Sunday, July 30, 2006

He Is My Master


(Make note that I was in a VERY lighthearted, VERY forgiving mood. I almost didn't keep watching this series, the use/abuse of the female characters is extremely terrible most of the time. Honestly, looking back I don't know how I could be so forgiving.)

He Is My Master is a 12-episode ecchi anime, based on a manga of the same name, about this rich perverted boy, Yoshitaka, who hires three girls to be his maids so he can get his jollies commanding them to do menial chores and spying on them with hidden cameras.

Sounds awful, doesn't it?
It was actually sort of funny. There's a lot of fanservice (nearly every ep has a nude bath scene), though not any of the jiggly-boob kind, which is the kind I hate the most. Basically a fanservice situational comedy with lots of ridiculousness humour, the humour making it entertaining enough. I hate to admit I got a few hearty laughs out of it.

The Story
Two sisters, Mitsuki and Izumi, run away from home in order to save Mitsuki's pet alligator, Pochi, from being put down. They end up in the service of Yoshitaka because a) they need a place to stay where Pochi can also live freely and this guy has TONS of land, b) Izumi breaks a bunch of stuff, thus owing Yoshitaka a ton of money so she's working for him to pay him off. Soon, a third girl, Anna, joins the cast as the third maid - originally after Yoshitaka himself, she becomes infatuated with Izumi and gets herself hired as a maid in order to be closer to her, even going so far as to learn Dutch and read up on the Netherlands so she and Izumi can run away there and get married. (This is the yuri content of the series - no, doesn't make it worth it).

Pochi is both disturbing as well as one of the more entertaining part of the series (we're being VERY forgiving). He's this giant cartoony alligator who does not speak. He is completely devoted to his owner, Mitsuki, and absolutely hates men and will protect the girls from them at all costs. Equally, he is obsessed with girls in skimpy clothes, especially Izumi, whom he loves to chase and rip the clothes off of. Which is totally disturbing, but it's funny when he "tastes" someone by chomping their heads/upper torsos. :D

Yoshitaka is obnoxious with his lowlife-ness and lack of decency, but what makes it better is that really, Izumi's younger sister, Mitsuki, the seemingly innocent one, is the person running the whole show. She thinks Yoshitaka's habits are silly and that anything can be fun, no holds barred - so it turns out she's using his inner nature against him for her OWN fun. O_O

The girls' parents are pretty strange. Their mother had Izumi when she was 16 and their dad is a total punk-rock lolicon. But whenever he gets out of control, the mom is there to whack him over the head with this strange statue/idol thing. The mom is strange; she thinks it's fine that the girls are living with a pervert, particularly if Izumi can marry into his money, but encourages Anna, saying to her specifically in one ep: "Anna-chan, love has nothing to do with gender, so go for the gusto, eh?" which is the greatest redeeming factor for the whole series.

Mitsuki is always having contests for things, which I got a little tired of. Izumi's protests at everyone obsessing over her got a little old, as did Pochi trying to rip Izumi's clothes off (which I never liked to begin with). Anna was great, though, in her die-hard chase for Izumi (there's one scene where Izumi tries to distract her and takes off her bra and tosses it, which Anna chases and gets, and we see her on all fours, drawn with dog ears and a wagging tail with the bra dangling from her mouth, all happy... It actually made me laugh).
~==~

Definetly not the deepest anime I've ever seen, though oddly definetly not the most shallow. It had brief flashes of heart (which Yoshitaka immediately shatters) but it's mostly about being silly anyway - I mean, it's SO over the top you almost forgive it for the awfulness. I give it 3 stars out of 5 just for Anna and Pochi. And Mitsuki - she was too diabolically kawaii. :D

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