Horimiya
While it doesn't do anything out of the ordinary, this rom-com works by having a mostly endearing cast of characters and a lot of good humour. Its initial gimmick of Miyamura having a radically different look and personality outside of school gets dropped within a few episodes, as his two aspects blend into a more conventional one. This theme of people having two faces gets mirrored across several other characters throughout the series, usually in the pattern of someone apparently tough or reliable turning out to be emotionally fragile. The counterpoint to this is Hori, who looks calm and unassuming on the outside, but can be short-tempered and violent outside of school. In the show's most awkward aspect, she also gets off on Miyamura treating her like trash, which is completely against his wishes and she goads him into doing, and those scenes make for uncomfortable viewing.
We spend time with a pretty large cast of characters, considering this is only 13 episodes. Each episode has three or four vignettes that other shows might have expanded for each to be an episode in itself, so it can feel like it's motoring along at a fast pace at times. This is both a plus and a minus. Some segments need more breathing room, but also nothing feels stretched or outstays its welcome, making for a breezy viewing experience. The one real problem from this is that the relationship of the titular couple (Hori and Miyamura) doesn't get as much screen time as perhaps it should, and the milestones of their relationship feel rushed in places. There's a major one towards the end of the series that's done in such a blink-and-you-miss-it fashion that for a moment I was left wondering if it actually happened or if it was just Miyamura thinking about something he intended to say (I'm pretty sure he did say it).
The show manages to work well despite all of these quirks, almost entirely on the shoulders of the characters, their growing relationships, and how funny most of it is. I also can't really fault it for making the decision to accelerate the pace and give us a fairly complete story, since this lets it avoid the usual anime adaptation flaw of being a story fragment.
8/10