Summer Anime 2010: Debut Reviews V

Seitokai Yakuindomo

Stop me if you've ever heard this before: a kid attends a new school and on his first day he gets coerced into joining the student council (note: can be substituted with any other club or SOS Brigade) where he meets a variety of attractive young women, all of whom are eccentric in any way/shape/form. Sound familiar? If not, you've obviously never watched anime before.

The main character will now spend his school days with three attractive young women? What a shocking turn of events. ... *snore*

But for all its obvious clichedness, it still holds a good amount of humor in it. Granted they are all of the same type (short joke ---> sex joke ---> short joke, etc.) but at least they are all well-timed and have the desired effect.

Figure A: The original harem. As you can see, the girls' averageness demonstrated a firm grip on reality which is why they had to be substituted for dream girls, thus resulting in today's monstrosity.

And, well, to be honest? There's not much to say about Seitokai Yakuindomo that hasn't been said before. I can't make insightful commentary about this show because there is zero, and I mean ZERO chance that the show itself will ever have anything important to say. Call it otaku pandering, call it funny popcorn entertainment, but it will certainly never become anything more. Unless, of course, the show pulls something out of its ass. Which is doubtful.

After the initial effect of the joke, whether it be about the girls' inexperience with men or a random reference to their opinions about the sole male character, it becomes clear just how repetitious and gag-based this show is. While that's not a bad thing, and the jokes to elicit a few laughs, I can see this formula becoming verrry tiring in the near future.

Oh look! A sex joke. Pretty funny, ha-- oh wait, another one? Well, they just keep 'em comin' I guess, ha-- wait, more? That's jumping the shark a little, don't yo-- oh fuck it.

(For the record I sat through the entire Princess Lover series, which only went from mediocre to downright boring as time went on; I really don't expect Seitokai Yakuindomo to be any better and won't be surprised if there is a significant drop in quality somewhere down the road. I guess what I'm saying is: don't get your hopes up, kid)

Overall: 5/10