Haiyoru! Nyaruani: Remember My Love(craft-sensei)

(11 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Standard harem setup, type B : young dude has cute girls leaving at his home for undisclosed reasons. Except they’re all anthropomorphic personifications of Lovecraftian Elder Ones.

Characters :

Mahiro, our male lead, appears quite bemused by the whole thing (it’s obviously not his choice). Dreading whatever next those crazy girls are going to do.

Nyarlko, our female lead, tries to play the magical girlfriend, despite the whole Elder One thing. Actually ends up overshadowed by her more colourful “siblings”. Obviously has some sort of nefarious agenda, but the show’s not telling.

Chtuko. Totally into Nyarlko.

Further episodes introduce Atoko (“nice” older sister, but with a filthy, filthy mind) and Nyarle (very, very shy).

Production values :

I had to check this wasn’t the Flash ONA that was produced a few months ago. Let’s be clear, this is barely animated at all (although it’s far from horrible looking). Also, the episodes are 4-minute-long… scratch that, if you remove the standard warning and the ED, you’ve barely got 2 minutes of actual footage per episode.

Overall Impression :

On paper, this sounded like a trainwreck. (Moe adaptation of the Lovecraft Mythos ? WTF ?) In practice, this is strangely endearing : the show is clearly aware that the setup makes no sense (and doesn’t spend any time trying to explain it, actually). There’s clear sense of impending doom, the least subtle sign of which being the “XX days until mankind’s extinction” announcement at the end of each episode.

I don’t really think it’s going anywhere (it’s too short for that), but as a mindless joke it works. And hey, it’s only a few minutes of your time.

via [In which I review] New anime, Winter 2010-2011.