A weekly look into American otaku culture

So of course, you’re a typical anime loser who comes home to his dorm room to discover an incredibly attractive girl in her underwear standing right there in your bedroom. After the confusion settles down, she tells you that she is your wife and she greets you like any other housewife would. “You must be tired. Do you want to take your bath now, or would you like to eat first, or… or do you want to…?” Well, all this is a little too much for you, so you run away straight into the large bosom of the high school blond bombshell. She pushes you to the ground and then starts to take your clothes off, mentions something about “doing it” with you. So then your “wife” uses her magical powers to blast the vixen away. As you run away outside, you encounter a third girl. This time is a samurai chick that hates your guts and even points her sword at you. Apparently she’s going to be your wife too.

But that’s just another day for the average anime guy.

…

Lucky bastards…

First of all, I need to punch whoever was the second one to come up with the name Maburaho or Mahoraba, because the two look and sound so much alike that it’s going to cause a lot of confusion for me. But enough about that, let’s get to the review.

This series takes all the conventions that are associated with a harem anime series and adds a magical element to it. This would be pretty original if it wasn’t for the fact that they did the same thing back in the 80’s with Kimagure Orange Road, or more recently with Aki Katsu’s Psychic Academy. But that might not be bad thing. Being unoriginal doesn’t get you points from an intelligent point of view, but they sure can be fun to watch. And that’s exactly what this title is - Fun.

The character designs are very cute and sexy, and the fan severice is very good. I’m such a sucker for harem anime, mainly because you have a choice of female characters to like the most. There’s always the sweet one (Yuma), the sexy one (Kuriko), or the tough one (Rin). I personally like the sweet one in all these series, so I’m rooting for the guy to hook up with his childhood friend in this one.

The voice acting got a little on my nerves, though. Jessica Boone sounds very amateurish with her lead voice as Yuma. She’s trying to be cute and it isn’t really working. And then Tiffany Grant does a great job with the sexy Kuriko character… but it’s too much like her Asuka voice from Evangelion. I can’t help but thinking it’s Asuka I’m listening to.

But if you’re in the mood for a fun and mindless harem anime, Maburaho is just the thing for you. It’s no Ai Yori Aoshi or Love Hina, but I still found myself entertained by it.

If you like what you see, please support this series by buying Maburaho at Deep Discount DVD or your local retail store. On sale NOW!
Maburaho © MABURAHO Seiakujinkai

So I think I’m just going to have a little section devoted to initial impressions of the newest fansubs out there. Shows that I don’t particularly want to commit to reviewing on a regular schedule. So today I finally got to see another title on my “to watch this season” list, and I actually enjoyed it. If you want screens and what not, check out my man Jeff’s coverage of the series. As for me, here are my impressions of Gokujou Seitokai.

There was one word that kept on racing through my mind as I was watching this- “Azumanga… Azumanga… Azumanga…” There’s just so much. The animation, the style, the humor, it all screams “AZUMANGA!!!” However, it falls short of being as good as that series. Why?

The puppet.

The puppet is the most butt-ugly thing I’ve ever seen in anime, and I’ve seen a lot of ugly things. Jim Henson must of waked up one morning with a nasty hang-over, looked at his design sketches from the night before, and go, “What the hell was I thinking?” as he threw it away. Then somehow these Japanese guys found it and said, “Wouldn’t this be a great character in an anime?” And it wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the fact that the series revolves about the damn thing. Eww…

But now that I’ve vented about my disgust for the puppet, let me get to the positive things about this show, cause it really is good. The humor is just wacky enough to translate well with the American audience. It was very weird at first, but I found myself laughing hysterically at the antics of the main girl and her puppet counterpart. All the voices and character designs (of the human characters, at least) are extremely cute and really stand out. I found myself very happy while watching this because of that.

But it’s not something for everyone, as noted by the fact that my girlfriend turned it off after the first 10 minutes. I guess you really have to be in the right mood for something as wacky as this. But it was still a good series that I plan to continue watching.