OP Sequence

OP: 「BINKAN あてんしょん」 (BINKAN Attention) by Hashimoto Chinami , Ogura Yui, and Kanemoto Hisako

「美月SOS」 (Mitsuki Esuouesu)
“Mitsuki SOS”

Awkward censorship, weird pacing, few explanations, and barely a peep from the main character until 10+ minutes into the episode. If this is how this series intends to continue, it’s not making a great case for itself.

Mitsuki is the Main Character…Isn’t She?

Disclaimer: I have read a few chapters of the manga, which was how I previewed this show. In it Mitsuki (Hashimoto Chinami) was clearly the main character, with the manga – at least for the few chapters I read – barely-to-never taking her older (step)brother Yuuya’s (Majima Junji) point of view. Here this wasn’t the case, with the story taking Yuuya’s point of view for the first half of the episode, and employing some weird pacing to boot.

I don’t get it. The real conflict in this story is Mitsuki’s, in that she has to deal with the pushy ghost Kotobuki Hiyori (Ogura Yui), while Yuuya’s troubles with his hard-to-understand imouto are a small counter point, just something for us to chuckle about before we get back to Mitsuki’s trials. I don’t understand why they put so much focus on Yuuya this episode at the expense of explaining what the hell is going on with Hiyori! I can only guess that the producers assumed their (predominately male) audience wouldn’t be able to relate to a female protagonists as well as they would Yuuya, though perhaps that’s too uncharitable of me. If I’m right that’s just wrong though. I could related to Mitsuki just fine, if they’d give her the time she needed.

Ecchi Ogura Yui, Explain Yourself!

Censorship is a bitch, at least when it intereferes with the story like this. But no, that’s not right–while censoring the TST belt when it was on Mitsuki looked really silly, the whole Hiyori assaults Mitsuki was just unnecessary. Or rather, it was unnecessary when it was done at the expense of explaining what’s going on with the TST! If anything that’s the biggest sin of this episode, of not doing the necessary work to get us interested in the plot in favor of an extended sequence where a ghost forces a girl to masturbate. That was a ridiculous sentence.

Was That the Climax of This Episode?!

The climax of this episode was, effectively, when Mitsuki finally found some relief. Once again, to reiterate – instead of explaining what was going on, they focused the first episode on the difficulties the TST creates when Mitsuki needs to pee. Relevant, and could have been played for embarrassment or laughs, but I fail to see why the first episode was the time for this. Also any show that focuses so much on a high school girl peeing in the first episode is one that isn’t endearing itself to me. That too was a ridiculous sentence, and a regretful one as well.

Looking Ahead

I’m not going to lie, this first episode didn’t endear itself to me. I’ll probably watch an episode or two more to see if the staff can right the boat, but this was not encouraging. I hope they can though, because I found the manga far more enjoyable than this first episode illustrated. Either way I have no plans to continue blogging this series, so if you keep watching feel free to check in with me on twitter and tell me if it becomes amazing.

tl;dr: @StiltsOutLoud – Odd pacing, egregious censorship, few explanations, & confusion about who the main character is. Not a great start here guys #imocho 01

Random thoughts:

  • Also, I’m not sure ecchi Ogura Yui really works. In my eyes she’s more the type to be assaulted rather than do the assaulting, at least if her off-screen interactions with Hanazawa Kana are any indication. HanaKana loves that Yui-chan, lemme tell ya!

Check out my blog about storytelling and the fantasy novel I’m writing at stiltsoutloud.com. The last four posts: Explain yourself, Mix it up, Look for execution, and Why I don’t write fanfiction.

 

ED Sequence

ED: 「Charming Do!」 by Ogura Yui

Preview

86 Comments

    1. “Also, I’m not sure ecchi Ogura Yui really works. In my eyes she’s more the type to be assaulted rather than do the assaulting, at least if her off-screen interactions with Hanakaza Kana are any indication. HanaKana loves that Yui-chan, lemme tell ya!”

      Who is Hanakaza Kana?

      1. Because of the censorship you guys won’t be able to see the awesome oppai hand technique in proper animation.

        Yup wait for the AT-X version, TheMoondoggie.
        You will see that the animation per frame done right in the YuriXEcchi scene…. if AT-X will save us.

      1. So AT-X has censorship too huh? I can imagine why: japanese media has been invaded by moralfaggots since long ago. If the BD too has censors then this show failed from the get go.

        IF THEY’RE GONNA SHOW A MIDDLESCHOOLER MASTURBATING THEY BETTER SHOW A DAMN MIDDLESCHOOLER MASTURBATING! I CARE NOT FOR MORALFAGGOTRY.

        TheMoondoggie
    2. I will not stand for censorship! Especially censorship that makes no sense. It reminds me of when they censor hentai….WHY?!?! I gave many an anime that was actually decent like Sekai no Ichiban a pass for its cruel censorship, but this anime is just bullshit.

      What’s the point of censoring when you basically make an anime where a girl gets molested by a ghost?!? It’s like taking one step forward and two steps back. Go all the way dammit!

      The anime studio and probably the author if they get any say in the production just went full retard. Never go full retard.

      Magoiichi
      1. I forgot which episode of which anime specifically broke the fourth wall by a character desperately urging the rest of the cast not to flout the Tokyo Bill,(http://bit.ly/1d7NQOr) but eh, from that alone, I guess the Tokyo Bill applies to any anime that gets aired on a television channel. BD versions are usually free from that restriction.

        But yeah, Project No.9 (producing studio for this ImoCho anime) is really trying to push the limits of the censorship loop I guess.

        Techim
  1. So… the girl is the interesting character, but the protagonist “was an ordinary student until one day (insert plot device here) happened.” …Arg. That is one of the quickest ways to turn me off towards a series, when a girl or girls are obviously the interesting characters who a story is really about, but someone in charge decided the story just HAD to have a male protagonist instead, just because. And due to that male having been tossed in there “just because” he is inevitably the least interesting character in the series, and the least-deserving of the protagonist title.

    This issue, and various related issues with generic anime males have gotten bad enough that I’m actually not likely to even try watching a series that has a male protagonist until and unless someone else reviews it first and proves that this sort of thing isn’t the case, or that it’s good enough despite it.

    Wanderer
      1. To be fair, he has a point. It does feel like they gave unnecessary focus to Yuuya because someone felt they needed the male character to be more protagonist-y. He worked well as the object of Mitsuki’s affections / frustrations, but putting him more in the light doesn’t do him a service…not because he’s a bad character, but because he was never designed to be more than a nice, decent guy. And nice guys don’t carry a show well.

        Stilts
      2. @Stilts:And nice guys don’t carry a show well.

        O.o… Huh? Surprised you would make that statement without further clarification. Just a few examples of “nice guy” male leads who can and do carry shows well: Touma from To Aru Index/Railgun, Issei from High School Dxd, Kenshi from Isekai no Seikishi Monogatari, Shinichi from Outbreak Company, and Tori from your favorite (or one of them) Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon.

        My guess is that you mean that having ONLY the trait of being a nice guy is insufficient (in which case I agree)… especially in cases where that is combined with uber density. 😉

        More on point, I wasn’t planning on watching the show originally, but decided to give it a shot. Frankly, who’s the main character isn’t the biggest issue IMO. From what I saw, the show’s main “selling point” is the near hentai level ecchi scenes which are then nerfed due to censorship. Meh. Coin toss whether I’ll give the show another EP since I can’t see how that would change my view.

        daikama
      3. My point was that he’s ONLY a nice, decent guy, and that’s why he can’t carry the show. Characters who have other attributes aren’t “nice guys” to me, they’re characters who happen to be nice. I’ll generally only call a character a nice guy (or a Nice Guy) if that’s their majority trait.

        Stilts
  2. Well the chastity belt montage in the OP got a laugh out of me.

    As far as the incest aspect of the show, I get the feeling its more of a parody in the sense that Hiyori seems to use Mitsuki as a vehicle for her affections.

    Longhaul
  3. The main character confusion was my main problem with this first episode. There’s no excuse for not giving Mitsuki a better introduction in her own show.

    Though it doesn’t seem like that will be a problem going forward. Which is good; I prefer imouto stuff when the imouto is the main character.

    Tre
  4. Silly series, and too raunchy for most of us.
    Come on, ghost possessing a girl only to masturbate? Magical Chastity Belt?
    This is straight from the hentai playbook.
    If you really enjoy this series, please don’t mention it here. Fuyukai desu!

    ewok40k
  5. Ecchi. That’s all I can say about this show. I always thought this is Stilts’ area(he is the ecchi blogger) so I’m a bit surprised he’s not planning to blog it.

    I guess times changed. 🙁

    TheMoondoggie
    1. How I think Stilts prioritize his genre and…. no his not much into Ecchi:
      1.) Fantasy(specially with a mahou shoujo, fantasy adventure, and cute girls)
      2.) Cute Imouto/Loli/Bishoujo/ + Slice-of-Life
      3.) Anime with badass character for Chiwa Saito to voice
      4.) Cute Kana Hana voice (specially something like France-tan)
      5.) Cute Imouto(not a loli)
      6.) Kawaii Trap-kuns
      7.) Loli(stand-alone)
      8.) Ecchi
      9.) Sci-Fi

      If Stilts is busy, only no. 1 to 5 are used for his prioritize genre.

      If you want an ecchi blogger, go find someone like Seishii.

  6. I…don’t quite know what I just watched. ‘:/

    I’ll give it the 3 episode rule before I make any final judgements, but I’ll say that this first episode wasn’t bad, but more along the lines of “…um…OK?”. …yeah.

    P.S. How did Mitsuki not realize that she (A) wasn’t wearing her panties on the ride home and (B) was now wearing a chastity belt? It’s like some weird anime character disease were they can’t feel underwear or something. XD

    platinum
  7. Won’t lie and act all conservative. As a guilty pleasure, I enjoyed it immensely. As a fan of the whole possession fetish, I loved the fact that they didn’t pull any punches with the possibilities that possession entails. With more G-rated body-switching/possession stuff, anything sex and toilet related gets swept aside post-haste.

    While good plot/characters/blah blah blah would add to the viewing experience, I can’t say that I didn’t get what I expected.

    1. I don’t necessarily disagree with your reaction. It’s the fact that I read the first few chapters of the manga and saw that the story was executed better that makes me especially shake my head. That raised my expectations above this, and disappointment entailed.

      Stilts
  8. Someone correct me if I’m wrong but shouldn’t shows that put a strong focus on ecchi in particular strive to at least have attractive designs for their male/female(based on what audience they’re for) characters? Not saying that alone is enough to carry a show but this one doesn’t even have that.

    MgMaster
  9. well this was…weird.
    where should I begin? I guess from the beginning..HA!
    first 10 minutes were fine. really. no, it was not Oreimo. but I like the fact that it’s touching the border between real siscon complex and something that is very very close to it. and it was like they were trying to push some plot. however, then come the 2nd half and I wasn’t happy about it. first, the ghost character is pretty annoying. second – censoring.
    now let’s talk about censored scenes. there is what called ecchi and there is the next phase. I think in ImoCho’s case the principle of “all or none” should have been exist. I mean..it was almost one step from pure H-game or Hentai scene. look at those scenes…all set. it’s not like censoring them gonna change something. you’ve provided description like H-game, you showed almost everything. what’s gonna change?why stop yourselves? in cases like that..it’s “all or none”. either you do it or you don’t. going 90-95% of H scenes and stop won’t achieve anything. and really, I am not saying this because I wanted H-scenes. no, thanks. but looking on the screen with full-time censoring was just too occurred since it was all set.
    (side note: I am not saying “all-or-none” principle should always exist. like in machine-doll where it was OK because they didn’t get to the threshold of “all or none”. they were close, but it was still ecchi. something I can’t say about ImoCho).
    this and the annoying ghost made the 2nd half weird. the whole thing about pushing plot and theme presented in 1st half almost gone and was replaced by..something weird and as Stilts said, it became confusing and odd pacing.

    thedarktower
  10. I haven’t been reading the reviews on RandomC lately, because they’ve all been, well, kind of “porridge” is the best metaphor I can think of now. Flat. Unwilling to take a stand. Along the lines of ‘Yeah, this series is a pretty generic derivative, but it’s okay I guess, if you like that’. Now this is a review that comes out “punching”. And after reading the review, I couldn’t agree more with Stilts. He pretty much nails it on the head. Terrible pacing, out-of-place censorship (If it weren’t for fanservice, why else we came here for?), and above everything else bland and uninteresting characters. Overall a very flat first episode.

    Next, looking forward to the review for Maken-ki

    Amiluhur
    1. Yeah, ecchi in itself is fine. The issue is what it entails and how it’s executed.

      As mentioned in the summary, it seems like they ramped up the ecchi as opposed to the manga version, and given the premise, it’s not surprising, but at the same time, that extra ecchi came at the cost of pacing and any initial plot/character development.

      Such poor execution is what caused, for example, the anime version of High School of the Dead to lose points with me as it went on. While the manga version had ecchi, it also made sure to keep the ecchi largely separate in its own time (like when the group finally finds their first bit of safety and able to relax a bit). The anime version seemed to just eliminate any such boundaries and smashed the ecchi and darker/tense/etc moments together as hard as they could, so there were really badly-timed ecchi moments thrown into what should’ve otherwise been darker, tense, heart-pounding battles against a zombie horde with the group’s survival on the line (Matrix breasts anyone?).

      It just really trivialized the situation and made it seem like some silly parody.

      HalfDemonInuyasha
    2. In RC’s defense, the reason we often end up saying “it’s good if you like that sort of thing” is that we’re pretty good at calibrating our expectations. We go into generic stuff knowing it’ll be generic, so if it’s generic we’re like okay, that was expected. I ended up giving this show a hard time because of the gap between expectations (based on the manga, which was pretty good) and what we received (which was not so good). Thus it got a beating.

      Plus we typically write about shows we’re interested in, so they get a bit of the benefit of the doubt.

      I have ended up flaying a few shows before, and a few times I’ve ended up regretting it (Enzo always chides me about how Mushibugyo wasn’t as bad as its first episode, and I kind of mailed it in on White Album 2, though that was mostly because I was hungover). Still, where’s the fun if you’re not willing to risk being wrong once in a while, eh?

      Stilts
  11. If anything that’s the biggest sin of this episode, of not doing the necessary work to get us interested in the plot in favor of an extended sequence where a ghost forces a girl to masterbate.

    where a ghost forces a girl to masterbate.

    masterbate.

    Either you’re silently mocking Zephyr again, or this is a hilarious typo. Also, wtf show.

    Zanibas
  12. Oh wow, all that moaning (including a climaxing moan), the chastity belt, the lesbo “fun time” (with eroge style text narration), the ahegao, is so into ero-anime territory, I’m amazed this even got aired in regular late night TV, let alone AT-X. And a relatively PRE-midnight golden timeslot of Saturday 10.30pm to boot for the Tokyo area. The stuff that fanatical otakus will tell people how Japan is the r0xx. LOL

    Yup, I’ll be watching this solely for the PLOT, but most likely alone in a little room with the door locked. :3

    echykr
  13. Saying that the show didn’t endear itself to me would be putting it lightly in my case, as something about this show really rubbed me the wrong way. I wasn’t expecting much of this show, mind you, given that it seemed like the umpteenth siscon-show, and the fact that the very first line is ‘one day I woke up and I had a little sister’ before going to the brother walking into the room to seeing her get dressed made me roll my eyes. Going further, the brother was boring, the girl barely said a thing, it wasn’t all that funny and I was quite bored.

    Cue the second half, and then the show turned into a full-blown hentai (though with heavy censorship). What was the point of that masturbation scene, man? I’m all for yuri, but this was just creepy. You’re not even going to pretend you have a story to tell, huh? Followed up by toilet humour that just melted my brain because of its stupidity. This show pretty much jumped the shark in the middle of its first freaking episode.

    Though I do wonder what was up with the Mikudayo look-a-like in the ED.

    Either way, this show gets a big fat NOPE. Pigs will fly, hell will freeze over and Apple will go bankrupt before I’ll ever give this show another chance.

    Dvalinn
  14. This is some pretty terrible directing we have here.

    It’s ridiculous how they’re trying to pass off Yuuya as the “main character” of the show. Mitsuki is the obvious main character of the show and there was no need to desperately frame the situation to make it seem like this show is about “Yuuya and his troubles with his weird new sister”.

    Also, ending the episode with Mitsuki peeing? Are you kidding me? No plot hook, no explaining the situation? Is the entire arc of this episode literally “Mitsuki meets a ghost and gets a chastity belt and now she can’t pee”?

    I might not even make it through the second episode at this rate.

    Nitro
  15. Welp got bored enough to see how terrible another cookie cutter ecchi siscon would be and I can say my expectations were met. Although not a fan of the whole ecchi/siscon stuff, it’s not hard to say you either go all the way with this or stick to the basic TV-friendly rom-com routine (Oreimo).

    The censoring should have been left off, it was too blatant and directly interfered with the watching of the show. Censoring should be done subtly, making more use of backdrops and unique angles the cover the more provocative shots and leave more for the imagination. Having large gold hearts and fuzzy black lines all the time simply shows dilettantism.

    Otherwise your standard fare siscon, nothing out of the ordinary. I won’t continue watching it as it’s not my thing, but I can see how those liking the genre will be off put by some of the directing choices and confusion over both who the main character is and the holes in the main plot.

    Pancakes
  16. A large breasted ghost with Ogura Yui’s voice just sucked on the breasts of and brought to orgasm a moaning 15 year old girl wearing nothing but an open white shirt and a magic chastity belt.

    Well it’s a bit soon but I think we have the Anime of the Year for 2014 just five days in.

    qwert
  17. Some report from yours truly, for your information.

    Started noticing a comment at NyaaTorrents:

    This is a love story of a brother who saves her sister by exorcising a ghost possessing her with his dick.
    You’d have to be a fag to not be moved by that.

    That made me interested of course, so I checked the episode but was left with a poker face.

    Just to be sure, I checked three chapters of the manga (that is the source, a LN is being adapted from it as well, who knows why) and I concluded that:
    – the manga is (slightly) better organized
    – the manga has MANY things either inconsistent, stupid or just made up on the spot
    – the drawings were not bad anyway
    – one ep in and the anime is already much different from the manga (more in spoiler later)

    The censorship was so bad and distracting that you don’t even care about what is going on, so I waited for the AT-X broadcasting. Well, it has the same censorship (it airs on 20:30, so I kinda expected it) so it’s not even worth for the fanservice.

    I think I’ll wait for some delicious uncensored BDs, and place this series in the folder “Shows to watch while washing the dishes”. I like me some don’t-think-just-watch shows while washing the dishes.

    For the curious people, these are some things I found different/original comparing the anime and the manga:
    Show Spoiler ▼

    Keep in mind that the above is just a comparison of a few chapter versus ONE episode, take it with a grain of salt (although unlikely in this case, things can be done in different order, etc.).

    Voyager
  18. Don’t sugarcoat it. This anime is a soft p*rn. I would strongly urge RC to re-consider whether continued coverage of this soft p*rn would be in line with RC’s social responsibility in maintaining a discussion forum that is open to minors.

    Matroid
    1. We have no plans to continue coverage of this because it was kind of shite (as I said in the post). But for the record we cover plenty of shows that are fairly ecchi (from High School DxD all the way to Yosuga no Sora), and I doubt that’s going to change. Mostly we try to keep the front page fairly PC, but past that we’re just going to talk about whatever anime we want to, no matter if they’re “appropriate for minors” or not.

      Stilts
    1. I almost missed out on the first episode, but damn that censorship is the worst I ve seen so far!

      Although I agree to you, the ecchi is increasing steadily and that peeing seems like it will be a huge problem for her throughout the whole show, lol!

  19. “Also, I’m not sure ecchi Ogura Yui really works. In my eyes she’s more the type to be assaulted rather than do the assaulting, at least if her off-screen interactions with Hanazawa Kana are any indication. HanaKana loves that Yui-chan, lemme tell ya!”

    Truer words have never been said. I’m a ChanYui tragic and have way too much incest themed stories in my collection, but this was surprisingly hard to watch. I’m okay with ChanYui being harassed; just not her on the other side of the fence.

    I don’t know if I have the energy to do ep 2………

  20. If you’re still even vaguely interested, the live-action movie version it slated to hit (some) theaters in Japan May 17:
    http://imocyo.jp

    The model/tv personality playing Mitsuki is Hashimoto Tenka 橋本甜歌, best known for (a) appearing a few years back as a child on an NHK afternoon kids’ show and (b) somewhat more recently putting out a book on what a mess she had become as a middle-schooler. Oh my.

    For what it’s worth this new movie appears to be part of a plan to put her life/career back on track —a move which for many aspiring young actresses in Japan often entails being ‘reborn’ (in a sense) by doing doing a NSFW photo shoot in a men’s magazine.

    Sad to say, the general reaction to this stunt has been ‘meh’. You have to feel a little sorry for the gal, even though she does have the MC role.

    Interestingly the model playing ghost-girl Hiyori is making even more of a media stir than Ms “Tenchimu” Hashimoto: having recently shortened her name to simply ‘Mayu 繭’ she is releasing a ‘making’ vid of the movie in April, and then a bare-all photo book on May Day.

    Yeah, that’s going to be one day of labor to remember.

    For those who can’t wait for all that, you can see a few teasers from a recent photo shoot (most decidedly NSFW) while an even newer one (released just this week) features Ms Mayu in suggestive poses wearing (or partially wearing) sukumizu, in settings otherwise appropriate to the upcoming flick, ie suggesting that she’s a school girl.

    (Ms Mayu, apparently working to milk her 15 minutes for all they’re worth, rather aggressively tweets revealing selfies, if you’re so inclined. But then again if you’ve read this far you probably are. Needless to say, the meh-ing in her instance has been silent.)

    Dead hasn’t looked so good since, uh, Sanka Rea, perhaps.

    kornpone

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