Love Flops Dropped

The third and final episode of Love Flops I watched focused on Amelia Irving, who starts the episode under Asahi’s covers trying to put his toeprints on a wedding license. Why yes, she’s not wearing pants. Her obsessively hypercompetitive personality hits a snag when a kanji test looms. She starts to learn, but only the symbols she finds in pornographic literature. Asahi helps tutor her, and her test scores improve drastically.

While Amelia is the most interesting character by dint of having an episode centered around her, and I heart her seiyu Taketatsu Ayana always and forever (and appreciate that she needs to pay the bills), I’m content with just three episodes of this mostly dumb mess and calling it a day. If I need tutoring rom-com, I’ll wait for We Never Learn S3.

Love Flops – 02 – Menage a Cinq

Asahi is so distracted by Aoi’s, er, display, he completely misinterprets her confession to him as a confession to going commando. When she asks him what he thinks and he says he might give it a try and isn’t one to judge others for their preferences, Aoi gets embarrassed and runs off. Not five minutes later Ilya confesses to him, Mongfa runs off and gives him hickeys when two men in black come by, and both Karin and Amelia try to ambush him with a spontaneous wedding.

After a day of absolute madness, Asahi is glad to be home…only to find it full of the mad ones. There they are, all lined up to welcome him home as if they were his five wives. His annoying robot plays a message from his father, who arranged all of this and is hoping Asahi ends up picking one of the girls (or the guy) to marry for real.

The audacity of having his house doubled in size in the few hours he was away from it is weird enough, but now we learn that his dad is undoubtedly someone of considerable means. We also learn that all five of his would-be brides (and one groom) are way too enthusiastic about asserting themselves.

They’re all over him and won’t leave him alone, and while this is clearly a fantasy for some, the episode does a good job heightening the sheer anxiety of dealing with five caffeinated wannabe waifus in a relatively small space. When Asahi escapes to the quiet blue night, it’s as much a relief for me as him!

Aoi ends up finding him at a shrine, and tells him how all of them are simply excited to finally meet their potential future husband, and it resulted in them being a little too overeager to please. With her gentle touch she’s able to convince him to come home and give this thing a try, while she and the others will “do their utmost” to tone it down a bit. Somehow I doubt that!

With that, Asahi’s wacky new home life begins. I’m honestly still not sure what to make of this, and will take at least one more episode to determine if it’s something I’ll watch to the end. So far it’s like train wreck from which I can’t quite look away!

Love Flops – 01 (First Impressions) – Five Uneasy Pieces

Kashiwagi Asahi lives in a spacious apartment with an AI assistant Lovelin (Nanachi again), and while listening to the morning news, his birthday of October 8 (just four days ago!) happens to be the luckiest for today. The mysterious fortune teller then lists off a series of “lucky words” that don’t make any sense until he starts his commute to school.

The first word, corner, refers to a rushing girl with purple hair and glasses colliding with  him when they meet at a blind corner. They end up in a risqué position, but he promises he didn’t “see anything” as a result of that position, and they part ways relatively amicably.

Then comes train, when he boards a completely empty car only for a busty green-haired woman in a chinese dress sits right next to him, falls asleep, clings to him, then nearly kicks his head off when he starts her awake.

The next “lucky” word is staircase, when a third beautiful girl stumbles down a flight of steps and she’s launched crotch-first into Asahi’s face. She mistakes the plastic banana holder in his pocket for being happy to see her, and smacks it before running off. So far, Asahi can hardly be blamed for these situations.

Next up is robotic cleaner, when he encounters said robot cleaner in a park trying to dispose of a diminutive redhead’s bra, then the girl herself. This girl accuses Asahi of hacking the robot into stealing her unmentionables. It then chases her away.

Next up is dog, as a silver-haired fellow is being humped by a very big and assertive pooch. To this, Asahi turns about and pretends not to see what is going on, rather than attempt to save the waifish lad and incur the dog’s wrath. It isn’t until he arrives in his newly reorganized class that Asahi learns that everyone he encountered is in his class.

The purple-haired girl with glasses is Izumisawa Aoi (Itou Miku), a transfer student; he short-haired girl is Karin Istel (Kouno Marika), from Germany;  the redhead is Amelia Irving (Taketatsu Ayana) from the USA; the silver-haired boy is Ilya Ilyukhin (Takahashi Rie) from Bulgaria; and the green-haired well-endowed lady from the train is his new teacher, Bai Mongfa, from China (Kanemoto Hisako).

Asahi can’t believe his rotten luck, even as he learns what the last lucky word, letter, referred to a love letter in his locker inviting him to meet after school. His contractually assigned friend Ijuuin Yoshio assures him he’s hit the jackpot; he has the pick of these three beautiful girls, one beautiful woman, and one beautiful guy. I’ll give Yoshio this: he’s refreshingly progressive!

As the rest of the episode unfolds, Asahi has second encounters with each of these potential suitors, in which he attempts to correct the misunderstandings that occurred in their first meetings. He and Aoi almost collide around a corner again, but don’t. Alas, when he fishes through his pockets for what he believed to be her dropped handkerchief, he instead produces Amelia’s bra, scandalizing Aoi and earning him a slap.

This encounter makes him late to order lunch, and there’s nothing left for sale, but he’s not alone; Karin was also too late, and is clearly very hungry. Because Asahi’s a decent guy, he offers her the banana he brought for lunch (this guy really likes bananas, having toasted one for breakfast), while also pointing out that its holder was what she mistook for his manhood. She meekly thanks him for the food.

Asahi then gets another chance to rescue Ilya from becoming unmarriable all over again, albeit not necessarily by choice. Ilya hides behind him, and the randy dog  targets him, even managing to somehow get his pants off. Asahi blacks out, but when he comes to, it’s looking up at a very grateful Ilya.

The dog also managed to bite him, which would normally mean he should probably get tested and treated for rabies, but since this is a goofy anime some alcohol and spray-on bandage will suffice. He receives this treatment from Mongfa-sensei, who doubles as school nurse, and apologizes for their earlier awkward interaction.

No sooner does she leave than Amelia Irving arrives with a very specific ailment: chafing in the chestal area. Fortunately for her, Asahi saved her bra from the trash robot. He returns it to her, and she apologizes for jumping to the earlier conclusion that he hacked the robot, having later realized that was…unlikely.

Having repaired four of the five new relationships he’s built on this most auspicious day, all that’s left is checking out what the final lucky word letter portends. Responding to the love letter, he arrives at a giant blossoming cherry tree he doesn’t remember being there (he has several memory gaps in this episode, though it’s never explained).

There, waiting for him, is none other than the first girl he ran into, Aoi. She’s there to confess her love to him, but because it’s so breezy, her skirt flips up and reveals to him that she’s been going commando ever since their first encounter. The item she dropped was not a handkerchief, but side-tying underwear. For once, Asahi is lucky here, as Aoi doesn’t realize what the wind is doing and the moment isn’t spoiled.

Love Flops thus introduces its lead and his harem of potential girlfriends by resorting to all of the shameless, risqué, fanservice-y clichés but the Bluetooth-enabled kitchen sink. While at times it seems like a very over-the-top satire of harem rom-coms, the fact that it may actually be a genuine and un-ironic contribution to the form almost makes it more amazing. It’s pure tasteless trash … and yet I couldn’t look away.

A Couple of Cuckoos – 12 – Not Yet

With Nagi and Sachi successfully making up, Erika decides she wants to take Nagi shopping after school…only he already has “something important” to do. That consists of having a study session with Hiro at the library, where they spend most of the time exchanging notes.

After that, Nagi is concerned with where else they can study more, but Hiro wants to show him more about herself, so she takes him to a kickboxing studio. Nagi isn’t completely physically incompetent, and thus impresses with his punch. Erika happens to walk by and see how much fun he and Hiro are having.

The last few episodes, Erika has been pretty okay with Nagi doing his own thing, and even said she’d root for him and Hiro, whom she adores. But actually seeing the two together has an effect she didn’t anticipate. She tries to counter that effect by reasserting their technical status as fiancés by announcing they’re going on a date together.

Just as Hiro did at the theme park, Erika takes the lead, buying Nagi some expensive clothes, taking him to a pet store to hang out with some reptiles, and finally going on an exhausting evening run. After each leg of their date, she stares at Nagi and looks disappointed. She eventually tells him: she saw him smiling like a goofball with Hiro, but he never smiles at her!

Nagi takes Erika’s problem to its logical conclusion: she got jealous and pissed seeing him and Hiro together, which means she likes him. Pointing this out doesn’t help matters, but Erika doesn’t outright deny it, simply saying “It’s not that I like you!…Yet!” before storming off.

Nagi, however, remains on the park bench until well after sundown, contemplating how Erika feels and how he in turn feels about that. He can’t deny his heart is racing, which makes him wonder if he likes Erika, and whether what he’s feeling for Hiro is love.

Nagi resorts to googling “love” then going back home for the first time in forever to consult his mega dictionary, but ends up finding a box full of love letters from his dad to his mom. Like, all of them were from his dad.

The letters are dumb, sappy, embarrassing…but his dad kept writing them, and his mom kept accepting them, and eventually accepted and returned his feelings, despite being seemingly out of his league. Sensing his son is questioning his love, he tells him to close his eyes and “ask his heart”—the one he loves should show up in his mind’s eye.

Nagi does this, and for the first time, all three girls appear at the same time, albeit with Erika in the center. Naturally, this is extremely confusing for Nagi, who has operated the entire first half of this series under the impression he loved Hiro and only Hiro. But between Erika and him living together and being pretty goshdarn great together and his realignment of how he sees Sachi, Nagi is finally seeing the full, multi-girl picture.

Of course, this is just the initial awareness stage. It remains to be seen whether he accepts that he has feelings of various levels for Erika, Hiro, and Sachi, or that one day a choice will have to be made that might break two of their hearts (or all three). But it’s a satisfying development nonetheless, and I liked his text response to Erika: he doesn’t like her either…yet. For both of them, “yet” is a shield, but it’s also a kind of invitation.

A Couple of Cuckoos – 01 (First Impressions) – Family Knots

Umino Nagi is a straight-A student at a good school who spends most of his time studying and battling his academic rival. He was also accidentally switched at birth. Now that he’s sixteen, he’s going to meet his birth parents. While his sister Sachi, who has been his sister for those sixteen years, decries her brother as an egg-headed loner, her tough act quickly falls when faced with the possibility of losing her brother.

Nagi pats her head and assures Sachi he has no intention of changing his family this late in the game. On his way to the meeting, he encounters a beautiful young woman with twin tails in a frilly dress, seemingly about to jump to her death. Nagi leaps into action, but inadvertently gropes the girl while trying to keep her from jumping. And she wasn’t going to really jump, she was just recording something for her Insta.

While not the most auspicious (or original) manner of meeting, the two soon bond over a common problem: family issues. The girl, one Amano Erika, is trying to start drama in order to convince her mom that she’s not getting married, while Nagi is a mix-up baby. When he learns what school he attends, she decides that he will be her fake boyfriend so she can gt the wedding called off.

When Nagi bristles at this plan and tries to walk away, she holds up very crisp 8K video of him groping her. While I wish there had been one of those *ding-dong* sounds accompanied by a PSA saying “Let’s not blackmail people”, this puts Nagi in a bind, and surrenders. The speed with which Erika resorts to an underhanded tactic is later revealed to be a clue about who she really is and where she comes from.

Despite having the wherewithal to blackmail and mocking Nagi for having never dated anyone, Erika has to google what boyfriends and girlfriends do. Both agree “doin’ it” isn’t a viable option, so she settles for photos of her with her bae. She gets it in her head that if they wear matching badass outfits and he looks tough, her parents will be more inclined to back down. Thus in the middle of this fake boyfriend ploy, they have a dress-up date.

Despite Erika blowing over $3,800 (on her limitless credit card, confirming she’s a rich girl in net worth) none of the photos they take look genuine, but rather look exactly like what they are: staged. Erika ends up going with their first photo, which was taken on accident and thus totally candid and natural, giving you “a sense of the air of the moment,” as she rather poetically put it. Alas, it doesn’t work, and her parents urge her to stop messing around and head home before curfew.

Before she can, Nagi enters another very well-worn but in this case nicely-executed trope of accidental romance anime: revealing surprising toughness when the girl is threatened by three stalkers. This happens very suddenly after an episode that had a nice steady flow, and I feel like another comic disclaimer not to commit assault should have popped up, but I still like how it revealed a new side to Erika: that Nagi’s former delinquent parents brought him up to win any fight he found himself in.

Erika genuinely appreciates his chivalrous behavior, and when her car shows up to take her home, lets him know she’ll delete the blackmail video, something I appreciated being resolved here and now rather than continue to loom over Nagi. Erika reveals that because she’s “like this” she has no friends, but that she and Nagi felt like friends for a day and it was fun. She also says, claiming to be joking later, that if it were him she had to marry, she might not have as much of a problem with it.

Naturally, when Nagi arrives to meet his birth parents, he learns both they and his own parents have arranged for their two kids to marry, so that they can all be one happy family. They just assumed the photo meant they’d already met and were dating!

Tha means his birth parents’ kid, the one he was switched with, is Erika, which explains why she has more of a delinquent streak in her (and sense of street fashion!) than a hoity-toity rich princess. In keeping with the nature she inherited form her birth parents, she follows through on her promise to punch her fiancé the way Nagi punched those punks.

That is one hell of a conceit, and once you suspend your disbelief such a ridiculous arrangement would ever be made between two very different pairs of parents without any input from their children, it looks to be an extremely fun one too. A Couple of Cuckoos arrives fashionably late but looks great and has a goofy but engaging concept, while the 24-episode run means we’ll have ample time to dig into who Nagi and Erika are and how they handle this arrangement.

The two cours also means there’ll be ample time to tell three parallel relationships: between Nagi and Erika, the kids switched at birth, between Nagi and Sachi, siblings not related by blood, and finally the surprise reveal of Nagi’s aforementioned academic rival, who is also his crush, Segawa Hiro (Touyama Nao), whom he’s vowed to confess to once he’s usurped her class ranking throne. Did I mention she can’t remember his name? It’s all a big, beautiful mess!

Mother of the Goddess’ Dormitory – 01 (First Impressions) – Undress of Grievances

Nagumo Koushi is a 12-year-old sixth grader who is abandoned by his father after their house burns down. He’s wandering the streets starving to death when a green-haired beauty takes pity on him and welcomes him into her college dorm, which is full of beauties, almost none of whom have any qualms about waltzing around with nothing or next to nothing on.

This is a notorious “problem dorm”, which means these college students are generally ostracized by their peers. I can’t really blame them, considering some of their conduct with a 12-year-old kid. I’ll never be too old for anime, but I believe I have gotten too old for this particular brand of nonsense.

It’s a shame, because a lot of the fanservice and voice work is pretty well done, and there are moments of actual emotional resonance…but yeah, I’m just not feeling this one.

Slime 300 – 07 – Total Submission

Halkara is in trouble. Accidental or not, she assaulted the Demon King, who is still out cold, and the court is not forgiving about that kinda thing, so she’s on death row! Azusa and her new found family work to get themselves and Halkara out of the mess she made, because what is family for?

Laika reveals she can transform into a huggable mini-dragon, and flies off to gather some medicinal herbs. Azusa whips up an analeptic that is sure to wake Percora up—the only problem is how to get to her. Beelz sends Vania with the palace blueprints, and disguises Azusa in sexy demon doctor cosplay.

The courtiers and their burly guards are not convinced by the getup, but it matters little as the Witch of the Highlands is able to easily overpower everyone standing between her and Pecora’s bedchamber. She’s about to administer the medicine when Pecora suddenly wakes up and headbutts her.

Azusa insists the foul-smelling green liquid is not poison, but Pecora insists she prove her innocence by beating her in a duel and not killing her. The Demon King blows the side off her own palace and launches a fusillade of lightning-quick strikes, hitting nothing but air as Azusa expertly dodges.

When Peco taunts her opponent by saying an elf’s life is riding on the outcome, Azusa goes on the offensive, shooting herself high into the air, then striking Pecora’s giant sword with a satisfying BOOOONG, sending it flying out of her arms. When it comes down, it shatters into a thousand shards.

It’s at this point that the battle suddenly takes a turn for the amorous. Pecora lost the duel, but she actually won, because it was actually a test of Azusa’s strength and worthiness to be Pecora’s “Dear Sister”. For a while now, Pecora has yearned for someone stronger than her to worship and obey.

With this in mind, the Demon King makes Azusa touch her face and order her with a dignified big-sister tone to free Halkara. When Azusa does so, Pecora practically melts with satisfaction. Who knew the Demon King’s greatest ambition was to simp for a formidable domme?

When Azusa and Pecora have tea together, Pecora mentions how she read (perhaps in a yuri manga) about how an older sister kisses her younger sister, and wants to give it a try. They’re all alone, so Azusa doesn’t see the harm in giving the Demon King a chaste peck on the cheek.

The thing is, from the way the scene is animated and Pecora’s reactions, it hardly appears chaste to Halkara, Laika, the twins, and Rosalie. Halkara for one is ready to immediately accept her master’s preference for women and wish her well, but Azusa clears things up by giving her two daughters their first kisses, who then kiss her back. Kisses for everybody!

Pecora isn’t done with the surprised, as at the awards ceremony she not only welcomes Laika onto the dais with Azusa, but presents Flatorte, giving all three awards for peace. That’s when things again get a little kinky, as Pecora orders Flatorte to allow Azusa to touch her horns.

For a Blue Dragon, there is no more powerful gesture of total submission, but Flatorte allows it. Little does Azusa know that by doing so, she’s bound Flatorte to her for life, just as dragon knights once bonded with dragons they bested. On the ride home aboard Vania, the leviathan laughs about an old joke, sending honey water flying.

Flatorte proves her fealty and absolute devotion to protecting Azusa by shielding her from the honey water shower, necessitating a bath. There, Azusa gives Flatorte her one and only order: that she think for herself, act of her own free will, and stop awating her orders.

To Flatorte, an order to be free seems contradictory, but it doesn’t matter, because it’s an order from her master. She obeys, and later enjoys some quality time in Azusa’s lap, later broken up by an envious Laika.

A red and blue dragon living together under one roof isn’t going to be easy, but it’s not going to be dull either, and their shared love for their master should ensure their discord will only ever go so far, and may even soften into amity. However it goes, Azusa’s harem family has grown once more.

The Hidden Dungeon Only I Can Enter – 02 – Coasting Along in Easy Mode

Noir was accepted to Hero Academy, but the 300,000-rel tuition is too-steep for his baronet father, so he has to come up with the cash by himself. At no point did I doubt he’d be able to do so by the end of the episode. Olivia suggests he becomes an adventurer, so he registers with Odin, which just happens to be Olivia’s guild.

The receptionist Lola is skeptical of Noir’s claims, even going so far as to say she’ll lift her skirt up if he’s proven right by the Discerning Tome. Of course he’s proven right, and Lola is a woman of her word…but what a weird wager! It’s almost as if she knows she’s in an ecchi harem show.

Someone who’s known all along what kind of show this is is Emma, who soon joins Noir out in the field. He successfully catches a bunch of rainbow caterpillars to the tune of 250,000 rel, and his success seems to turn Lola on, resulting in a standoff between her and Emma. Are there, like, no other men?

Noir and Emma head back out into the field to defeat a giant evil rabbit to earn the remaining 50,000 rel he needs for tuition. Since this battle takes up the most time and seems the most hazardous, you’d think the rabbit quest would be worth 250,000 and the grasshopper quest 50,000. I guess it’s best just not to think…at all.

When Emma’s attacks prove ineffective, Noir decides to the skills Olivia gave him to increase her attributes, but Noir doesn’t feel like coughing up 700 LP, so he buffs her weapon adeptness instead to the tune of 500 LP. He gets more than enough LP to cover the magic with a slobbery ear-nibbling session with Emma. Her moans end up luring the rabbit to them, and she defeats it as easily as everything has fallen into Noir’s lap so far.

He gets the 300,000 rel he needs, he gets another hug from Lola and Emma (who make up after a rough start) and thanks to a skill he created that lets him store the dead rabbit in a trans-dimensional space, he ingratiates himself with the entire guild by offering it for a feast. When pressed for a speech, he thinks of how none of this would be possible without Olivia…only to not so much as mention her to the guild of which she was a member.

Looks like the easy times and make-out sessions are only going to continue from here. As I said last week, those looking for serious conflict, adversity, or any kind of surprises are barking up the wrong tree. This week I can add “receptionists unwilling to arbitrarily debase themselves” and “thrilling battle animation” to the growing list of stuff not in this anime.

The Hidden Dungeon Only I Can Enter – 01 (First Impressions) – Born on Third

As a “mere” baronet, Noir Starga may be at the bottom of the noble caste pyramid of his nation. His family isn’t fuck-you rich, all the higher classes look down on them, and he has to get an actual job to support himself. But while his librarian job is stolen by a higher-ranking baron the day he’s supposed to start, life seems awfully sweet for Noir!

For one thing, he has two living parents, despite being a character in a fantasy anime! He also has a cute brocon imouto in Alice and a smokin’ hot childhood friend in Emma Brightness (excellent name), whom I’m just going to pretend is the non-masochistic sister of KonoSuba’s Darkness. Noir and Emma were going to be co-workers, but she still has a solution for the migraines he suffers: swappin’ spit!

So far we’ve got a kid with a loving fam, a future wife, and oh yeah, that Great Sage skill tells him everything about the world, including the unexplained. Again, pretty sweet life. When making out with Emma cures his headaches, Noir’s free to use it to locate a hidden dungeon just 10 klicks from town. There, he hears Horie Yui’s voice and follows it to the buxom adventurer Olivia Servant.

Olivia has been chained up for two centuries, and is just happy to talk to another person. Rather than let her considerable skills go to waste, she copies and bestows them upon Noir. They are Get Creative (conjure any skill), Bestow (give any skill to anyone) and Editor (modify any skill). The only catch: the skills use a ton of Life Points (LP), gained by, well, living: essentially enjoying money, food, and sex.

Noir tries out his new OP skills in the dungeon, but the LP expenditure tires him out. He learns lying in Alice’s lap restores a bit of LP, while embracing a more daringly-dressed Emma the next day restores a lot. When she complains of shoulder pain from her rather prodigious bust, he uses Editor to temporarily shrink it; she has him undo the change immediately.

Armed with so many useful skills and numerous ready sources of LP, Noir changes course and decides to take the Hero Academy entrance exam. The exam begins with the admitees splitting off into parties of three, and members of the higher castes mock Noir for even speaking to them, but thankfully Emma joins him, as she only got a job at the library to be with him. The haughty vicountess Lenore completes the triad.

They split up looking for valuable monster loot, and Noir heads to the hidden dungeon where he encounters a Level 99 Grim Reaper. Despite only being Level 23, Noir has enough LP to Create the Heavy skill and Bestow it on the Reaper to slow it down, then creates a giant stone bullet and shoots it at the Reaper, defeating it.

The Reaper skull ends up giving Team Lenore the edge, and then some: they scored 128,000 points when the next two teams only managed 11,550 and 5,890. Noir was misled by the fact Olivia is a master of the OP skills she gave him, to the point even a Level 99 Boss is a mere scrub.

If you’re looking for complex characters, conflicts, or drama, you will find none in The Hidden Dungeon Only I Can Enter. If you’re looking for a competently-rendered non-isekai renaissance-y setting packed with cute characters, JRPG rules, understated ecchi, and basically a lot of the hero getting his way without much effort at all (as befits his noble station), you’ve come to the right place!

DanMachi III – 10 – The Western Door

Ever since Eina slapped Bell he’s kept his distance, which has put Eina more and more on edge. Her emotions are a jumble of regret and resentment, causing her to snap at Hermes, but he’s in a forgiving mood, so he tells her if she’s looking for Bell, he’s not at his Home.

Where Bell is is Daedalus Street with the rest of his fam. Hestia and Haruhime are coordinating the operation from a rooftop, using walkie-talkie gems from Fels. At the same time, Finn leads the Loki effort to track down the Xenos. Expecting Bell to be a diversion, he has Ais—and only Ais—follow him.

What follows is some pretty funny shit if you’ve been following DanMachi for the past two-plus seasons. From her rooftop perch Ais witnesses not one or two but four different women approach Bell in the streets, Since she can’t quite hear what they’re saying from her distance, she begins to suspect Bell is some kind of womanizing delinquent!

Those women are, in order of appearance, Raza from Miach Familia, Aisha and Ryuu from Hermes, and finally Aina, whose dialogue with him is the most misleading. Hermes had actually wanted her to give him a certain bracelet, but she misses her chance when Bell runs off.

Adding to the chaos on the streets is Lili, using her transmogrifying ability to imitate an al-miraj, which Loki children chase, breaking formation. Raza uses another of Fels’ magical items to create illusions of Bell and monsters for other children.

While Ais watches all this nonsense unfold, she ever so briefly takes her eyes off Bell, allowing him to give her the slip with his invisible cloak. Even so, she can still sense his presence—this is Ais we’re talking about—so to buy Bell a little more time, Ryuu challenges Ais to a sparring session, hoping the level boost Haruhime gave her will be enough to delay Ais sufficiently.

When it’s time for the Xenos to emerge from their hiding spot and go on the move, Lili imitates Finn to order Loki children to return to the operational base, freeing the way for the Xenos to head towards the West Gate.

Finn wasn’t aware of that gate’s existence, but judging from the Xenos’ movements, now he knows that must be what it is. After Lyd calls out to the other isolated Xenos groups, Makoto and Welf use his magical swords to create ice barriers between the Xenos and their attackers.

Everything is going swimmingly until Gareth smashes his way into the middle of things, scattering the Xenos. Makoto and Welf try to keep him on ice, but he’s a tough cookie and won’t be restrained long. Worse still, in the shockwave of Gareth’s axe strike, Wiene is separated from the others, and wanders off in the completely wrong direction.

Thankfully Hestia and Haruhime can see Wiene on the map, so Haruhime decides to go after the little vouivre, but Wiene is unfortunate enough to run afoul of one Tiona Hiryute first. Haruhime is on her way, but she has scant offensive abilities. Hestia could lead Bell to Wiene, leading to a clash between Argonaut-kun and Tiona. And then there’s Ais up on the rooftops, searching for her former dance partner…it’s one fine mess!

Dokyuu Hentai HxEros – 02 – Nothing Can Stand Against Two Beating Hearts

This week we get a look into Retto’s daily life at HxEros HQ, and it’s what you’d expect of three girls with high H-Energy levels. First, the dog Runba steals Momozono Momoka’s panties and gives them to Retto, and she reacts by condemning him for not taking them himself like a man.

Then Tenkuuji Sora wakes up in Retto’s own futon, having mistaken his room for hers. Finally there Shirayuki Maihime, the “most decent” of the three, who drops kibble down her shirt compelling Runba to burrow up her shirt and lick her chest.

So we have the brash, uninhibited girl, the sleepy forgetful girl, and the maternal airhead girl. All just thin caricatures so far, but it’s enough for now. As for Kirara, one meeting with Retto’s uncle and she’s out, not ready to hear she “has what it takes” (i.e. Eros) to be a crucial part of the team.

Back at school Kirara is back to her Iron Maiden act, breaking the heart of a guy on the baseball team, and Retto lets her be, honoring his promise not to tell anyone what went down between them. Kirara can’t help but remember just how precocious and forward she used to be with Retto, even putting his hand on her chest then pulling him close so they could compare heartbeats.

When Kirara asks why Retto bothers fighting the Kiseishuu, it’s because while he can’t do anything about the fact he and Kirara’s relationship was ruined by them, he’s determined not to let it happen to anyone else. Then a bee-like Kiseishuu arrives on campus and attacks the baseball player with a crush on Kirara.

The censor bug is drawn to the kid by his lewd thoughts about Kirara, but while he’s definitely heartbroken about her brusque rejection, he still doesn’t want the bee-woman stealing all of his emotions, and Kirara isn’t about to stand by and let her.

So she goes in, confronts her, and very nearly ends up on the wrong end of her stinger. The moment Kirara thinks her goose is cooked, Retto storms in and delivers a devastating uppercut to the bee-woman, defeating her on the spot, keeping his promise never to let a bug touch Kirara ever again.

The force of his attack is such that it destroys both his and her clothes, however, so when the baseball kid comes back with a cop, they have to huddle up inside an unlocked car. Naked and sweating so close to Retto, Kirara can’t help but remember how it felt comparing heartbeats as kids…only this time it’s her heart beating faster.

Heartened by those good old days when she and Retto had fun together, Kirara reverses her decision and decides to join the HxEros after all. All she asks is that Retto refrain from using her to “recharge” his “stores” of H-Energy and/or Eros. Just as she’s about to note there’s an exception to that rule for emergencies, a stuff breeze gives Retto a full look at her lower half, and the mood curdles instantly!

Over at HxEros HQ Momoka is eager to show Kirara around, but perhaps a bit too eager to have the new quintet bonding in a mixed bath. That said, there’s an unintended positive result of dropping Retto into a pile of naked ladies and accidentally groping Kirara: she gets such a shot of H-energy that when she raises her fist in frustration it not only pokes a hole in HQ’s roof, but destroys the episode’s final boss in one shot!

“GUILTY PLEASURE” are the two words constantly flashing in my head as I watch this funny trashy lunacy. The show is keenly aware of what it is and not ashamed to go all out and flaunt it. And all the details are wonderful: everything from suggestive imagery (upturned faucets, “creative” camera angles) to beats like the bee woman protesting “First I’ve heard of it!” in response to Retto’s promise.

There’s definitely not much to other HxEros, but there’s also an underlying sweetness and depth to the central couple that makes it easier to invest in this beyond just naked bug-busting nonsense. And with above-average visuals and music, it’s a show I have no qualms watching.

P.S. The title of his review paraphrases the Klingon legend of the power of two beating hearts in love destroying the gods and burning the heavens to ashes!

Hamefura – 09 – Anna Bakanina

Ever since bonking her head, Catarina has been possessed by the soul of a middle-class modern Japanese high school student, which means she’s a lot more likely to befriend her maid than the originally “programmed” Catarina. So it’s no surprise Catarina has befriended her maid, Anna.

Most of this episode is told from the perspective of Anna, who may not be a member of Catarina’s harem per se, but does owe her present life and happiness to Catarina’s kindness and strength.

This show is about more than Catarina unwittingly making all of her friends fall madly in love with her. It’s also about her intentionally trying to better the lives of others. When she successfully advances to the second year at magic academy, Catarina throws a pajama party for her girlfriends, and even suggests a boys-only party for the guys.

When talk turns to romance and the girls (taking a page from Catarina) ask Anna about her prospects for marriage, Catarina discretely deflects the question, saving Anna much awkwardness. It’s a gesture that indicates that while she’s too dense to sense the infatuation wafting off her friends, she’s not too dense to detect discomfort in her other friend, Anna, and has her back.

Anna needed someone’s back. The bastard daughter of a rich baron and his maid, when her mom died in a fire and her own arm was burned, the baron basically disowned her, as she no longer had any value as a marriage pawn. That’s when the distantly-related Claes family hired Anna as a maid, and she met Catarina.

Catarina was your typical willful spoiled haughty child of rich people, until she hit her head and…changed. Before she knew it, Catarina was inspiring Anna to start standing up for herself rather than acting so meek and submissive, and Lil’ Catarina has her back when it comes time to refuse her arranged marriage.

If it weren’t for Catarina being a good person and friend to Anna, there’s no telling what awful husband she would have ended up with. In any case, being apart from Catarina wasn’t a viable option for Anna, who had never even celebrated her birthday before she befriended Catarina.

To this day, she keeps Catarina’s little gifts in a wooden box she got from her the first time they celebrated. Anna’s story seemingly comes out of nowhere, but we knew Catarina was all about treating everyone equally regardless of their station in life, and despite it’s sudden inclusion in the story, I still admit to tearing up when Anna told her story. Now we know the first person to fall for her!

As Catarina and Alan had a romantic segment at the end of last week’s outing, it was looking like it would be Gerald’s turn at the end of this week’s, as he gets a fancy handwritten invitation from Catarina. With a sudden hop in his step, he devises the perfect gift for her: a new pair of gardening shears. He was listening, and he knows she’s not like other girls!

Alas, when Gerald arrives, he finds everyone else has not only been invited, but gave Catarina the same gift (they were all listening, and know she’s not like other girls)! She’s gathered them there not to confess her love, but because it’s her Harvest Day and she wants everyone to help out. To that end, she’s had matching olive-green gardening uniforms for everyone…which is an awesome sight to behold! The Cult of Catarina is officially militarized.

Yup, things couldn’t be going any better for Catarina, and it’s frankly been refreshing and heartwarming to see. Unfortunately, nothing ever lasts, and Catarina seems poised for some kind of reckoning, as an anti-Catarina group has been formed from those she stopped from bullying Maria.

They vow to “expose all of the evil deeds” she has committed, which confuses Catarina…as well as myself! What “evil deeds” could these be? Are these girls simply running on older otome code from back when Catarina was programmed to be the chief villainess? Regardless, there’s trouble in paradise…unless she can make this posse fall for her, of course…

Oh…my…GOD she’s in an eggplant costume…

Kakushigoto – 03 – The Accidental Harem

I came into Kakushigoto hoping it would be a lightweight feel-good slice-of-life father/daughter comedy. Yet every time it jumps to a future where an 18-year-old Hime has apparently lost her father pushes it into striaght-up drama territory. Everything in the present and 10-year-old Hime exhibits a thin layer of wistfulness, lending even mundane or comedic scenes more emotional weight, like the shading of a manga frame.

This week only begins (and doesn’t end) with a time leap, so we can still ease into the present-day slice-of-lifeness. But we learn something definitively that I had been suspecting: the house at the top of the hill is the exact same plan as the one 10-year-old Hime lived in. Kakushi apparently had a copy of the house built to the exact specs of the older one…where perhaps he and his wife lived before Hime?

In Mangaland, Kakushi’s entire staff has injuries, a stroke of bad luck and coincidence, so his editor hires a substitute replacement. The regular assistants are impressed with his speed and efficiency, but Kakushi deems him “too efficient” for an assistant.

That confuses them at first—how could an assistant be too fast and efficient?—until they find that assistant published his first work. Once an assistant has reached a certain level of skill, there’s nothing stopping them from striking out on their own, without even mentioning how he worked for Kakushi for a few days or so!

As for the curious design of the house, Hime’s friends wonder out loud if Hime and her dad are poor (of course, one of them has an elevator and concierge in her house, so wealth is surely relative). Hime had never thought about finances before, but takes it upon herself to pinch every penny.

Kakushi comes home on a hot summer day to find the A/C suspiciously turned off and Hime pressing her body against the nice, cool floor. He proceeds to tell her he makes far more than the average salaryman, almost betaying that he’s not really a salaryman before recovering and saying he’s more like upper middle management. He also almost explains why the house looks the way it does, but stops himself.

Since Hime found not only clothes but age-appropriate cooking recipes in her 10-year-old box (her mom really went the extra mile), Kakushi allows Hime to cook with the housekeeper. Turns out the housekeeper is from Indonesia, and so puts an Indonesian flair on the recipe. This mirrors a situation at work where the studio is digitized and they receive a rainy day from a remote artist, only it’s an Indonesian day, not a Japanese one.

Hime’s school sports festival arrives, and Kakushi tries to get himself in shape should he have to do anything athletic. There’s a fun bit discussing the various muscle groups used while reading manga. Then he has trouble drawing a high school girl character aspiring to be an idol, only to come home and find a high school girl aspiring to be an idol in his house, the guest of her first-ever fan, Hime.

The girl, Senda Naru, is so surprised that an adult (and a man) is so eager to hear her story (because Kakushi needs material for his manga), that by the time they part ways she’s developed a bit of a thing for him. She won’t be the first!

As Kakushi openly expresses his worries about his daughter not having a mother around, he inadvertently compliments both his cooking teacher You and the local florist Kumi. When the clothier sells his salaryman disguise and he has to go out in public in white tie like a groom, he runs into Rokujou, who assumes he’s proposing and wigs out.

By the time the festival rolls around, Hime has an entire cheering section composed of her dad, and his rather sudden but diverse harem: You, Kumi, Rokujou (who turns into a demon when she sees Kakushi with the other women), and the aspiring idol Naru. Yet Hime is more bemused than appreciative; for all of Kakushi’s worries, Hime isn’t missing a mother in the slightest. If anything, she’d rather spend more time with just him!

The fact she’s so naturally mature about these things at ten years old (not to mention how quickly she learns how to clean and cook) makes be believe that despite having neither parent alive, 18-year-old Hime is going to be just fine. That means Kakushi did a great job, despite his insecurities … which makes the time leaps a little less sad.