Rokudou no Onna-tachi

Attachment 2016

"* Based on a yankee comedy romantic manga by Nakamura Yuuji.

Rokudou Tousuke is a loser, and everyone knows it. He gets picked on at school, gets snide looks from passersby, and can only muster up the courage to complain in secret with his equally hapless friends. Looking to turn his life around, he desperately uses an ancestral artifact passed down in his family for generations: a scroll that is capable of subduing all demons. However, in the modern age, it has a different effect: it makes all bad girls fall in love with him.

...And then, things go ballistic when he meets the delinquent beast-on-a-girl's-body Himawari Ranna, who hopelessly falls deep for him."

Genre(s): Shounen, Comedy, Action, Romance

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1

It's no secret that I'm a fan of the manga this is based on. So far, the anime is just about as I expected it to be, and the adaptation is by-the-book. Thankfully they haven't made any major changes or compacted the story to get it to fit into X episodes.

The premise itself is pretty standard 'add water for harem' setup, the visual jokes are on point so far and, as in the manga, Rokudo's friends make the story so much more interesting. Colonel and Manager are the smart ones, and Rokudou would be a complete wet blanket without his friends. The fact that he's not completely isolated dispels the pretext of a persecution allegory and lets the audience engage with Rokudou on equal terms, not through a lens of outright pity.

Also, I thought this would take be a shoo-in for worst animation this season because it looks like a pretty cheap production, but Hometown Hero has that covered. While the character designs have been as streamlined as possible, the art in the original wasn't anything to write home about, so nothing was really lost.

In the end, this is a silly coming of age comedy about delinquents fighting each other in a school with no discernable rule of law outside of survival of the fittest. It feels like a throwback to the olden days of delinquent media. You mileage may vary, but I find this very enjoyable.

2

Still silly, and I'm still smiling through every minute. Here Rokudou starts to take shape as its own thing, and not just another delinquent brawler series. Rokudou, pathetically weak as expected, is saved against his will by Ranna. Que my favorite trope: the villain redemption. Iinuma making nice with Rokudou after the fight settles and thinking nothing of it really sends me. His philosophy on strength hasn't changed, but his perception of what constitutes strength has been broadened (like standing up to power when you're outclassed); that's the clever twist that enables him to join the cast without re-wiring his entire character, and I love that. Rokudou always tries to meet people in the middle. He didn't narc the middle schooler sweating bullets so that they could enjoy eating together and he immediately cherishes the memory with his new friends.

I suppose that highlights one of my favorite aspects of this: unbridled optimism permeates. Why can't anyone be your friend when it is all said and done?

Immediatly into the next arc, Osanada is a fun character for being a tuff-loli (though in the manga I believe she was a bit more thicc). That Rokudou's spell works on her was seen a mile away, but the guilt felt over her (and other's) feelings being artificially manipulated is a level of insight you don't come across from most shounen/harem protagonists. Rokudou's conviction to rehabilitate her and essentially lose a powerful ally in service to the sanctity of a maiden's first love is too cute.

Also, I almost chuckled every time Colonel was seen war-games belly crawling around because he is such a military otaku. The visual gag hasn't gotten old, and might explain why Rokudou's friends also are on the bottom rung getting bullied. Also his Osanada face punch was funny, as is her strangely coarse language.

Eps 3

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What I really appreciate about this series is that Rokudo shows the difference between courage and conviction in a character.

He's a fairly pathetic weakling, but not only does he show up when he knows the outcome will be getting his ass kicked, he stands there and gets his ass kicked because he firmly believes that he can reform the girls who fall in love with him. He doesn't abuse the power given to him, he really does think of it as a curse, that the way it manifests is wrong, and the only way out of the predicament his horny grandpa got him into is to turn the girls good so they stop fawning all over him.

Ranna keeps him from getting killed, but he's the one taking the beating in order to get through to Osanada.

Others would easily abuse the power, his grandfather did. The jerk hanging off of Osanada only thinks of her as his weapon, while the first thing Rokudo thought of is that he wanted to show her that school is fun. Rokudo isn't strong, knows it, but that doesn't stop him from doing what's truly the moral thing to do, even though he keeps going to the hospital because of it.

I don't remember the last time a school assignment in anime was anything beyond a vehicle for a study session, but Rokudou gets great character mileage out of the diary as a representation of the fun being serious and studious in harmony with others can be... while getting his face smashed in. And all for Osanada's benefit. Like you said, the conviction is what swells the emotion in my chest as I watched. It feels like it is coming for somewhere sincere. The only thing going for Rokudou inherent to himself is his moral compass and drive to have (and help others have) a fun high school life.

If you look at similar gang-centric anime like Tokyo Revengers, the emotional stakes are much more pointed toward comradery and loyalty within the gang/friends without a broader view of a person's life and future implications. Holistically, getting Osanada's life back on track to integrate into society is much better for her in the long run, and that largely goes without saying to us who give it a little thought. Even her thug-buddy eventually relents and accepts his fate (more in line with gang thinking that self sacrifice is the greatest good in and of itself) when she tells him that not raising hell at school is preferable.

(Of course Colonel's diary was redacted like classified documents; the joke still hasn't gotten old)