Koharu Sato is known for being cold to anyone who dares approach her at school. Even Sota Oshio—who previously had a friendly talk with her in middle school—hasn’t had much success. That is, until one fateful day when she turns up at his family’s café. She’s there all by herself, fiddling around with her phone, which happens to attract the unwanted attention of a group of unpleasant guys. Fortunately, Sota is quick to put an end to the harassment. Koharu thanks Sota for helping in a scary situation, after which he takes her inside his house to calm down. Once she has had some time to recover, Sota can’t help but wonder what she was doing in the café; it turns out Koharu was trying to take pictures, but she is exceptionally bad at handling the camera. This is where Sota’s experience in managing the café’s social media page came in handy, and he teaches her how to make better pictures. He also finds out that Koharu’s apparent coldness is merely her lack of social skills leading to misunderstandings. But Koharu suddenly runs off, Sota can only assume that he blew it with her. Will he get another chance to connect with her?

This anime is clearly going for a comfortable romcom vibe, and I think it’s doing a decent job at that. Sota seems to be a naturally kind and approachable person, which helps Koharu break out of her shell a bit. And contrary to Koharu’s moniker, she’s actually very sweet and sensitive. This indicates that there likely won’t be too much frustration and drama on the horizon, which I’m sure many viewers will appreciate. However, I have a concern that this low amount of conflict could lead to the episodes becoming a bit stale. For example, I was curious to see how Sato would deal with the obnoxious customers, but that got resolved in the silliest way possible, by summoning his constantly flexing hulk of a father, reminiscent of FMAB’s Alex Louis Armstrong. And Koharu’s struggles with taking basic pictures kind of stretch credulity, which makes it difficult for me to envision a meaningful way for that to remain a major plot point. Because of these things, I think that if we won’t see more depth to Sato or Koharu in the next few episodes, this anime is probably not for me. It’s too early to tell though, and maybe a few new characters will help bring out another side to our protagonists. Besides, it’s encouraging that there have been some pretty cute moments between them, so that’s a good basis this series could build on.

The Cold Sato-san is Only Sweet to Me is streaming on Crunchyroll.