ThatAnimeSnob

PROPER MINDSET
So here I am watching this show called The Pet Girl of Sakurasou which is supposed to have some sort of good drama besides being fan service. One minute after the pilot episode begins I am already eye-rolling. We get the usual hentai-premise, a typical boring dork surrounded by hot girls who are all over him for NO FAKIN’ REASON and he is constantly not doing anything with them because it is not a hentai but a comedy. AHAHAHA-oh wait; that is not funny at all. Because all ecchi shows are exactly like that for the past 30 years and this one sure as hell doesn’t attempt to be original in the slightest.

PRODUCTION VALUES
Let’s start with what most of you will think right away. “Hey it’s a J.C. Staff show; time to fap to badly adapted softporn by some light novel.” Because that is the only thing they are ever doing and if any of you think they are anything more than that, I pity you. The production values are as always mediocre all across the board, from the done-to-death character designs, the cloned-into-infinity school grounds, to the jerky animation, the lazily-written songs, and the loose voice acting. There is no way to score the looks of this show with more than the base score.

SCRIPT
I wish I could describe the story to you but I can’t. No matter what I write, you will easily confuse it with at least a dozen other shows which so happen to have THE EXACT SAME STORY. So I might as well make a checklist of all the stuff you get to find in here FOR THE MILLIONTH TIME.
- A completely average, typical, boring everyday high school male who loves to be obnoxious and to make an ass of himself on every chance he gets
- No sex despite all characters being hentai archetypes but nonetheless various excuses to masturbate while watching them not doing it
- A school that is somehow able to violate every rule and law in the world without being nuked from orbit
- A set of characters who you would normally only encounter in Arkham asylum
- Complete lack of common sense
- Pandering of all sorts for losers, NEETs, gamers, bored to death high schoolers

With that in mind, the plot is about a guy in a problematic school full of horny pussies. He gets to stroke them but never to bang them. And I don’t mean the cats! One day the obligatory mysterious transfer student arrives and he needs to take care of her. And by take care of her I mean to do all things one would expect from deviant porn. Yet he never really does anything with her because this is a comedy. AHAHA-not funny. No, really, that girl is completely autistic and you can do anything you want with her. She won’t fight back, won’t be able to explain the situation to anyone else, and is even doing provocative moves on you like she wants it. So why doesn’t he take advantage of her if he gets what he wants, she won’t mind it, and nobody will ever find out about it? Because for some reason, being obnoxious and a loser overwrites your teenage urges. EVEN SHINJI MASTURBATES TO ASUKA!

Aha, but wait, now we are getting to the part where many say the show is very good at. You see that autistic girl is very talented in art and makes the completely average dork protagonist to look like dirt. Not that he already wasn’t with that obnoxious personality of his. So the plot is basically a genius having to rely on a commoner for all the trivial stuff; and by trivial stuff I mean all the erotic fetishes one can only dream of. Because this show couldn’t work as a serious take on the gap between the gifted and the everyday people; it had to be a J.C. Staff show.

Now in all honesty it depends on how you get to see the whole thing. If you perceive it as drama and romance with fan service and comedy then of course it is going to suck monkey balls, since there is a ton of the later aspects. But if you lower your bar ssssssoooooo low to the point you somehow believe that any softporn goofball comedy is a masterpiece if it gently scratches a serious topic, then OMG THE ANIME OF THE MILLENNIA IS RIGHT HERE! THIS IS BETTER THAN SWORD ART ONLINE AND AS WE ALL KNOW SWORD ART ONLINE IS A MASTERPIECE!
… not.

For me? Well I can only place it a bit above a typical run of the mill ecchi comedy, which in turn is a bit above sea urchins and fruit flies.

CAST
Now I know many who loved the themes of the story. It is rather easy to identify with a guy who doesn’t excel at anything and be envious of a girl which was born to be better than you when it comes to important things. It is also cute to see how even the elite can be in need of the nobodies for the everyday things we take for granted. At the same time the show is not exactly doing much with the theme since it is as I said to the most part an ecchi comedy than romance or a social drama. Sorata is so obnoxious and scared of sex that I would hate him no matter how smart he was. And Shiina is basically an emotionless puppet that is ok to sleep with everyone just to get ideas for a shoujo manga; I couldn’t imagine her as nothing more than one of those huge anime pillows.

And then it’s the whole romance aspect of the show. If one can call it that. Beats me how exactly the main two characters fell in love with each other in two episodes if all I ever saw them doing is random ecchi stuff. And I never got how all the chicks with issues always run to cry on the lap of the most boring and obnoxious male they can find, magically falling in love with him. There is literally a guy who has seduced every MILF there is right next to them; a jigolo of comfort who even does it for free. Why don’t they run to him for support; he obviously knows more about girl problems than the loser protagonist. Self insert character bullshit like this totally put me of.

LEGACY
Down to it, the anime is not complete garbage but it is far from a great one. If there is one show J.C. Stuff did right, that would be Toradora. There weren’t such BS there, the romance felt more plausible, the fan service was very toned down. Pet Girl leaves comedy and turns to drama in the second half but it is sort of hard to like the change in the mood. Wouldn’t it be far better if it was a drama all along? And would it kill them to have sex instead of this done to death ecchi jokes? Those things are exactly what would make this anime to be great instead of just another comedy which tries a bit to be good. Not completely garbage as almost anything J.C. Stuff ever made, enjoyable for the casual romcom fans, but not exceptional.

And by the way, the anime is not a complete adaptation of the light novels it is based on. If any of you are thinking about reading the rest of the story in the novels, be warned that they end in a way that infuriated everybody who liked the anime. So yeah, it’s a lose-lose situation.