OP Sequence

OP: 「Prince×Prince」by From4to7

「できるかな?リアル乙女ゲー」 (Dekiru ka na? Riaru Otome ge)
“Can She Do It? A Real Life Otome Game”

If comment sections are to be believed, Fall 2016 is apparently the gayest season ever – the season for the fujoshi. What those commenters fail to realise is that this is the largest anime season ever, and there are always titles that appeal to different demographics. Each new batch of anime differ slightly, but there’s usually always something for a hardcore demographic to enjoy; it just so happens that this season has a fair number of anime about pretty boys. For every “fujoshi” anime, there’s 3-4 anime that appeal to horny men, primarily otaku. People just like to complain… but hopefully the lovers and haters of those “fujoshi” anime can cross the battlefield and enjoy this odd little comedy gem.

Whether fujoshi or not, there’s a lot here for anime fans to collectively giggle over. If you get the references or simply understand the basis of the jokes then Watashi ga Motete Dousunda is an easy watch. Sure, having a female lead only be considered beautiful once she loses body weight is a troubling thing, but this first episode shows that this series is fully aware of its silliness and potential to insult, which makes it a little easier to laugh along with. Serinuma Kae (Kobayashi Yuu) is an interesting girl to say the least, a lead unlike many. In many an anime, she’s the side character whose main gag is that she loves BL and doesn’t get any real attention other than to throw in a gag every few episodes. But here, she’s the star of the show, and every gag is about her being a fujoshi, whether prideful or shameful or something just plain embarrassing. We laugh with her and at her, but the fact that she’s self-aware about how absurd her newfound boy drama is, it makes it easier to not take so seriously.

I love that the explanation for her sudden weight loss is the death of her favourite character; when that happened my boyfriend who watched this with me turned and said: “That’s so you”, so perhaps I’m biased in liking that particular plot detail… Either way, everything that follows is so damn funny, yet also a little worrisome. We’ve got four beautiful boys who are on Kae’s heels once she returns to school, and I’m split on the scumminess of their characters. First, the good ones: Igarashi Yuusuke (Ono Yuuki), the black-haired boy who shows sympathy for Kae’s injuries at the beginning of the episode, and Mutsumi Asuma (Shimazaki Nobunaga), Kae’s history club senpai who is the only one to recognise her straight away and not be surprised by her makeover. These two boys can stay – they’re cute, they’re amusing enough in their advances, but most importantly it seems like they liked Kae as a person before they liked her as a love interest. It’s not ideal, but it’s a whole lot better than womaniser Nanashima Nozomu (Koumoto Keisuke) who seems like the ultimate pretty boy douche, and Shinomiya Hayato (Matsuoka Yoshitsugu) the nursing committee member who actively treated her badly before she was pretty. After that self re-invention, however, these two are chasing after her with heart eyes. They’re fine as comedy vehicles, but it’s going to be hard to take them as serious contenders in this absurd race to Kae’s gay-loving heart.

So there we have our premise, our cast, and if the jokes in this episode landed for you, then this is likely to be a solid comedy this coming season. I’ll definitely be watching to see how it develops; I’m particularly curious to see two things: Whether this romantic conquest will ever be taken seriously or whether Kae will forever want the boys to love each other rather than her; also, where the otaku/fujoshi gags will lead. There’s a goldmine of potential there, and seasoned anime watchers are sure to get those references in a way that’s sure to make us laugh even if the initial premise isn’t what we’d expect to enjoy. There’s no plans yet for this to be covered on a weekly basis, but I think we should all keep a keen eye on this one and see where it leads.

 

ED Sequence

ED: 「ドキドキの風」 (Dokidoki no Kaze) by Rie Murakawa

Preview

31 Comments

      1. In one week story ways….

        If we consider she saw the dead of her husbando on a Friday night and took 1 whole weak plus a weekend, that’s only 10 days!, 10 days of supposedly only drinking water and not eating. Such substantial weight lose is possible, but… Unhealthy as all hell the thing is that she was just crying an sobbing in her room so not much physical activity, and with such an extremely fast weight lose it is impossible that her body would have molded itself perfectly like that, she would have had problems with her skin hanging, blood pressure and hormonal balance issues, plus a bit of malnutrition. Not healthy at all.

        Kob264
      2. T_____T I was only joking! but on a side note, when I was 16 I did lose around 10kg in a week and a half, I was upset over something and I stopped eating, drinking on a complete level, and it was torture, and it wasn’t without any repercussions, so I know what you mean 🙂

        ahhhh way to turn a comedy anime into serios talks!

        Mi-Chan
  1. honestly i want to know what kae did to reduce like that in 1 week though i read somewhere that in the manga she didnt it right for 1 full month.

    and heck, this is one unbelievable transformation… i would seriously fall in love with her on first sight just like the boys in the story if i am also in their world. as to the episode as a whole… i like it… the plot is interesting. i would want to see more of kae and the guys in her harem.

    a question pops up though… who in the 4 guys really love kae, disregarding if she is a fatty or a 1st class cutie? seeing the episode 1, i feel like the guys just fell in love with her because yeah, she became a beautiful swan

    Jeffers
    1. Not to give spoilers or anything but out of the 4 guys (and future girl because lets be real….Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl and I Liked it” could be playing when those 2 are on the screen together) and 1 girl, 2 out of the 5 actually liked her before the drastic weight lose/have no problem with her gaining the weight back.
      *coughs* Senpai is the best guy *coughs*

      marsh381
  2. I keep hoping I’ll find the next Ouran, sadly this isn’t it. Still, it was some light fun despite a lot of the irksome and problematic quirks. Igarashi is best boy.

    sosbrigade1991
  3. Don’t really mind about how it’s like a Cinderella story, however I got to say Yuu Kobayashi nailed it as Kae. Definitely going to keep up with this.

    ***also Senpai is best boy***

    Nork22
  4. Motete Dousunda’s creator, Junko, usually specialises in yaoi and BL manga. There’s potential for the series to parody yaoi/BL cliches through Kae, like how Nozaki-kun parodied shoujo cliches vis its cast.

    zztop
  5. It was interesting to see it just before Yuri on Ice. I like the style and sincerity of the main character, great voice acting. I don’t mind the genre and most of the comedy worked for me, I’m in.

    Carma
  6. Hated this episode. The guys are shallow twats and can go jump off a cliff for all I care. The only reason why they’re chasing after Kae now is to satisfy their own need for a trophy girlfriend; a prize who looks good and impressive just standing beside them. Look how they treated her before she slimmed down and how their attitude towards her did a complete 180 after that. It’s absolutely disgusting.

    ET
      1. But it’s not like Igarashi and Mutsumi showed any romantic attraction towards her before her transformation either. Igarashi felt more of a nice guy to everyone instead of protecting Kae out of romantic attraction, and Mutsumi definitely felt more like a friend than a crush.

        I’m sorry, but it’s just that the short time between her transformation and asking her out for a date paint the guys as incredibly shallow and only interested in her for her looks.

        ET
    1. If you paid attention, you’d have realised that Mutsumi isn’t attracted to Kae romantically. He was only looking for her to borrow a book. And then when everyone else went “I wanted to watch a movie with you this weekend” he was like “Uhh…oh, me too then I guess?” He was just going with the flow because suddenly all the other guys were saying it, and he had no idea what was going on but decided to join in anyway.

      Hanabira.Kage

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