(12 episodes)
What’s it about ?
Adaptation of a light novel series going for political satire.
Characters
This is set in an impossibly sanitized Japan where have been outlawed dirty words and any public display of obscenity ; every citizen wears a collar detecting forbidden words and calling the Public Morals shock-troops on them. It goes without saying that it’s a very oppressive dystopia.
Okuma, our protagonist, is mostly trying to lay low (what with his father being an indecent terrorist), wishing to lead a normal life and attend the purest high-school in the country. Okay, his motives may not be entirely pure ; he’s very admirative of…
Anna, the student council president of said school, who makes big speeches about upholding morals and stuff. She’s a charismatic figurehead, I’ll give her that. And she does invite him to help out ; since he comes from a low-morals background, he could be better at identifying terrorist acts. Because yeah, she’s so sheltered that she has little clue what obscenity actually looks like. Which makes it hard to fight the likes of…
Blue Snow, a major indecent woman, who wanders around half-naked while giving out tons of naughty pictures and spouting out dirty jokes. Also, she’s obviously Ayame, the quiet vice-president, avenging her falsely-accused father with the help of a device jamming the cuss-word-detectors for three minutes a day that he gave her.
She outs herself to Okuma, thinking he infiltrated the student council like her. When he refuses to help, she just blackmails him to do it anyway. (And hey, it’d be a massive scandal that could damage Anna’s reputation if the truth became known, eh ?)
Blue Rose’s point, beside the free speech argument, is that education (and entertainment) has become so sanitized that the current generation of teenagers (who’ve lived their whole life under the law) have no clue how sex and reproduction even work anymore. They still think and gossip madly about it ; they’ve just lost the vocabulary and practical knowledge. And that’s how she wants to help them, despite lacking actual picture references herself.
Other characters include Fuwa, a very obsessed biology student who searches madly for any clue of how reproduction works (even Ayame finds her creepy), and Gouriki, the treasurer, whom Okuma saves from being falsely accused as a train molester (and is heavily hinted to be gay).
Production Values
Decent enough. And given the subject matter, the fanservice level is quite moderate.
Overall Impression
Wow, someone has a bone to pick with the Tokyo Youth Ordinance. And, well, there are less deserving targets of ridicule, so why not.
The big question if whether the writer has managed to channel his outrage and contempt into satire that’s actually funny. And, er, I’m not sure it works. It’s got some interesting ideas and clearly something to say, but the hit-or-miss ratio of the jokes is lower than I’d like. (It doesn’t help that most of the dirty jokes don’t carry well from Japanese, however valiantly the translators are trying to convey them.)
Still, it’s not often you see actual political satire in anime, so I’m willing to give it some rope to find its legs.
