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[series:4334#628] | ||||||
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(All episodes watched): Well, episode one of this show struck me as sort of amusing, but I wondered if this premise could really remain that way and go anywhere else. I suspected it wouldn't be funny enough to watch just for the laughs, and would need some sort of overarching message as well, and so far the only message I was getting was that it might wind up as a harem anime. Contrary to all logic and expectation, Naoya convinces both Saki and Minase to not just allow him to have a second girlfriend but to move into the apartment where he lives alone. Minase, it seems, after learning that Naoya already has a girlfriend will take whatever she can get, even being a half-girlfriend, rather than be rejected altogether. That makes some sense. Saki is initially outraged by Naoya's bizarre proposal but must be so attached to him (for some unfathomable reason) that she'll go along out of fear that if he can only have one girlfriend he might choose Minase (who she admits is extremely cute and well endowed). It might have helped if her reasoning were explained better. The end result is such a crazy situation that you wonder if it might just really happen. But is it really funny, (and will it continue to be), or is it just a crazy premise that has pretty much already shot its bolt in episode one? Thankfully, Naoya isn't a total jerk. One reason he has two girlfriends is because he doesn't want either Saki or Minase to wind up with a broken heart. He rejects an offer to have sex with Saki because it would surely hurt Minase. He is arguably more honest than the typical boyfriend with just one girlfriend. Sometimes his logic actually makes sense in unexpected ways--which is sort of the definition of a joke, come to think of it. And, while usually not LOL funny, the jokes are fairly amusing. It looks like Naoya will wind up with a harem of no less than four girlfriends before this is over. The third one comes along in episode four as yet another girl, Rika, finds something that is largely a mystery to us attractive about Naoya. At one point Minase says that she would like to devote no less than 18 hours of the day to serving him; if slavery was legal in Japan, she would probably volunteer to become one. Sometimes it seems that wishful thinking rather than comedy or drama is the keystone of this series. Wouldn't it be awesome if numerous hot girls found you inexplicably attractive even though in the real world you know that you aren't? But it takes a considerable ability to suspend disbelief to take such a possibility seriously, and for most of us this show has little but modest jokes. I would be willing to bet that we'll never get a decisive resolution in which Naoya firmly chooses his favorite girlfriend, because that would be the end of his harem. Why Rika decides she must become Naoya's girlfriend is even less clear than the first two, but it perpetuates the ridiculous and amusing situation that is the backbone of this show. It does get kind of tiring after awhile; I was impatient for the show to move on to girlfriend number four, because I was more curious to see what reason yet another girl might find to take a liking to Naoya than to see more of same humor. You might say the motivations of these four girls are the four biggest jokes of the series, and other than them the humor is largely unremarkable. In episode ten the reason Shino, the fourth girlfriend, gets involved starts to become clear, and it initially makes some sense: she has figured out that Naoya has more than one girfriend and assumes her friend Saki is unaware of this and is being taken advantage of. There's a good deal of fanservice, but it doesn't feel dirty since it's all about accidents and misunderstandings rather than teens actually screwing each other. The thought occurred to me that one amusing way the series might end would be if Saki and Minase realize that they really have come to like each other more than Naoya, and the two of them get married. Of course that will never happen. The conclusion was OK but not brilliant; I found the long argument between Naoya and Minase to be slightly touching but hardly a rewarding resolution of any problem (but maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention). I was slightly surprised that Shino never actually asks to become Naoya's fourth girlfriend. In the end, this was a show which had some good points but they were thinly stretched across 12 episodes. Last updated Thursday, September 23 2021. Created Sunday, July 04 2021. | ||||||||
