Sea Slugs! Anime Blog

From the first strum of the orgasmo-harp, OtoBoku caught my eye and it has been an interesting journey ever since. Like many series that are based on H-games, OtoBoku was well served by having a smaller number of episodes, although I hear there may be an extra episode just to wrap things up. While I was entertained, I don’t think that OtoBoku put much effort towards its main premise, which may or may not be a bad thing, depending on how you look at it.

I think the final episode really captured the essence of what the series was all about: an outsider comes into a school and manages to touch the lives (and various body parts) of a number of schoolgirls. In the end it didn’t really matter much that Mizuho was a guy, and not much was really ever made of Mizuho being male. He could have just been secretly poor or the child of some unpopular person and the story would still have worked out. All that was important was that Mizuho be awesome all-around and get on the good side of some lovely ladies. In fact, aside from the first 2 episodes and that one eyecatch with a stubbly Mizuho, I really never thought that much about Mizuho being a guy. I saw the whole thing the way Shion did; basically it was “that’s right, you’re a guy… oh well.” Other than Mizuho’s reactions to all the skin in the locker room, there was no sign that he was actually a guy. And thus, what seemed to be the driving inspiration behind the show ended up being a rather minor plot device.

However, the main cast was very good. Shion, Yukari, and Kana managed to not interfere too much in the plot (even if Kana grew increasingly annoying with every episode), while Takako and Maria did a great job of taking over in cruch time. I thought they did an especially good job with the insecure Takako, although Maria’s eventual lapse into feverish jealousy also brought about great things. Mizuho was a typical hero who barely ever made mistakes and remained humble in spite of great fame and power. The cast’s loveability was greatly increased by those odd SD sequences that were used in the 2nd of each set of eyecatches.

The music overall was good, although I wouldn’t say it was super-memorable. I did like the OP and ED, and appreciated it when Maria was humming the OP to herself. As for the artwork, the art was considerably better than the source art, and the production values were consistent throughout (although not extremely high). I was a little troubled at the super-sized heads and extremely scrawny arms and legs, but in today’s society perhaps it was not so unrealistic. Again, the SD was awesome.

Overall, OtoBoku was a short, fun ride that didn’t make me think too hard or deep. It really didn’t answer many of the mysteries (why did Mizuho have to go to that school?) and the ending was very open-ended, but I wasn’t expecting OtoBoku to be a very cerebral series. Also, it was fun to imagine all the troubled fanboys in denial over Mizuho’s trap status.

Kabitzin’s Rating: 4/5