Puttsun Make Love

Charging headfirst into situations without thinking is just who Manami Shimizu is, which couldn't make her more different from Saori Hagiwara, the kind of girl who overthinks everything. Put them together in a Japanese high school trying to figure out romance, and you've got a recipe for constant, low-key chaos. That's the setup for Puttsun Make Love, a 6-episode OVA from 1987 that leans hard into the awkward, fumbling energy of teenage crushes and the misunderstandings that come from two very different personalities wanting very different things — or maybe the same things, just expressed in completely opposite ways. The comedy comes less from big gags and more from watching these two clash and misread each other in ways that feel genuinely true to that age. The 1980s animation gives it a warm, slightly rough-around-the-edges look that actually suits the material — it's charming in the way older anime tends to be when it's not trying too hard. If you liked the messy romantic comedy energy of Yamada's First Time: B Gata H Kei or My First Girlfriend Is a Gal, this scratches a similar itch, just with a much older production. It's a light watch, nothing that demands your full emotional investment, but if you're in the mood for something short and breezy with a distinctly retro flavor, it holds up reasonably well.