Ririchiyo is a daughter of the rich and influential Shirakiin house. The envy of other girls made her a victim of bullying in her childhood. Those experiences have created a wall around her and the strong urge to be independent from other people. Over time she started acting moody and unfriendly to others, when in fact she really wants to make friends. In her urge for independance she moves out and decides to start living on her own in a mansion named Ayakashi Kan. In the Ayakashi Kan it is a custom to have all residents be accompanied by a member of the Secret Service (S.S.), which Ririchiyo of course refuses. The man assigned to her however, insists on serving her and pledges unyielding loyalty to the extend of a faithful dog. This man, who turns out to be a powerful fox spirit, seems to have some kind of connection to Ririchiyo’s past.
The strong points of Inu x Boku SS are the beautiful animations and the hilarious moments. However, the main running gag of Ririchiyo acting “tsundere” while her servant acts like a faithful dog, might over time get boring and repetitive to some if not changed. What confuses me a little is that this anime is often attributed with the shounen genre, even though a female main character who is fancied by bishounens is a typical feature of shoujo anime. For those who are not bothered by such distinctions, Inu x Boku SS is an entertaining comedy anime with a touch of romance and fantasy-action. Rating: 8,5/10
Since Makoto-kun’s parents are away on a business trip, he moves in with his aunt to a new home and a new school. There he meets his cousin Erio, who to his astonishment lives her life with her upper body wrapped tight into a futon mattress. From his aunt and his new friends at school he finds out Erio has been missing for half a year and has no memories of what happened during that time. After that incident she started behaving weirdly and now believes herself to be an alien visitor. Makoto takes it upon himself to help her regain her senses and ensure her way back into society.
The Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko anime is based on a light novel series. To me it seems this anime’s main appeal comes from Erio’s cute helplessness and moe behaviour. Yet I find it hard to categorize it: On the one hand Makoto’s quest to reveal Erio’s past and help her out of her misery introduces serious and dramatic elements to the show; on the other hand his interaction with the numerous female characters is quite similar to usual lighthearted harem/comedy shows. But as all characters are amazingly appealing and the animation quality is above average and very detailed, I can tell this anime will be very successful within the community (and it deserves to be). Rating: 9/10
Review: For his classmates Katsuragi is only a game obsessed nerd, but on the Internet he is known as the “God of Conquest”; the one man who can conquer all the girls. Or rather all the 2D girls in dating-sim games that is. Yet that is what the demon girl Elci didn’t understand when she formed a contract with him. It’s her mission to catch escaped souls that hide in girls hearts and can only be drawn out when that girl falls in love. Even though Katsuragi has no interest in the real world, he is now forced to conquer the hearts of girl after girl for Elci while using his not always very helpful game knowledge.
The World God Only Knows is based on a long running comedy manga and portrays how an otaku tries to use knowledge from fiction to conquer real girls. The funny and entertaining concept is a little weakened by flashy childish fantasy animations of oversized bottles and magic. However, it is a comedy anime after all and if you don’t try to take it too serious it’s pretty entertaining. Rating: 8/10
Review: Tsukimi Kurashita is 18 years old and lives a drawn back life in Tokyo together with 4 of her otaku friends. Together they form some kind of sisterhood with its own set of standards and rules. Other than small jobs like managing an Internet store or drawing shounen-ai manga, they pretty much live only out of their parents allowance; despite being in their mid twenties that is. Rejecting make-up and trendy hair styles in general and taking no care of their outer appearance whatsoever only underlines the otaku shut-in lifestyle they lead. Even after several years the death of her mother still plagues Tsukimi and the only thing to calm her down is looking at jellyfish, which reminds her of the happy times she spent with her. It was during one of these times when suddenly a stylish young woman came up and helped he save a wrongly held jellyfish inside a shop. After some talking Tsukimi lets her stay over in her room. It is only in the morning that she notices that this woman actually is a cross-dressing man. How will she explain this to the sisterhood?
The Kuragehime anime follows a similar concept like Genshiken or Honey and Clover, yet with the difference of clearly being targeted at women. This becomes clear when the crossdressing man appears as a main character, who will clearly fill the role of transforming the sisterhood into beautiful maidens as a step for them into a brighter future. Yet, if you are able to overlook this, Kuragehime has many outstanding comedy and story elements to offer that make this anime attractive even to male viewership. The funny short-info inputs on the sisterhood and the parody of high ranking politicians are only a few examples. So this is an anime for all anime fan-girls, but also for all open minded anime fans in general. Rating: 8/10
Review: Kamijyo Touma lives in the Academy City, a special advanced city cramped with all sorts of schools and mostly populated by students. Through scientific means, students there are able to obtain and train their special superhuman esper-abilities. Touma seems to have no talent whatsoever as an esper, but in a fight he realizes his right hand can nullify any kind of esper attack. It’s a very rare ability, but maybe his hands repelling all good luck is the reason he always gets himself into trouble. Just recently he found a strange girl called Index sleeping on his balcony; and that’s where the real trouble starts.
The animation quality is pretty good and similar to Shakugan no Shana. The story is set in an interesting near future Japan I think. As the plot goes on more and more shocking truths are uncovered and it never leaves you bored. Shakugan no Shana fans and anime fans who like sci-fi and action should definitely give this anime a try. Rating: 8,5/10
Review: Sanpeita-kun’s mother is always busily working as an artist at home; that’s why his little sister has to take care of the household. Their father might be gone, but they still do their best to get by. However, suddenly Kemeko appears in Sanpeita-kun’s life crashing into his room with a giant rocket, announcing to marry him. Kemeko seems to be a rather weird and ugly fighting android who protects Sanpeita from other fighting robots who attack him for no particular reason. The beautiful girl inside Kemeko reminds him of his childhood sweetheart, but that is little consolidation for all the trouble she causes.
This anime is a rather well done adaptation of the Kemeko-DX manga. The brilliant animation quality enables an adequate presentation of all those funny jokes and ridiculous situations. There obviously is a developing story with questions and secrets to be uncovered, but you shouldn’t hope for a deep and original story too much. Most of all this show is about comedy with a touch of romance, action and maybe harem. Rating: 8,5/10
Review: Ayumi recently transferred to Kamizono School as a high school freshman. Kamizono is a large school attended by more than 3000 students from elementary to high school. Ayumi is a rather silent girl who has problems speaking up her mind. She is determined to change, but still has problems doing so. On this big school ground she gets lost, but soon meets 3 other girls who share her fate and possess very different personalities. They soon become friends; but will they be able to help each other, or only get into more trouble.
Hyakko is a very funny school comedy anime with girls as main characters. It’s one of many shows recently with little story but enjoyable character and lots of comedy. Definitely worth watching for anyone who loves school comedy without any romance. Rating: 8/10
Review: Takasu lives alone with his beautiful but undependable mother. His father who isn’t around was a weird bad-ass looking yakuza. It’s because of his genes that Takasu-kun always looks evil and is always feared and mistaken for a delinquent, when in reality he is a caring guy who has to take care of his household on his own. On his first day in a new class he bumps into Taiga, a very small but pretty easily aggravated girl, often called palmtop-tiger, and gets punched in the face. At least all the misunderstandings about his personality are cleared now very early. He later finds out she actually lives in a big apartment just beside his small house. He also finds out they both are in love with each other’s best friends, and so they agree to help each other, which turns out to be not as easy as they think.
Toradora is one of the more deep school comedy romances. The protagonists are interesting and there’s lots of character development while the comedy does not fall short in any way. It’s a story about how, unlike their outer appearances and first impressions, people can beautiful once you get to know them better and spend time with them. A show not only about love and comedy, but also about prejudice, misunderstandings, false rumors, psychology and friendship. The animation quality is more than acceptable, and from what I’ve read in the manga, the story is really going somewhere. However, the anime rushed the happenings of the manga (which also rushed the story of the original series of novells already) at a few rather important scenes and failed to convey their meanings fittingly. But someone not familiar with the novell nor manga will maybe not notice anything about that. Rating: 9/10
