(Average+) Love Stage!!

Series in one sentence:
A cute guy would make anyone gay.

Series in more sentences:
A geeky college boy meets up with a famous actor he once recorded a wedding commercial with when they were children. Since he was dressed up as a girl back then, the actor still believes he's female and takes the opportunity to reveal his feelings for him after all these years.
But when he learns the truth about his crush's gender, his world seemingly shatters into pieces, until he realises he can't function without him in his life.
 

Only 10 episodes, yet it still managed to insert awkward scenes that made our two main characters grow into these unlikeable versions of themselves.

The lady boy, Izumi, is a whiny, spoiled, overdramatic and delusional child who was tolerable in the first half of the already short series, but I started liking less in the second half. He dreams of becoming a manga artist and puts alot of effort into it, but the way he acted after his badly drawn comic got rejected from entering a contest was ridiculous. This episode pretty much describes his whole personality; he's a wuss that constantly needs pampering and expensive bribes to get him to do something. The pure definition of a drain on society.

The actor, Ryoma, was not without flaws himself. He is basically a stalker rapist who tries to distract the viewer from this fact by handing out warm smiles or showing off quirky behaviour. I would've accepted his sexual crimes if it only happened once and someone at least attempted to send the police after him, but as is often the case in animes; sexual molestation between two main characters is either treated as a joke, considered sexy, or "just the mistake of a person who's deeply in love".

Just.. Why didn't the brother and manager call the police for this young boy that nearly got assaulted in his own home? Why were they feeling bad for the perpetrator?

So, why didn't I give this show a worse rating if I have this much to complain about?
Well, the plot itself is pretty great. I also found Ryoma's journey to figuring out his feelings to be natural and decently paced. As he's supposed to be a heterosexual man, it's important to come up with a good reason why he'd suddenly not be, and I was content with the reason. The first few episodes created a nice start for a proper romance story, I enjoyed myself well enough.

Izumi's journey, on the other hand, was extremely clunky. His feelings of love were too sudden, especially for a boy who's insanely obsessed with a female fictional character. At least Ryoma explained to have harboured these feelings for Izumi for 10 years, but what's Izumi's excuse for liking men all of the sudden? He didn't value his first meeting with Ryoma the way Ryoma does, so there was never a basis set for his feelings to grow in this manner.
I think it would've been better if Izumi kept seeing him as just a friend for a tad longer and didn't give him these "cutesy" responses. He was too charmed by his acts of kindness, and if common kindness turns this guy on, I'm surprised he didn't already get into the sack with some creep before all this.
The scene where he invited Ryoma to jump him -because he was depressed or some dumb shit- came out of nowhere, and after this excuse to show off an unfinished sex scene was over, Izumi went back to calling the guy "his big brother". Seriously?

This could've been a very sweet short story, but the relationship of these boys gradually became less interesting and believable.