Maji de Watashi ni Koi shinasai! – Initial Thoughts

Maji de Watashi no Koi Shinasai is an adaption of an eroge by Minato soft, and as such is a harem story about one guy and many samurai girls, set in modern day Japan. This show follows a relatively generic fighting girls harem plot line with liberal use of fanservice so far. Maji de Watashi no Koi Shinasai is also made by the same company who produced Kimi ga Aruji de Shitsuji ga Ore de (They are my noble masters), and there are appearances by characters from that eroge as well, albeit looking slightly different.

Many eroge have been successfully adapted as an anime without relying on fanservice, we simply have to look at shows such as Air and Kanon, all of which were, and still are excellent shows with wonderful stories, interesting characters and nice artwork. However there are also a significant number of eroge adaptions that have included fanservice in some form or other. Maji de Watashi no Koi Shinasai being another eroge adaption means that I am hardly surprised by the level of fan service and random jokes that we have seen so far.

The plot is a curious one, and since its an adaption from an eroge is pretty much none-existent in many places, but here is the basic premise:

Kawakami City is famous for its strong dedication to its samurai ancestors. A healthy fighting spirit is always valued and it’s even an important factor for success at school.

Yamato, a second year student from Kawakami Highchool is always with his close friends. They have all known each other since they were young and have done many things together. While they have many other friends, this group of seven is a close-knit, inseparable group. With the new semester, they welcome two girls into their group and shortly after things begin to change.

Random fanservice, there is a lot of this in the show.

The first episode starts off with a battle between Class F and S, some arbitrary classes that probably mean more to someone who played the original game than those who are just watching the anime. Episode two was a bit on the random side, with yamato and the girls searching for a missing dog in order to gain a large number of lunch tickets. Perhaps this will add into something later on, but I think it was simply a side episode to add some humor and fanservice, although the end of the episode does introduce a potentially quite dark element to the story.

The characters are all voiced by the original Seiyuus from the game. We have Hiroshi Kamiya as Yamato and Yuu Asakawa as Momoyo, and of course a generally great cast of seiyuu, ncluding Tomokazu Sugita, Kaori Mizuhashi, Katsuyuki Konishi, Kenizhi Suzumura, Kappei Yamaguchi, Yuko Goto, Yuuichi Nakamura, Shizuka Itou and more when the next few episodes air. And I have to admit that this make the characters pretty enjoyable to watch, especially considering all these Seiyuu and voice actors have voiced characters in many anime that I have enjoyed. Overall they are giving good performances for characters that aren’t the most complicated in the world.

So far my favourite character has to be Miyako Shiina, a childhood friend of Yamato an expert archer. So far she has attempted to seduce Yamato in every episode, through one-way or another. And although Yamato continuously refuses her advances she continues. To date, she has sneaked into the bath room to sniff Yamatos clothes, stolen and worn his briefs, given him a pair of her panties to ‘wear’, attempted to seduce him while sleeping and generally been the ultimate in cute stalkery goodness.

The artwork isn’t all that brilliant and actually quite generic, although there are a few nice little scenes that are nice to watch and well done. The plot is full of holes and doesn’t make sense half the time, but this is largely, I think, because of its origins as an eroge, and as such it does not have a plot to being with. I am however hoping that we do get some plot and character progression along the way (although this being a harem, based on an eroge, I am not expecting a miracle of script writing), if only so that Momoyo actually starts to acknowledge that she likes Yamato.

The almighty robot censorship

This show has a light-hearted nature to it, with all the girls constantly chasing after Yamato in one way or another, we have liberal fanservice, and although the current aired version is censored, it actually adds more humour to the show than spoiling it. In fact one of the things that is drawing me to this show is Yamato himself. While we get any number of cute, beautiful and well endowed women and girls in manga who are strong at martial arts and very assertive (in the case of Momoyo, excessively so), it is not often that we get the central male character in a harem who appears to have his own set of ideas and is quite happy to act upon them. Yamato is pretty sure of himself, and is not the classic, weak willed, wishy-washy male protagonist that we see in so many harem. He is also the main ‘strategist’ of the group and is in fact very clever and manipulative.

Between this, the cute girls wielding deadly weapons and the immense amount of fanservice, plus the very perverted Miyako I am enjoying this series so far. It is nothing special that’s for sure and it wont be for everyone, however I think that it is a nice bit of entertainment, and as long as you watch it as such you wont be disappointed. Now if only something would be done about the random plot (add a plot perhaps) I would be quite happy.

On a final note, I don’t expect every eroge adaption to lack plot and be full of fanservice, there are plenty of examples of such anime with excellent production value, a good plot and brilliant characters. While this show so far has had a pretty bizarre plot and lots of fanservice, I shall have to make up my mind overall about this show once it has finished.