Youto Yokodera is a pervert. That’s it, that’s the personality. He spends his time trying to catch glimpses of the girls swimsuits, obsessing over porn dvds, getting lost in perverted fantasies and generally being an unpleasant little turd. He does, however, suffer from what he calls the strength of his ‘facade’ – meaning that he is often unable to speak his real feelings and ends up agreeing to things that he would really rather not do (such as becoming captain of the track and field club when asked to). He finds this facade generally gets in the way of his life, and would really like to be rid of it. His friend, now an ex-perv, has told him of a magical mystical ‘Stony Cat’ statue that, if prayed to and given an offering, will rid one of something and give it to someone else (said friend had been able to rid himself of perverted desires). Thinking this a grand idea, Yuto heads to the statue to pray to it, and there he meets another girl who had also come to pray. After some cringe-worthy sexual harassment masquerading as moe it is revealed that what she wants to lose is her constantly-showing emotions – they always appear on her face and make her seem childish, and she would love to have a pokerface like an adult.
Of course, the two get what they wish for, but with unwanted results. The girl – Tsukiko – now has no emotion at all and has turned into a full-fledged kuudere, while Yuto finds himself transformed into Jim Carrey in Liar Liar; he is unable to tell a lie, for one thing, but he now blurts out every little thing he’s thinking without restraint, whether he wants to or not. – and, given his perverted personality, has predictable results. Since this new predicament is even more troubling than the last, the two set out to recover what they lost. After all, the legend of the Stony Cat statue says that when something is taken from someone, it will be given to someone else…
This is yet another one of those shows that started announcing and producing merchandise before the damn thing had even aired, which is one of my first alarm bells for a That Show. Most of the artwork leading up to its release featured Tsukiko in various states of undress (or wearing nothing at all) so I wasn’t exactly going into this one with very high expectations. The fact that one of the selling points was ‘the main character is a big pervert!’ wasn’t exactly helping either. I mean, sure, it’s great that we can have a main character with a personality for once, but is it really too much to ask for a good personality?
The overall verdict is that this was somewhat better than I was anticipating it to be, but only in that ‘this no-brand microwave pizza was surprisingly edible’ kind of way. I actually think the plot – whilst silly – is a little creative and has the groundwork for a decent romantic comedy. I just have issues with a lot of the presentation.
First of all, the artwork is nice. The characters are cute, and even Youto looks somewhat distinctive. Sure, the personalities arent anything special, but they’re not dull enough to be eye-rolling, and they fit the story well enough. Even Youto being a gigantic perv can, occasionally, be funny, but that’s the thing, ‘occasionally’. Most of the time, he’s being sexist and unpleasant, and with his lack of facade pretty much everything he blurts out is a form of sexual harassment that is not nearly as funny as the show seems to think it is. (Hey! This girl has no tits! When you comment she gets mad! Comedy! And this girl has big tits! When you comment she gets mad too! Comedy!) The girls ‘hilariously’ beating him up for this each time is also something that is going to get old really damn fast. Hell, this was old when Love Hina did it. It’s 2013. I’m kind of hoping that the show has a little bit more up its sleeve as to what the effects of losing his facade will be, and if that’s so, it may turn out interesting.
When Youto and Yukiko first met, he did the classic (why are you still doing this in 2013 can we get a new gimmick already) ‘falls over on top of her and pins her to the ground and then stays there for a ridiculous amount of time instead of moving off immediately like someone who isn’t a creep would’ thing, to which she starts to spurt this uncomfortable-as-fuck spiel about how her undeveloped body is not delicious right now so if he wouldn’t mind could he possibly wait until she gets more developed and delicious before he violates her. What the fuck? Was this supposed to be moe? Sexy? Was it to highlight the difference in her reaction when the same thing happened to her in kuudere mode? It was fucking creepy and had no relevance other than otaku boners and there are far less skeevy ways to achieve those. Basically, the casual attitude this show has to a blatant male gaze is really damn uncomfortable.
Despite all that, and maybe this is just a testament to the strength of the character designs and the bits of writing that actually did work well (either that or a testament to the sheer shittiness of what I compare it to), this was far, far from the worst ‘That Show’ I’ve seen, and actually ranks among the better ones. It might turn out worth watching. Or it might turn out even worse, who really knows with JC Staff.
Out of 5,
And so ends my First Impressions. I’m still not sure if I’m able to blog anything. Despite what I said in the Attack on Titan review, I actually wouldn’t mind blogging that one…the problem is the length. Suisei no Gargantia is still a maybe. If I blog anything, you’ll be seeing one of those two. If you don’t…well, welcome to Moeronpan. I can personally guarantee there is quite a few shows I’m interested in blogging scheduled for next season though, so choosing which ones is going to be a challenge.
Moeronpan 
Even though it might not be that bad, that summary alone just… yeah. Not touching this. At all.