(Average) Kotoura-San

Series in one sentence:  
Two kids are insanely in love with each other, but they never even kiss.

Series in more sentences:
A toddler is gifted with the power to read minds, but as nobody likes to get confronted with the truth of their own thoughts, she quickly finds the world turned against her and calling her a liar. When even her parents abandon her, she enters a depression that carries over to her new school, years later. There she meets the first real friend she's never had, opening up the door to more friendships.
 

I'm surprised by how disappointing it turned out to be. It only has 12 episodes, yet it managed to jump the shark around the halfway point. It became less interesting with every episode, it felt like.

The show had a good start. We learn the main character's slightly overdramatic backstory, which sets the mood and teaches us all we need to know about her past and current position. After this flashback scene, we see her getting introduced to her classmates at her new school, who are immediately skeptical of the gloomy-looking newcomer, making it appear like switching schools was a pointless effort.
But then she meets the absent-minded stranger positioned next to her seat, who snaps out of his weird daydream and asks her who she is. Cue the cute intro song.

The relationship between these two was fair, but only when they were left alone and not being cockblocked by all these other characters. Or when the main character cockblocks herself for no reason. It's a shame that this duo adventure was so short-lived, though, as the series would've been better if it was just about them.

What I noticed is that this show wants to give the main character friends way too badly. Right after the boy forced himself upon her, without given an explanation why he even likes her, we're quickly introduced to two other characters. They are the leaders of a psychic club and wish for her to join, which makes enough sense, I suppose. Still a bit convenient to have such a club at this school.
Some time after, the main character makes another extremely loyal friend, and nobody in class causes her trouble anymore, either. That's the best conclusion you can hope for a depressed teenager, but my issue with this is; how can there be people who want to be friends with a confirmed mindreader, when the anime argued nobody wants to? That was the whole point of its lengthy intro, was it not?

The club leaders treat her well, but for some reason the female leader pretends to secretly be this evil, selfish villain who only wants to use the main character's powers to achieve her own goal. I don't get what for. These people are friends, she could've just asked her to help her clear her dead psychic mother's name, instead of getting all shifty and evil-eyed behind the scenes and misdirecting the audience that way. Or whatever it was she tried to do there. How is her goal even "evil"?

It became obvious early on that the series likes to be dramatic for the sake of being dramatic. A good example of this is the continuous "GOMENNASAI, it's my fault that <insert drama> happened..!" that was being thrown around between characters. It was really tiresome, especially as the role of the one crying and the one consoling the other got switched around every time. So, in one episode you'd have one character needlessly blaming themselves for some accident that happened, and the other person telling them it's not their fault, and the next episode it'd be the other way around.

Something else that was strange was the sudden 180 one of the bullies did. She actually was a selfish villain, until she became best friends with the main character, practically overnight. I thought she had a believable reason to be angry with the new kid, as she's been in love with the boy since forever, and it rightfully bothered her that her efforts got ignored by him, while the girl did nothing to win his love. And like the boy himself confessed, he doesn't even know why he started following her in the first place. Who wouldn't get upset over such a shrug in the script.
But the moment these girls become friends, the bitter bully suddenly turns into this emotional, bouncy bodyguard who sees no problem in her new BFF dating her childhood crush. She even wants them to be together. What the shit.

Apparently this psychic girl is such a perfect embodiment of kindness, she also manages to convert a mentally broken school girl-abuser. The worst thing about that episode is that it ends with the police chief basically being like "well whatever, you beat up random children, let's get a meal after this, bud".

It's not the only disturbing thing this show has to offer, as it also introduces a pedophilic, incestuous grandfather. It's one of the most horrible things I witnessed in anime, and I'm thankful his scenes were short. The choice to make this elderly man lust after his granddaughter is so destructive to his otherwise fine personality, why did they ruin this man with these short, disgusting scenes? That priest character should've been the grandfather, he was as caring as he was decent.

But the most insulting moment was when the girl's long absent mother returned. This character was a total bitch who very well knew her daughter was telling the truth, yet she chose to call her a liar anyway and abandoned her after calling her birth a mistake. But the series tries to fix this dead relationship by having this character just break into her daughter's home one night, no proper excuse from her why, giving the girl the opportunity to read her mother's mind/dream while she's asleep on her bed. She then learns her mother didn't want to abandon her, but was just weak-minded, but really sad about it, etc, etc, and that makes abandoning and traumatizing your 5 year old daughter fine, apparently.

I don't know what conclusion disgusted me more, this one or the one with the child abuser.

Despite all this, I kept on watching, hoping at least the romance between the main character and the boy would go anywhere. By reading this sentence, I think you know the answer.
He continuously tried to get close to her, but either she ran away from him, or that villain-gone-good suddenly appeared to be the cockblock wall or punching fist nobody asked for. It was unsettling to see this boy get beaten to a pulp just for imagining the girl he loves in a silly, sexual setting. And after everything he's done for her, and the unsubtle love they shared for each other throughout the series, things don't even end with a kiss. Boo.

The last thing I'll mention is that for a show about a mindreader, not alot of minds were being read. It's not a power she can turn off, so she should hear voices all the time, but she doesn't. Many episodes go by where only 2 or 3 inner voices are heard, and I find that not to be very realistic when surrounded by people all the time.

Also. How can two dark-eyed and dark-haired people birth an orange-eyed and orange-haired girl?