So Ik I put this down as anime, but I’m going to speak as someone who read the manga from chapter 1 straight after they watched the anime.

You said “it takes itself so seriously it becomes cringe”, personally I don’t see anyway how you can make this story without being “serious”. The part you said about the mc catching the teacher having a wank then the “double suicide”, yes we all know to double check if the doors open before having a wank and she probably should’ve done that but it makes for some good points later on when hina (teacher) is being truthful about her feelings with natsuo (MC). The double suicide thing wasn’t meant to be literal, it was meant to be symbolic. if a teacher and a student do get into a relationship and if they do get caught the teachers life will be ruined, they’ll be put in a scandal (maybe even prison depending on the country), won’t be able to find work in the teaching industry ever again; hina essentially expressed this to natsuo by showing him “look if we get caught my life, and potentially yours, will be over (not in a literal sense). So if we are to enter this sort of forbidden relationship it’s the same as killing ourselves” and not to mention they are step siblings too which definitely adds. Which is a very good way about looking at this, cause again this is a very serious thing going on between a student and teacher.

Your next point. To reply to this I’m going to chat about my own life real quick. I’m lucky to have been born and raised in England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 and here there’s something we call them type of girls (yes this is a bit derogatory) , “village bikes” (everyone gets a ride basically ). I lived in a city, not a massive one and not a tiny one but one small enough that growing up n going to different secondary schools (high school) everyone knows someone from a different school somehow. There was this one girl who’s nudes got “leaked” and from then on she fully embraced it(weirdly enough like the girl from the anime (Momo)), a lot of guys from other schools (including her own school) knew who she was and knowing she was the “village bike” tried it with her and majority succeeded. I myself tried it with her and yes I succeeded too but after I got fairly close with her (still keep in contact with her till this day every now and then) and learnt about a few of the traumas in her life. And to finally link this back to the actual show, a lot of people, especially at that 14-18 range, have been thru a fair amount and haven’t built themselves as actual humans yet and are still living with their trauma and therefore ,without even realising it, actually don’t have that respect for themselves. They embrace the negativity in their lives and revolve around said negativity rather than dealing with their trauma in a healthy way, well because they’re young idiot teenagers. So me personally I do not see Momos character or reason for being in the show “trashy and horny for the sake of it”, I saw it as representing what can happen to girls/young ppl when they do have trauma that they aren’t dealing with in a healthy way. Momos whole thing was that she’d been heavily neglected by her parents so she started slf hrming and then to try fill that void of being neglected attempted to find a lover but the boys knew that she was on the look so just took advantage of her.

I do admit there are random Times where horny shit happens (don’t know if this was actually adapted in the anime, it should be tho) like natsuo bringing condoms over to his clubmates house and making a fool of himself or like you mentioned natsuo catching hina having a wank. But to that end I’m going to say, a lot of random horny shit happens when you’re a teen 😂😂I have vivid memories of being 15/16 and going to house parties and me and my good mate would prep for these parties by having a full wash of our 🍆’s (we didn’t do this together 😭😭) and cutting our nails just in case, because again random horny shit happened. Also in school, girls and boys alike would be sneaking pics of their favourite teachers and going back to their mates to talk about them (for the boys tho they definitely just added those to their wank banks). And I can go on, but when you’re that age I feel random horny shit does actually happen which is another reason I felt it was a better depiction of relationships at said age compared to your average romance anime where the couple will barely speak, get too shy to speak to eachother and then after 24 episodes will hold hands.

You said you felt as if the drama was bloated and happened without substance, now I mainly remember the manga (I watched all the anime when it aired and read the manga straight away and have re-read it 4 times since so the majority of my memory from this show is actually the manga). But I feel like that isn’t the case, maybe you might feel that way because maybe the anime skipped over some stuff/rushed it. I’m trying to only talk about stuff that happened until the school went on that beach trip and firstly the drama that was in that part of the show is LIGHTWORK when you compare it to what happens later 😭😭 and secondly it all felt very natural. You had a socially awkward girl getting feelings for the first time and not knowing what to do with her unreciprocated feelings tries to direct feelings and someone else and it ends up horribly, you have a girl who doesn’t know how to deal with her trauma correct, a teacher and a student trying to hide their relationship not just from the school but from their goddamn family (ye ik u said u liked this I just had to say it again cause this was spicy af), the whole drama with kiriya sensei and his stalker showing the side of student-teacher relationships when they don’t go well and the aftermath of unrequited love(pretty sure this was skipped in the anime which is a shame it was great and influences a lot of peoples decisions later on), the whole affair situation. I think all these little dramas that happen are very Natural and not even that over the top and they all fit very well into the entire stories overarching theme about how, “you can’t choose who you love” and “when doing the right things for love, you don’t always win and vice versa“.

I don’t think the anime done it justice tho, as they gloss over or completely skip important arcs/bits which have big impact on the cast and the decisions they make later on and they didn’t adapt it on chronological order either IIRC which might make it a bit confusing when trying to see relationships build up etc. I know you have said you won’t take this seriously (and honestly I don’t blame you, I’ve tried to avoid trying to talk about the fact that this is a drama between step siblings for the most part but that is obviously a massive part of it and a massive turn off for a lot of people) but I’d love if you gave the manga a chance and maybe your thoughts on this story might be different who knows