Anime: Nazo no Kanojo X 6b71j

An alleged perverted fetish anime that does some very interesting things in very interesting ways. Let's get the usual stuff out of the way first.

Art & Animation
Both are very good, heavily stylized to underline the theme of the story - the very first sexual awakening in all its gross, alien, uncomfortable weirdness - without, to me, seeming sexualised or fetishised. During naked or semi-naked scenes there's some crafty censorship with light and shadow and no focus on butts or breasts.
Generally nothing to complain about here, though the animations of bodily fluids did not gel well with some of my friends.

Sound
Nothing much to report here. Music and sound effects were alright and fitting, voice actors solid.

Story
This is a jumbled mess. While some of the ideas - and even their execution - are good, a lot of the situations seem forced and unnecessary. It's not long though and comes to a nice conclusion so it doesn't overstay it's welcome much.

Characters
The characters aren't very deep, but well realized for the most part. All of the major characters have very distinct personalities that mostly deviate from the usual stereotypes in the romance genre. They're mostly selfish uncertain humans trying to understand their sexuality, their feelings and most of all the feelings of other people. In other word(s): Teenagers.
The protagonist is sadly rather dull but his struggles with the extremely weird situation he finds himself in makes it bearable.

Thoughts
When reading reviews and recommendations the words "ecchi" and "fetish anime" would jump at my face like rabid squirrels. While technically accurate, I personally disagree with them.
The anime is certainly about sexuality, but I would not call it sexualised, much less fetishised. It does contain characters with a fetish or two, but that is par for the course when sexuality is the subject matter.

There is next to no fanservice other than the panty scissors, no artistic focus on female curves or phallic objects and hardly any sexual actions. There ARE a lot of pseudo-sexual actions, but they're mostly trivialized (the saliva-licking becomes a daily routine and is over in a flash) and not very arousingly portrayed. If I recall correctly, there is ear-licking at some point and two characters are seen naked by another character, but not the audience.

There were two major themes that struck me while watching. The first is sexual awaking. How alien it all feels at first, weird, gross and somehow wrong but also oh so intriguing. How things about the other gender we never thought about before suddenly become interesting. The suggestive but surreal dreams were also very well realized.

The second theme is empathy (the capacity to share/understand/feel the emotions of others) and it is one that isn't discussed nearly enough in this world. The saliva-swapping mechanic for letting the other person feel what you feel may be quite contrived, but the insights it grants the characters are not. Knowing how it feels when you hurt someone or make them happy changes a lot and so it does for these characters. A lack of empathy breaks relationships, romantic or not, and creates rifts between whole groups of people. Any anime that genuinely promotes it deserves a big bonus in my book, disgusting fluid animations or not. :thumbup:

Conclusion
It's certainly not for everyone and I wouldn't generally recommend it. It might bore and/or disgust people but, like I said in the beginning, it does interesting things in interesting ways and there's certainly not a whole lot of things like it. Not a must see, but no regrets.

Nazo no Kanojo X

“Ten out of ten for style, but minus several million for good thinking”
--Zaphod Beeblebrox

Solid character design and a charmingly cute romance are undercut by a bizarre fixation on an obscure fetish, leaving little behind but an uncomfortable feeling and a sticky mess after it. Final Grade: C+

Can I get these characters, but in a good show?
Character design in anime, since the advent of The Database, has been remarkably simple. Just grab some common stock character builds, like a tsundere, a rich girl, a clumsy girl or a genki blockhead, (each of which comes with pre-packaged tropes to follow), toss in an uncommon one, like the earnest kouhei, to differentiate yourself, spend twelve episodes doing cute things, (at least two swimsuit episodes are required these days), and volia! you just made K-On a blockbuster. Real, honest character building, using realistic, complete characters is both difficult and rare, and sadly doesn't sell as well. Surprisingly, Nazo no Kanojo X does just that, and while it's not the greatest character development, it is still pretty good and it is miles ahead of similar shows in its genre. The lion's share of this development goes to Urabe, whom they take great care in crafting a mysterious aura around. Everything about her is veiled in secrecy: her past, her family, her feelings, and her unnatural physiology. Like an onion, each layer of her that is peeled back only reveals more layers under the surface, more mysteries left unanswered. This doesn't make anything easier for the male lead, who has to deal with this on top of all the other issues associated with an awkward teenage romance. All too often, a romance culminates with the hero getting the girl, but few deal with what happens next. Nazo no Kanojo X revels in exploring, navigating, and sometimes exploding the minefields that surround adolescent love. The male lead does have a bad case of the otaku milquetoast-ism (a truly terrifying disease), but he avoids being a complete loser, and is a good vehicle for expressing all the uncertainty generated by Urabe's actions. And if things weren't awkward enough between the two, an interloper inserts herself into the middle of the relationship. Oka acts as a friend/mentor to Urabe, often giving relationship advice that backfires more times than not. She has an important role in the story, existing to humanize Urabe, breaking her stoic shell and revealing that the female lead has just as little idea on how to be in a relationship as the male does. Watching this socially inept duo stumble their way through romance is a beautiful thing, and this would have been a great show—if that was all that was to it.

Astarotte's Law
Astarotte's Law is a concept that I developed to describe why shows like this one always fall apart at the end. Simply put, it means that shows with a gross/offensive premise will, despite clever writing or strong characters, will regress to a godawful show by the end of the run. Basically, this is caused by the fact the author is not trying to write a good story, but rather to showcase his fetishes, and these fetishes will always take precedence over the rest of the story. In the eponymous case, the first five episodes describe the touching redemption of a psychologically damaged girl, and are quite good, only to finish the show off with crude and ham-fisted sexualization, a return to the crude sexualization of the premise. Nazo no Kanojo X also falls victim to the Law: despite how well designed the characters maybe, the story only exist to fulfill the fetish of the author, and the over-emphasis on that fetish damages the rest of the story.

I'm not judging Girlfriend X on the basis of whether its fetish is horrible or disgusting—it is—but horrible and disgusting things do not themselves make a bad show. It is how those things are used that matter. In this show, the spit fetish (or spitish, as I dub it) is consider to be a good thing, a normal thing, a physical manifestation of an emotional bond, but they never truly are able to justify this position or explain it to the audience. The spitish is treated as if it were unremarkable to want to devour another's saliva, which is hard to suspend disbelieve on. And the while it is meant to be a chaste kind of kiss, it can not overcome the fact that it looks absolutely disgusting. Think of spit or drool. How would you describe it? Sticky, bubbly, perhaps, thin, long, and stringy. Now I don't know the right way to draw drool, but I know a wrong way-the way Nazo no Kanojo X did it. A fingerfull of it isn't covered as much as capped, as if the finger was dipped in honey or molasses, viscous enough to be basically solid. It doesn't look normal or natural, it looks sick and inhuman, like an encasing of snot, and the yellow tint it often has doesn't help anything. There are a number of yellowish fluids that leave the human body, and you shouldn't consume any of them, unless you're Bear Grylls or something. Not only that, but when Urabe gets excited, she tends to start vomiting drool, spreading buckets of this mutant liquid everywhere, in a display that would put the most iron-stomached man off his lunch.

But horrible animation isn't the worst sin of X's spitish, as it causes horrible writing as well. The damage is particularly strong in the second half of the show. There are great efforts to make drool drinking seem completely normal, despite all evidence to the contrary. Especially awkward is the scene with the hero's old flame, as she not only laughs about his creepy stalker actions, she is quite interested in sharing her saliva with the dude, instead of being totally creeped out. I am willing to accept some coincidence in the name of expediency, but these characters are so open-minded it is unbelievable. Not only that, but the lines are dialogue in this scene are stilled and wooden (a clumsy Crunchyroll translation doesn't help matters, but not even Shakespeare could save this crap). The bad dialogue continues in the older sister's tale, a pathetic attempt to tie the drool theme into her life story as well. Here, instead of letting a story to grow naturally, they started with the conclusion and hammered events into place to it, leaving behind a very wooden and unemotional waste of time.

But the worst thing about the spitish is that it undercuts the romance by introducing an external bond. The couple doesn't get together because of love, but rather because of a vampiric dependency on Urabe's spittle. Unless the hero is continually supplied with lysine drool, he'll slip into a coma and die. While the bond is reversed from the normal girl on boy common to seinen shows, it is not any better and reinforces the ideal that love alone can not sustain a relationship, a physical dependency is needed as well. This idea is harmful and offensive, and it neutralizes a lot of what was good with the romance. The bond is also generally used as an excuse to bring the characters together, but in this case, they are already an item, so it is unnecessary. The spit fetish, and its, shall I say, sadomasochistic aura, works at counter purposes to the innocent romance that is all that is good with this show. One or the other has to win, and Astarotte's Law holds.

The endgame of the show suffers, however, even when not dealing with spit. The episodes with the old flame seemed to hold potential, but it quickly fell apart into unnecessary fanservice in its improbable climax. But at least it follows a logical progression, unlike the episode telling the aforementioned sister's story (and did anyone find it creepy the way the hero stares lustfully at his sister's drool?). And there is the whole idol magazine subplot that just disappears into thin air, but not before the hero makes an utter asshole out of himself.

Conclusion
I can not help but to compare Nazo no Kanojo X to Iketeru Futari, as both deal with the courting of a mysterious and cold woman by a hapless man. Spitish aside, Iketeru Futari succeeded because it focused wholly on the romance and made development its primary goal. Nazo no Kanojo X lacks that focus, drifting through its romance while proselytizing its fetish. The intriguing dream subplot never went anywhere, the characters never get past the holding hands point, and viewer never gets the feeling that this is made to last. Unlike Iketeru Futari's stupidly aggressive lead, X's iveness fails to generate any sympathy, and even minor transgressions cause irreversible harm to his character. In the end, Girlfriend X over-emphasizes its spit fetish to the point of ridicule, and not even the strong romance can overcome that.

Grades:
Plot: 4
Art: 6
Sound: 9
Characters: 8
Enjoyment: 5
Value: 5
Watchablity: 5
Re-watchablity: 2
Historical: 8

FINAL GRADE: C+

We're told fanservice is bad because it detracts from the important parts of a show - the plot and the characterization. If plot points shift, or a setting is made inconsistent, or someone acts out of character so as to titilate the viewer, even I would concede the point. But - and this is where I seem to differ from most - if a series sets itself up so the fanservice flows naturally, with believable characters, consistent setting, and a plot that follows from its premises, I don't mind. In fact, I often enjoy it.

Mysterious Girlfriend X is such a series. It has none of the crudity of e.g. Queen's Blade, but is if anything more erotic; the entire show feels like Nisemonogatari's infamous toothbrush scene. Plot, character and even premise are built around service, and while the animation may have other priorities, Urabe (the female lead) has a voice that simply oozes sex. The fanservice is so deeply integral to the show I can’t possibly recommend Mysterious Girlfriend X to anyone who doesn’t like girls.

But this isn’t just high-class porn - or at least, it’s aimed at nostalgic animation fans as much as men. The visuals, and especially the character designs, have some kind of ‘90s-style blobby look, but done far too carefully for this to be anything but intentional. We get some beautiful visible pencil lines and crosshatching on the shading - frequently for blushing and the like, but also inside areas of colour. Music too has a retro feel, all slow-paced orchestral backgrounds. At its best, this is a show about growing up, and the last summer of childhood before you do. It doesn’t explicitly talk about a lot of this, but rather trusts the viewer to think for themselves.

Sadly, this may be because male lead Tsubaki doesn’t lend himself to thought - or anything, really. Bland, generic male characters may be par for the course, but never have I seen another so utterly pathetic as he. Literally every conflict in this show emerges directly from his possessiveness, his teenage horniness or his inability to say no to a pretty girl despite having a girlfriend. It’s painful to watch, and makes one wonder what Urabe could possibly ever see in him.

Urabe herself is distilled male fantasy: beautiful, but hiding it from everyone else. Posessive, but forgiving when Tsubaki strays. Strong and self-confident, but melting when it really matters. And utterly sexual in everything she does, and that’s before considering her voice: every line is uttered with a ionate breathiness that it’s hard not to hear as post-coital. The kinkiness of her actions is, objectively speaking, utterly implausible - particularly her perchant for using nudity (always tastefully hidden) to prove a point. But the show makes it seem natural, selling her as a girl who’s simply just as perverted as her boyfriend. Urabe may well be everything that's wrong with animé culture, but seeing it done so perfectly makes her character a real work of art.

And the same is true of the plot, such as it is. This really is just a romance story, and a few early episodes can seem too much playing to the fetishes (e.g. an episode that's mostly about tan lines). Heck, it's easy to forget it having watched the whole series, but the fundamental premise (the leads communicate by tasting each other's drool) is pretty perverted. But in the second half the show finds its stride, introducing an antagonist (of sorts) and ongoing plot, and giving us a story we can actually care about. ittedly the whole thing could be resolved with a little more communication or spinefulness from Tsubaki, but that tends to be true of any romantic plotline. It's not a lot of plot - it certainly wouldn't stand on its own if the relationship between the leads wasn't so enticing to watch - but it's enough.

I'm conscious that I haven't even mentioned the other two name characters, but they really don't seem terribly important. Second male Ueno is almost part of the scenery, not because he's bland (though he is) but because the plot doesn't have anything to do with him; at least he has the grace to stay out of the way rather than trying to be comic relief. More time is given to his girlfriend Oka, who is introduced like a primary character - but turns out to have equally little importance. I can only assume she has a more major role later in the manga, and this is preparation for a possible series 2. But I would be disappointed to see a second series of Mysterious Girlfriend X (much as it's good enough to deserve one), because the series is complete in itself - it follows all its plotlines through and tells a single story.

The other great thing about this show is that it doesn't force itself into the harem genre. True, there are two characters going after the male lead, but the second girl is never presented as any kind of alternative, and in Oka we have a significant female who doesn't especially care for Tsubaki. It makes a pleasant contrast with e.g. Nogizaka Haruka (which followed a harem structure to a T despite there never being any real competition) or even Bakemonogatari (which, although it resolves its romance early on, still defines every female character by their interactions with the male lead). Equally, Mysterious Girlfriend X doesn't present itself as a romantic drama á la Toradora or Honey and Clover; there are no serious life problems to deal with, and no complex intersecting mesh of love traingles to resolve. It's content to just tell the story of a single relationship, not a web of them - and it's far better for it.

I can't find a box to put this show in, and maybe that's for the best. Certainly I don't want or expect to see a train of knock-offs; it would be too hard to capture Mysterious Girlfriend X's unique charm, too easy to be a drama or a harem or a nostalgia trip or pure fanservice. This show is all these things and none of them; everything complements everything else, the setting and style and plot in perfect harmony. As I said earlier, the fanservice is an integral part of the show, and you're not going to like it if you don't like Urabe. But it nails so many things perfectly, and puts them all together so beautifully, that this is a real gem.

It is all too easy to lump this show together with numerous other "fetish shows" that have seen the light of day so often recently.
And while this would probably be a correct classification, i know that i don't really care much for it.

Sure, there might have been some morally warped marketing director sitting somewhere and thinking "hey, i'd be nice to make a show catering for drool fetishists, they seem to be a kind of ignored niche". But the author's motivation in creating the show doesn't matter. What matters is the end result. That is, the sum value of the following:

- skill in execution (video and audio)
- quality of story and characters in them (story and character parts, duh)
- end product's worth to the viewer (aka enjoyment)
and finally
- evolution in anime's very ability to tell better stories (value).

Upon careful consideration of where Nazo no Kanojo stands in these regards, we see a story of promise, disappointment and ultimately - failure. Let us explore the promise, then the failure. And then figure out what remains after the dust settles.

Story

Every story has important and unimportant elements. Important elements is where the story focuses most of it's attention. Unimportant ones are either completely omitted, or handled through a montage sequence.

Current love story paradigm has some generally accepted rules in the way it assigns importance to stuff. Specifically, two rules need to be mentioned here.
First - a lot of importance is given to the process of reaching a mutual understanding after a potentially hurtful event. A romance story will normally have one of these somewhere in the middle and won't end until that event is resolved, thus showing us a part of the heroes' journey to happiness.
Second - sex is omitted and is treated as either completely unimportant aspect of relationships, or a source of comedy relief. Not many romance stories are able to actually adress sexual tension in a proper way. Which makes most romance stories somewhat removed from reality.

Nazo no Kanojo X does away with both of these rules by introducing an instant empathy plot device.
Suddenly, you don't need to spend a whole season observing a couple angsting over a misunderstanding, because everything can be resolved through simple routine application of said device. This allows you to avoid delving deep into local conflicts of love and tackle a broader question - development of true intimacy.

Furthermore, the same device acts as non-hentai metaphor for sex.
After having the characters go through a metaphoric sexual act while still remaining within boundaries of morally acceptable (if marginally), you are then suddenly able to openly adress issues with a boy obsessing over a girl's nice body, and a girl having to come to with this obession and decide if she wants to open up. Adressing this properly is integral to development of said intimacy.

The promise here is the evolution of romance genre as a whole.
Seeing this promise made in the first couple of episodes and desire to see it unfold over the rest of the series was what kept me in front of the screen.

Then why does Nazo no Kanojo X fail to deliver?

Well, for starters, the plot device in question is simply yucky. You need to either have a relevant fetish (or extremely open mind), or love all stories in general so much that the yuckiness doesn't scare you away.

But that's not the big problem. The big problem is that the writers treat said plot device as a complete panacea to all love problems. It is used early, often, multiple times an episode and never fails. Despite obvious ineptness of both protagonists, when it comes to conveying their feelings to the other half, they move steadily and inevitably towards their happiness, with nothing appearing to be even remotely powerful enough to deter them. Thus there is no real conflict and no real intrigue. And therefore, no real interest.

The story does adress development of true intimacy and impact of sexual events on relationship, but because there is nothing to challenge the ultimate good end, it does so in a way that's neither touching, nor poignant. Thus the story deserves some credit for trying to tackle difficult stuff, but cannot be called good, or even reasonable.

Oh yeah, and, once again, licking spit is... a bit too far out there imo.
3/10.

Characters

The character job is downright abysmal. Some of the worst character jobs i've seen in years.

For starters, the characters themselves are well beyond unoriginal. Among the four people occupying most of the screen time, not only there isn't a single departure from the existing high school student archetypes, but even those are not realised to any extent of their potential. The only character that bears any mentioning at all is an antagonist which appears in the latter part of the series, but her time on the screen is basically limited to just over two episodes and in the end she didn't seem to have any impact at all on the relationship of the main couple.

That, in itself, wouldn't be so bad. But the characters are also stuck in a world where every single conflict is resolved through ludicrous and generous application of saliva exchange. They don't need to work for their victories at all and therefore they don't get any development. Again, the only character which sees any meaningful change is the said antagonist, which actually tries to gain control of the omnipotent plot device. But this comes just too little, too late, while the entire sum of other character cast are just enjoying the free ride.

Characters in this show completely lack character.
An example of perfectly failed character work. 1/10.

Video and audio

In the light of a completely botched story and character work, it was actually very strange to see some very decent video and audio work.

Locations and background noises are rendered quite adequately. You won't see any breathtaking sights, but there is reasonable detail in background and the sounds work to create all the moods, necessary for the scene at hand.

The visual rendering of the characters is reminiscent of pre-90s slightly deformed style (or may, in fact, be in that style). The one which has received it's share of mockery for eyes and heads being way too large and bodies way too small, but the one which is ired and adored by many long-time anime fans for the sheer power of expression.
Despite the awfulness of the story, it still presents protagonists experiencing a significant range of emotions and the visuals are always able to get all of them across. During particularily emotional moments, you get to experience some really good expressions and animations.

Sound work pulls its weight as well, with some exellent music scores for scenes with both action and emotion, both desire and awkwardness. Voice actors doing a fairly good job of conveying the emotions behind the lines.

In short, i enjoyed the presentation of this show well enough. It had nothing truly breathtaking, but i don't think you can have breathtaking presentation without at least a decent story, so that's par to the course. Still, seeing visuals and sounds work together to create the moods in this series was the thing that kept me watching until the end after i realised that the initial story promise won't be delivered upon.
7/10 in both audio and visual categories.

Value

So... Has this series helped at all in helping anime get better?

I sincerely doubt that. After all, humans still prefer to judge not by results, but by pre-existing stereotypes. It will probably get lumped together with all the other fetish shows, and will either be used to fuel fetish fantasies, or never looked upon seriously ever again.

However, i now know what to answer, should someone ever ask me about a better way to make a love story or - god forbid - a story seriously tackling sex. I'll tell them: "Consider allowing characters to easier empathise with each other either through a use of magical trinket, or through some sci-fi tech, and see where it leads you". And then I will give them this show as study material (naturally, telling them to treat lightly around the saliva parts).

While i can't say that the show succeeded in creating a lasting impression, it still has some niche value. 3/10 in this category.

Enjoyment

Now, when all is said and done, can this show be enjoyed?

That's simple. If you enjoy stories where characters don't need to work for their happy ending and are open-minded about mild perversion, you might like it.
If you are - like me - an anime junkie with a soft spot for Mickey Mouse eyes, always for the lookout for new and original ways to tell old stories, you might even love it.

The rest - stay the fudge away. Not for you.
Obviously, since "the rest" in this case involves a much larger part of humanity, this show can't get more than 5/10 in enjoyment.

Urabe: When something makes me really happy, saliva overflows from my mouth.
… Wrong hole girl.

Mysterious Girlfriend X belongs to one of those ecchi shows that attempts to lure people in with a fetish. We have one about peeping toms of pantsu (Colorful), one about clubbing girls to the head, to the point they pee themselves (Fight Ippatsu! Juuden-Chan), one about necrophilia (Sankarea), and now one about licking other people’s drool. Yes, sounds disgusting as hell but supposed there is an anime for all tastes and these are supposed to cover those reeeeeally particular ones. The problem of course lies in the fact they are soooo specific at what they are about, they are extremely hard to be enjoyed by anyone who is not into that sort of fetish. And surely, you must have some really sick mind to enjoy licking other people’s spit. YUUUUUCK!

Ok, the truth is that there is reasoning behind all this deviance and if you somehow manage to get into its insane mindset you may even appreciate the show for what it’s all about. In this case it is pure sexual frustration to the point you find stimulation with substitutes rather that the actual thing. The rest of the paragraph is psychological mambo jumbo so skip it if you feel bored. When you believe you are incapable to please a woman in bed (something commonplace amongst virgins, people with low esteem, those who are mocked and bullied a lot, or simply all Japanese people, lol) you may end up feeling incapable of being horny at all so you find pleasure in fantasizing you are great in bed with several sex toys. And to help that illusion to work better you need some of her personal belongings that have her scent on them. The most usual fetishes are underwear and shoes but in this particular show it is body fluids, and more specifically saliva. Since intercourse involves the exchange of body fluids, in the mind of the subject licking them is a fine way to fantasize they are doing a deep tongue technique to the owner of those fluids.

Now about the actual anime, it starts in a most direct way by telling you the main characters are weird. Nothing unexpected from teenagers (especially Japanese characters) but these definitely have a few more loose screws than most. The lead boy has that low esteem virgins do and the lead girl is a plain psycho, so they end up in a weird relationship where he gets addicted to her drool and she is more than willing to provide him with it because … um, she is weird; the end. The premise is indeed out there and I guess that is what would attract most people to give it a shot. It sure sounds more interesting than some run of the mill ecchi or romance anime, that’s for sure.

The above of course counts for the premise of a show and not about the plot. Although the initial hook of ecchis and romances is usually very strong, their fishing lines tend to break up easily after a few episodes, since almost always there isn’t any progress in the initial idea of the story. They lay it out, they promise you great things to come out of it, they excite you to watch further, and then … nothing happens. Typical to ecchis and harems the relationships go nowhere and they sure as hell don’t show sex, something of which was even promised in the end of the first episode. That’s how it is with typical anime, they are so polarized to either hentai where you get non-stop sex scenes or a long winded story of romance where you get nothing but blushing and a few kisses at best. In this case you get neither, since the drool ends up being the substitute for both sex AND kisses. That’s right, sucking up fingers full of saliva is all you get. Supposed because kissing too simple and boring so there is no reason to do it.

So basically you will be enjoying this show for as long as the drooling jokes are still funny to you and you are not bothered by the complete lack of actual progress. Because that is the only thing that makes the main couple to feel a little bit different than pretty much any standard romance out there. Furthermore they are constantly trying to present Urabe as a mysterious girl that needs to be studied and see what she thinks of the lead guy. Sometimes she will be acting like an alien, others like a black ops agent, others as crazy, and others as simply a girl with a crush on him. You are never given a clear picture and because of the non-existent development any hints that are offered mean absolutely nothing. They are there to keep you guessing but never really offer anything. As soon as the feeling of deza vu starts to kick in though, you will start to like it progressively less and chances are you will lose interest before you even get to the second half.

Of course if you try to find some deeper meanings you might find out how the show’s main focus is not deviance but rather a slow procedure towards understanding one another. Subtle hints about the saliva making you see the thoughts of the other one, or the reasons behind Urabe’s weirdness seem to weight a lot more than waiting for them to kiss. But as I said it is all way too basic and even disgusting for most to bother looking for those deeper meanings. Do you think there will be many who will consider this an unorthodox show around two lovers trying to communicate? They will see saliva, a promise for sex that will never come, otaku baits, and that’s it. The hook of the show ends up overshadowing its attempt to be anything more than sick entertainment. Take for example Kare Kano, a show with much similar themes that doesn’t try to lure you in with deviance. Its appeal was purely artistic and despite its simplicity in plot and eventual degradation in the second half, it is still a far more likable and interesting show to this one.

Other than that, the production values have a very retro feeling to them, as if the original manga was made in the 80’s. This seems to fit with the style of the director, since Watanabe Ayumu has only made old style shows, such as Doraemon movies and Space Brothers. The characters are drawn in a simple way and the backgrounds have basic outlay but colored in a way to feel almost elegiac and fitting to the theme of the show. The music themes are following a similar feeling by being soft and nostalgic. It looks nice to look at coming from a minor animation studio such as Gansis. I also liked Urabe’s voice actress; this is her debut work and she sounds really special and fresh compared to the tired rehashes we get from the so called veterans.

In all, it is definitely not your average ecchi comedy or school romance but it fails to keep you interested for more than a few episodes, and the whole drool thing can easily turn you off. A distinctive show thanks to its hidden themes but far from great for mes its priorities. The themes end up being more important than both the characters and the story, thus it is very easy to be bored and drop it midway.

And now for some excused scorings.