(26 episodes)
What’s it about ?
It’s an adaptation of an otome game. You see those romance-simulators where the player can chose between a harem of characters ? This is the female-oriented version, where the player-stand-in is surrounded by a bunch of pretty boys.
Characters
Tamaki, our generic female protagonist. With her parents off doing cooperation work over in Africa or something, she’s moving back to the countryside to her grandmother’s estate. Which is very convenient, because she’s the next in line to be the Local Princess Protector Of Stuff, and Granny’s about to retire. She has no clue what this is all about, although she does seem to have the innate skill required to cast spells against the random creepy things crawling around the place.
Takuma, the mandatory gruff bishie who begrudgingly escorts her the whole episode (voiced by Tomokazu Sugita, impeccable as always). There seems to be no depth whatsoever to him besides that. He just grumbles and reluctantly gives some exposition from time to time.
Tamaki enrolls at the local high school, and there are a bunch of of female classmates that might have gotten a chance at becoming supporting characters if Takuma hadn’t dragged Tamaki out of the classroom within 30 seconds so that she could meet more bodyguard bishies. There’s the short one with a size complex, the quiet deadpan one, and the handsomer-than-the-others glasses dude.
Just in case you’re wondering whether there’s actually a plot here, the last minute shows us Tamaki’s Evil Blonde Counterpart and her squad of underlings. Not that they do anything yet, mind you.
Production Values
Slightly better than you’d expect. The random monsters do look suitably creepy and menacing, at the very least.
Overall Impression
This could have been worse. Sugita pulls off his character without being too annoying. Some of the jokes work. (I like that Tamaki’s bodyguards are called “The Five” despite there only being four of them.) The monsters look good.
But the key issue here is that it’s dreadfully unoriginal. There’s nothing to set it apart from any other series in the same genre. None of the characters display any dimensions beyond their respective archetypes. To put it bluntly, I just don’t care, and I can’t see myself bothering with another episode ; nearly everything else this season looks more interesting than “Generic Otome Game Adaptation #1642”.