It's a gag show, nominally divided into four parts. It's also a farce. Which isn't necessarily bad, if it's done well. A good farce will have a sympathetic sane character in the middle, surrounded by chaos and people who are nuts, which pretty well describes this.

Our hero is Kokonotsu, a high school boy living in the sticks, in the rear of a candy shop with his father who runs the place. Dad wants Kokonotsu to take over the business, which goes back 9 generations or so it is claimed. But Kokonotsu doesn't want that; he wants to be a mangaka. So they tend to fight about it.

One day a strange girl shows up in the store. Her name is Hotaru. She marches to her own drummer, who misses a few beats, if you know what I mean. She's actually there looking for Dad. She is the daughter of the head of a major candy company, and they want to hire Kokonotsu's dad. But he won't leave unless he's sure the candy store will continue to be open, which means Kokonotsu has to agree to keep running it. And so it become Hotaru's mission to convince Kokonotsu to agree.

And there are two more characters: Kokonotsu's best friend Tou and Tou's younger sister Saya. They run a cafe. Saya has a crush on Kokonotsu; that's her job in the story. Tou's job is to tease her about it and to get clobbered by her. She's a tsundere but her tsun-tsun mode is passive-aggressive towards Kokonotsu. Her brother gets the violence.

So far it's following the standard farce recipe and doing it pretty well. What I didn't expect is that it's a fan-service show. In addition to being nuts, Hotaru is also built. And through a plot machination that doesn't bear repeating Saya and Hotaru meet after Hotaru runs off the road and ends up in the mud of a rice paddy. Saya takes her home and lets her shower, and Tou walks in on her, and she doesn't scream and get angry. Saya does that for her.

Um, NSFW below the fold, OK?

So, is it any good? Damned if I know. I think it will take at least one more episode to see if the creative energy remains high (good) or if they lapse into tropes (bad). I've read that the manga it's based on is really good, so there's hope.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 09:59 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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