Ecchi has never had a big presence in the wide niche genre Yuri, or Shoujo Ai as it’s more accurately called. Yuri has always been a genre that I’ve always leaned toward the “erotic” side than the actual “romance” one, only because most anime tend to be too sugarcoated with soap opera quality stories. That doesn’t mean that there can’t be any good ones. I think yuri fans deserve better than Valkyrie Drive Mermaid if they want their “dumb ecchi anime.”
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I wanted a fun fanservice anime to help embellish my ecchi bone like I am always known to do. Is this too much to ask for? Is it hard to make a fanservice anime that is fun? Unfortunately yes. I don’t deny the tough task of trying to make a fun anime that can please many people. However, when it is obvious that the writers did not give this thing the time of day that it desperately needed from how it is presented, there is no excuse to justify laziness of this magnitude.
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Hello there. Do you love dirty jokes? I do. Who doesn’t? I like my dirty jokes to go beyond the boundaries that many consider the tipping point of how far they can go. There is an art that can make any of these jokes work when they are done with precision and finesse. Sometimes they are done with subtlety or not subtle, both of which can be successful or a failure depending on how they are executed. Shimoneta fits the latter quite accurately. And when I say not subtle, that is taking it lightly.
Set in a dystopian Tokyo where all shamelessness, lewdness, and dirty language have been outlawed, you can already assume ahead of time that Shimoneta is a satire of political correctness. The conservative government of Japan tries to censor any part of a medium that may be considered morally indecent to the public in their own eyes. Shimoneta wants to portray how their utopia would become a reality and how it would not work based on how human biology works. In other words, humans are sexual creatures through and through, whether we all want to admit that truth or not. It can also be a satire of how sex education is important in our society, and an abstinence-only education would prove to be a flawed system.
So does Shimoneta handle this satire well and make it hilarious in the long run? In short, it makes it into an entertaining anime with some subtle level of commentary to go by with it. Take, for instance, the character Anna, voiced by the recently passed Miyu Matsuki, who would be the archetype for a person who wants to be a pure person with no perverted characteristics. But because of, an accidental kiss by the main character Tanukichi triggered a romantic spark in her brain that caused her to develop urges that she never knew before. Shimoneta gives a pretty intelligent method of showing us the intricacies of how teenagers go through hormonal phases once they bloom into full-grown sexual young adulthood. It can also be enjoyed just as a silly joke and nothing else, and Shimoneta characterizes itself as either or just one alternative outlook.
Another commentary that Shimoneta does exceptionally well is how they portray the dystopian society of conservative political correctness. It does not do it so that it is done forcefully and becomes preachy as a result. Rather it keeps that theme in the background where it doesn’t seem too apparent for the viewer to be distracted by and doesn’t overshadow the comedy. Shimoneta wants to be a wacky sex comedy through and through with some added commentary mixed in to make it unique from other anime ecchi shows. Even with a rape scene involving a woman licking a guy’s chest out of sexual gratification in a non-consensual. It still manages to be hilarious and offer an intelligent insight that invertedly challenges our notion of how we can find things of this nature funny from a different set of circumstances. At least, that is how I interpreted it.
The comedy pulls so many punches to the viewer that it can be a bit much for the squeamish. But I love it when my ecchi anime pulls no limits to what it can do to entertain or offend those who turn their nose up at shamelessness of this caliber. Simply put, Shimoneta is the most raunchy, lewd, indecent, and crazy ecchi anime I’ve ever come across, and probably you’ll ever come across. And I mean these with the utmost positive feelings that I could ever muster. Its clever ways of censoring dialogue make us decipher what the characters are saying with some obvious hints based on context, keep its tone and comedic timing on-point and humorous from beginning to end. Many of its innuendos, whether visual or audible, might be forced in some cases, but they help create a comedic atmosphere that keeps the show from being tedious and boring. Even some of the writers’ jokes surprised me with how much they were willing to get away with. So much so that I think no other country except Japan would ever allow it on television.
The comedy works with the theme and atmosphere, but it also gives the characters some nice needed charm to make up for their lack of development. The characters are not the most three-dimensional. Most of them have the one characteristic that defines them as a character: wanting sweet love nectar, obsessed with drawing shameless pictures or wanting to rid themselves of the purity police controlling people’s language and sex lives. Nevertheless, I found myself slightly forgiving this negative of how much I enjoyed the chemistry between our main hero Tanukichi and the main heroine, Ayame. Heck, almost all of the characters have wonderful chemistry with one another from the hilarious interactions and clever dialogues done with great comedic timing. Another character worth mentioning is the art prodigy Otome whose bold and crazy attitude adds so much to the cast thanks to the always hilarious Satomi Arai doing her Kuroko voice from A Certain Scientific Railgun.
I found myself enjoying the creative art designs of the characters from how colorful and expressive they exhibit. There are some areas where I think the art can be a bit too bright and white-washed in some scenes. Overall, technically, Shimoneta is a nicely animated show with many comedic gags having a great sense of depth and absurdity despite being censored ironically. I would not necessarily call the music a highlight of the show, even though I enjoyed the ED with its combination of jazz-influenced horns and J-Pop vocals. The music from the show itself is not very special, and I found myself not paying much attention to it while watching.
It is hard for me to reminisce about this show without some fascination. After watching it, I found myself intrigued with the possibility of ecchi anime like Shimoneta existing more often if this ever becomes a big hit in the future. Not just in how balls to the wall it is with its subject matter and jokes, but how it can offer a witty way of implementing a theme that is synonymous with sexual aspects of real life. Ecchi, of course, is here to give us some sexual gratification to hone our skills of being lewd in real life. It feels welcoming to see an anime like Shimoneta prove that it can be more than that in more ways than one.
Grade: A-
Monster girls, monster girls everywhere. Imagine if they could be a part of a harem series with one lucky guy forced to take care of them by law. What’s that? The word harem immediately makes you instantly gag just from trying to enunciate that term? I don’t blame you. Great harem shows have been a dime a dozen, besides those that were and are already in continuation. When new ones crop up, they do not add anything new or exciting, just more and more formulaic as time goes on. So what is to be done to amend this curse? Put in cute and sexy monster girls in it, of course!
It is possible to add a new element to an anime from a specific genre and succeed in giving a modern edge to the anime. Monster Musume no Iru Nichijou is a prime example of something like this succeeding at a level that I did not think would be possible. If Monster Musume, hypothetically speaking, did not have monster girls as the harem and it was just ordinary girls, I don’t think it would’ve had as much of an impact. Unlike human girls, monster girls have abilities from their bodies and state of mind that can create all kinds of unique jokes and sexy situations that you wouldn’t find in a typical harem show. This uniqueness is where Monster Musume has more going for it in its humor and story. New scenarios involving monstrous entities with tentacles, wings, and other strange things add something interesting that we aren’t used to.
There is not much to say about the story other than that it involves a slightly exciting world of monsters being integrated into the human world. The only issue with it is that it does not explain it very intuitively to the point where I just nodded off halfway through. But from the way the show portrays itself as a silly harem/ecchi anime, it knows how ridiculous it is and runs with it. Even the title itself is translated as “Daily Life with a Monster Girl.” This is what most ecchi/harem anime should strive for when developing a story of this nature.
I will briefly go through one by one of each character since this is, after all, a character-driven anime based on how good the girls and male protagonists are. There are a lot, so bear with me for a moment. Miia-chan, the lamia snake-like monster, is the best one out of the rest. Thanks to the sweet voice of Sora Amamiya, her caring and cute personality is infectious. Not to mention her “darling” catchphrase is one that I can’t preface about how heart-inducing it is. Papi, the bird-like harpy monster, is the bootylicious loli of the group who has some pretty hilarious moments due to her childlike curiosity. Cerea, the centaur monster, is probably my least favorite, but she is still quite enjoyable with her humorous attempts at being noble and knightly to her master.
Suu, the humanoid-like water goo-ish monster, has a peculiar essence about her from how she interacts with the characters. Because she can’t speak well to people at first, we see her grow up with everyone and start learning how to become an adult later in the show. Her morphing technique and almost drowning the protagonist with her own body are amusing. Meroune, the mermaid monster, does get a bad rep as being the worst girl, but I would have to disagree with that assessment. I’ve always enjoyed seeing her wanting to get married to the protagonist and her attempts at seducing quite alluring in more cases than one. Finally, Rachnera, the giant spider monster, is easily the 2nd best out of the bunch. This is primarily because of her entertaining sadism towards the characters, making her unique among the harem. One scene involving a dullahan and her is especially noteworthy, which I won’t spoil for those who are not aware.
Our protagonist, Kimihito Kurusu, is surprisingly one of the show’s highlights. His reckless and commanding attitude is a breath of fresh air compared to other harem protagonists who do not have the same level of bravery as females. His actions that involve helping the girls from being downtrodden in human society, particularly one scene involving him punching monster bigots so hard that they fly through the door, make him quite likable in this regard. He does have his dumb moments here and there, but in context to the situation, they fit well in a comedy scenario where he does not have much control over a bunch of monster girls that are entirely different from human girls. He is not an overly perverted protagonist who we would all root for, like Tomoki from Heaven’s Lost Property or Youto in Hentai Ouji. Still, he manages to have a subtle sexual interest at the right time.
My only big issue with the cast is that we do not get to explore the supporting cast as much as we’d like. Sure, Sumisu has great moments involving the supervision of Kimihito’s care for the girls, but I do not get the same feeling with the other characters. The MON (Monster of a Neuro) squad, in particular, has this problem. There might be one episode where Kimihito goes on a date with all of them, but other than that, it was hard for me actually to give them any thought compared to the main girls. They will explore them more in the 2nd season, and I hope that that is the case. One exception to the supporting cast is Lala, the dullahan monster, who has one of the most memorable moments involving her head and an independent body in the entire show. Again, no spoilers, but it’s worth seeing Monster Musume for that alone.
From a technical standpoint, Monster Musume’s art assets are pretty good from how shiny and colorful the character designs are. I also enjoy the funny character face reactions whenever something lewd, scary, or surprising happens every time they occur. The backgrounds, however, are not something to write at home about. It is quite plain and average to see on-screen most of the time. There is the issue of the OP/ED music. The OP is okay; I liked the chorus of the girls chanting “Monster! Monster!” at the beginning, but the rest just felt underwhelming. Same with the ED, although I tend to question how it fits the show’s tone. I know it features the monster squad, which are the active characters of the anime, but it felt like an ED to an action anime overall, not a comedy/ecchi one.
I had read the Monster Musume manga a little before getting into this, so I expected much of what I got. And what I got was enough for me to say it was an entertaining harem that reminds me how harem shows can be incredibly enjoyable. You need to add a different spin to the genre, and Monster Musume proves that you can do that successfully. Is it a game-changing spin that will change it? Not at all. There’s so much added to the genre, but so little for it to be anything but enjoyable escapism.
Grade: A-
I love booty and boobies, don’t you? When they cover most of the screen, it makes you feel like you can touch them with your fingers or your tongue if you’re that shameless like I am. When you see a title that is equally as shameless as the perverted little fellow inside of you like Bikini Warriors, your instinctive going into it will be about what you would expect. Once you get rid of the bias of looking at it as a three-minute short series and dumb fanservice, you’ll realize that Bikini Warriors offers more than just the latter.
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Gonzy's Anime Love Shack 