(12 episodes)
What’s it about ?
Adaptation of a cringe comedy manga series.
Characters
Kiyoshi, our protagonist, has enrolled into yet another of those high schools that used to be female-only but are now opening up to boys. That’s less awesome than it sounded at first to him, since it’s hard to mingle into the massive numbers of girls.
So he soon finds himself into the small social circle of the few other boys who joined up : Takehito the history-obsessed nerd, Shingo the handsome guy who’s got relations, “Joe” who’s always sick and spits blood when stressed, and “Andre” the fat guy. It doesn’t help that they’re all horny dudes, and soon embark in a massively ill-conceived attempt to peep on the girls’ baths. Kiyoshi himself has misgivings about this, because of…
Chiyo, the one girl in his class with whom he’s managed to strike a conversation, thanks to their mutual love of sumo wrestling. (Well, technically Kiyoshi is just parroting what he remembers of his mom’s passion, but close enough.) You can be sure their relationship is going to crash and burn horribly.
Of course, the five peepers quickly get caught, thanks to the vigilance of “the Underground Student Council”, a trio of sadists who sentence them to build their own prison on schoolgrounds, and spend a month there. Unless they want to be expelled outright for their shameful behaviour ?
Production Values
The animation feels a bit stilted, especially for dialogue scenes ; you get the impression the animators had trouble bringing the manga’s quirky artstyle to life.
The fanservice levels are quite high, and there’s some degree of censorship going on here (especially in the bath scene), but nothing too obnoxious.
Overall Impression
Do you love seeing dudes getting repeatedly beaten up by castrating dominatrices ? (A fate they kinda deserved, honestly.) Well, then you’re in luck. Heck, even the boys themselves seem to enjoy it somewhat.
There’s a lot of buzz about the manga being the funniest thing ever, despite the dodgy premise. I’m not quite seeing it, at this point. There are some really good gags, and the show certainly knows how to ratchet up the absurdity quickly. It’s got awesome sight gags such as the five boys getting spy catsuits out of nowhere for their night expedition.
But there’s the huge problem of just about every character being despairingly one-note caricatures (including the protagonist), and the jokes quickly becoming quite repetitive.
The one thing that makes me want to watch another episode is the impression that the anime is rushing through these early stages of the plot, presumably so that it can quickly get to the good bits. But I only have so much patience.
