinking that it would have a real plot or criticizing it... But, you know, go off. Whenever I watch this show, its a good time. Like a built in abridged series. That said, I do only watch subs for the most part, so if youve seen a dub, i got no clue what youve consumed.

There are times where the animation is not masterful. What do you expect? Lol. Its a trashy parody show. It aint HXH or the mona lisa. seven out of ten is just fine.
I think its great for what it is. Its gross and horrific, and its fun to watch with your friends.
If youve seen my review, and are interested, cheers and enjoy this beautiful hideous masterpiece!

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Feb 15, 2024

LilyVarbik

Mixed Feelings

I did not read the plot summary and such. There is 40% I would not have watched if read it and only watched because looking at cover art, everyone looks high school age at minimum, except for Kaz who looks like a girl, so I would be wondering who the hell this "5th grader is". I gave a 7/10, with 4/5 and 5/5 on lots of episodes, being interfered by "cons" that felts 2/5 at best. Cons are enough reason to justify the 5.46 MAL grade by 41358 users.

Cons:
-high schooler "in love" with primary/elementary schooler
-main character has her issues, can't explain
-extreme stalker perverts
-incestuous stalker perverts
-some ... dirtbag events

Pros:
-Romance (thrown off by 1st con)
-Comedy (lots of poop and weiners though)
-a few moments that make you clap (either from happiness or comedy)
-cute/hot/attractive boys (they are clearly adults, but writer says "5th graders")
-Variety
-references a game [primary school kids would play] almost every episode

Neutrals:
-poop and weiner (your mileage may vary (ymmv), they made me laugh)
-heartbreaking moments (ymmv)
-bathhouse episode (ymmv)

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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May 10, 2025

ImNotAnOtaku1

Not Recommended

Don't watch this anime.

With the statement above out of the way, I'll get right to the point: this is depravity. I've watched some really morally-dubious anime, and I've played some absolutely-not-morally-"dubious" videogames, and have come across some media online which have probably gotten some people in jail, but somehow Hatsukoi Monster has managed to top it all, not because it is necessarily, in practical terms, disgusting, but because this anime is built around characters and situations which are simply the work of people whose hard drives need to be checked to ensure the safety of many members of the younger generations.

The premise of this one ... anime, which will certainly not get past Saint Peter the day a solar storm fries every single electronic device on this planet and entirely erases it from existence, is literally "15-year-old girl falls in love with a 10-year-old guy"... what the fuck? No, really, what the fuck? That's not a rhetorical question, and it's not for comedic effect, this is a literal inquiry as to what the fuck is wrong with whoever thought of this? Look, I know, alright? There's a LOT of Japanese media out there which has arguably far worse premises for their plots, but this one right here is not the kind you need to turn off safety filters to find, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Not only do you have a teenager develop a love interest for A LITERAL FUCKING CHILD, but this anime recurs to what seems to be the peak of comedy: the child looks like a young adult, which is somehow meant to make the whole age difference thing seem less concerning, but I put some implicit stress on the word "looks", because that's the only adult-esque thing about the male protagonist: he LOOKS like an adult, but still acts like a child, and if it wasn't enough, he's got 3 other friends who are in the same situation.

If we get the premise and the near-statistically-impossible fact that there are four children with an extremely rare development disorder which somehow makes them be 1.8m tall at age 10 and whom all just happen to live in the same town and know each other out of the way, we can go ahead and focus on the... uh... the things that are arguably worse... like the two obsessive stalkers... or the literal pedophile who coerces children to crossdress... It's safe to say that this review has already got me put in a watchlist, but these are things that one cannot obviate when discussing Hatsukoi Monster: the entirety of this anime's humor seems to revolve around these concerningly depraved characters doing concerningly depraved things which are supposed to be funny but simply aren't. If you're curious, the cast includes:
• A grown male adult with an obsession over a male child idol who carries a camera around to take picture of primary school children while drooling and loves making children and teenagers crossdress. Of course, he also makes sexual innuendos involving minors at multiple times.
• An adult woman with oversized breasts who stalks the male protagonist's father and steals his underwear so she can sniff and wear them, who bottles the bathtub water he bathed in, and who literally tries to force a marriage with him
• An adult male who's a siscon and has an unhealthy obsession for the female protagonist, his sister, to a point he'll also bottle her bathtub water, save her chopsticks and even her tissues.
• The four literal manchildren who just look like adults acting like children and constantly talking about poop and penises and who like to relate with each other in homoerotic ways, one of whom seems to have some concerning knowledge of the anatomy of the female reproductive system at such a young age. Of course, they all basically sexually harass the female protagonist because "haha children who look like adults innocently harassing a teenager so funny guys!"

Before you can get any doubts, yes, over half of this anime's comedy revolves around sexual innuendos, and yes, these sexual innuendos almost always involve children, and yes, there are many scenes which would look extremely wrong out of context. What's even worse is that there are some characters who are relatively "normal" (as in, an adult with daddy issues who likes to harass a teenager, or an effeminate guy who everyone laughs at for being a virgin), but all of them allow the fucked up behavior of the rest of the characters, so what you end up with is an anime that tries to convince you that degeneracy by itself is actually funny... it's not.

Naturally, the characters and premise are not the only terrible things in this anime: you've also got the plot, which goes nowhere, like, absolutely nowhere. The best way I can define Hatsukoi Monster's plot is as a merry-go-round powered by the stupidity of a teenage girl who has less socialization skills than a catatonic autistic person who remains in love with AGAIN, A FUCKING CHILD, even when she's shown time and time again that a 10-year-old kid isn't capable of understanding the concept of romance even if he looks like an adult. What I'm trying to get to is that the 12 episodes of this anime might as well be watched in no particular order, because the plot is meaningless, lacks any tension, any seriousness or any point of interest that would make even one-digit percentage of it worth paying attention to. This anime is so boring that you'd probably have much more fun waiting for Pope Francis' corpse to become bloated (spoiler: it likely won't).

Truly, truly I tell you: before the rooster crows, you will have dropped this anime three times, because dropping it once isn't enough of a testament to how bad it is. Animation-wise it is mediocre at best, and the voice acting doesn't save anything because it's more plain than the Mongolian steppe. The only thing that puts it even remotely near the light is its soundtrack, which is mildly ok with its insert songs (even though it mostly repeats the same tracks all the time), but the OP and ED are botched by the first being boringly generic, and the latter being what's probably the best power metal song ever written being desecrated with the worst vocals and lyrics anybody could have possibly come up with.

Really, stay away from this steaming pile of crap. There's absolutely nothing good about it unless you're someone likely to end up in jail for public indecency or worse.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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	Poll: Hatsukoi Monster Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ) Stark700 - Jul 2, 2016	214 replies	by _hidden_7 »» Jan 18, 10:32 AM
	Poll: Hatsukoi Monster Episode 7 Discussion Stark700 - Aug 13, 2016	31 replies	by karitosaturo91 »» Aug 19, 2025 7:54 PM
	Poll: Hatsukoi Monster Episode 2 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Jul 9, 2016	66 replies	by ImNotAnOtaku1 »» Mar 30, 2025 9:46 PM
	Poll: Hatsukoi Monster Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Sep 17, 2016	57 replies	by alivianotoliva »» Dec 5, 2024 8:39 AM
	Poll: Hatsukoi Monster Episode 10 Discussion Stark700 - Sep 3, 2016	37 replies	by LilyVarbik »» Feb 14, 2024 2:21 PM