Ryoko Okami is a sixteen year old student who goes to the very prestigious Otogi High School. She has a strong sense of justice and is always ready and willing to throw her all into a fight in order to protect herself and others. This admirable toughness along with her generosity and benevolence towards those weaker than her serve her very well in the Otogi Bank a school club that does favors for people in exchange for returned favors down the road. She often works with her best friend and room mate Akai Ringo a girl whos sweet and charming on the outside but cunning and manipulative on the inside. Together this team of Wolf and Red strike terror into the hearts of the wicked All of whom look like stereotypical anime punks. One day as theyre walking home from a mission a mysterious boy from their class follows them and proclaims his love for Ryoko His name is Morino Ryoushi a boy whos bold in tongue but shy at heart who gets terrified whenever somebody stares at him. But only if they think the word staaaaaaaare while theyre doing it. With his ability to seemlessly blend into a crowd he gets recruited into Otogi Bank and now the three have to continue working together Well thats the setup Ill save the plot for later because hoo boy. For now Okamisan was produced by JC Staff the people who produced Index and Toradora and to say that its a step down would be putting it nicely. For those who dont remember it the animation in Toradora could occasionally look cheap and clunky like a sketchy penandink design that isnt quite finished. In order to make the movement of thew characters appear fluid they skimp on the artwork making for a really weird looking result if you go to slowmo. There are quite a few shows that default to this style once or twice in order to stretch their budgets like Samurai Seven and Welcome to the NHK. Its ugly but taken in small doses its not the worst thing in the world. Well Okamisan is presented entirely in this style from beginning to end and its incredibly difficult to get used to. The backgrounds and landscapes are amazing but in regards to the characters Its like KON but a few drafts shy of the final draft. Yeah I dont know what I was smoking when I said the animation was top notch because this is some of the cheapest ugliest animation that Ive ever seen. Most of the time when the characters are talking their appearance onscreen will consist of a tiny burst of movement followed by several seconds of still frame. The characters are designed to be proportionally normal and slightly angular and yet theiir faces are completely moefied making for character designs that honestly give me a headache to look at. To make matters worse there are more frozen backgrounds here than in March of the Penguins as characters who arent speaking just stand there still as statues errily refusing to even blink. The dub isnt terrible but we are unfortunately dealing with a Jamie Marchi script and like usual I can tell its her within the first half of episode one. Have you ever had a weird aunt who tries to look cool by saying all the hip slangy stuff that she thinks your generation will be able to relate to even though she just comes off as ironically charming at best? Thats Jamie Marchi. Thankfully she shares duties with Chuck Huber so its not as bad as it could have been. Joel McDonald plays Ryoushi as earnestly as possible doing a great job in making him likeable. Monica Rial seems to have a great understanding of her character as shes able to play every shade of her personality believably. Oddly enough the one who falls flat is Brina Palencia who would normally be one of my favorites. Im going to chalk this up to bad casting because she never really seems to own this particular character and you can tell Marchi didnt give her the best dialogue. The most depressing part of the dub is Luci Christian whom I have come to consider the queen of voice acting. Whom I would sell a kidney to meet in person. She plays the part of the narrator whos job extends far past the intros and outros that youd expect her to voice. No shes present through the entire show talking our ear off the whole time. She dumps exposition on us makes rude comments about the characters and their bodies she drowns out the dialogue and basically struggles to find some sort of a point for her own existence. Luci tries to make this character interesting but even with her behind the wheel I havent heard narration this pointless cruel and infuriating since Pitch Perfect. So I didnt want to go into the plot earlier and for my reason? Well the plot of this show is an extensive point of discussion all its own. This is the basic plot in a nutshell Ryoko is only pretending to be strong but shes actually scared and girly on the inside and its Ryoushis job to warm her icy heart and turn her back to her normal girly self so that he can be strong for her instead. The term sexist gets thrown around a lot but when the plot of an anime boils directly down to woman not really strong let man be strong for you thats a pretty big red flag particularly when it has to remind you over and over again that the main character isnt actually strong. Yeah Im sorry was she just duking it out in a street fight with several armed older men? Was she just putting on a brave face while a much larger group of them took her down and attempted to violate her? And shes not strong because shes afraid and only pretending to be strong? Because she likes puppies and girly novels? Do I even have to point out the layers of bullshit at play here? Sorry but fearless bravery isnt real bravery its just stupid recklessness. Being scared but doing the right thing anyway is true courage. The Olson Twins made for TV Halloween movie taught me that when I was a child and this show still has a tough time understanding it. Oh wait theres an explanation for it. She pretends to be tough because she got violated by somebody in middle school but when she tried to report it nobody believed her and everybody started to hate her for lying. Theres a certain nuance to that Shes scared and distrustful because she was violated and never vindicated for it but she acts tough because she doesnt want it to happen again. Her best friend wants to set her up with a good man so she can slowly undo the damage that was done to her. Makes sense right? Well ignoring the troubling implications that this idea makes in regards to the creators opinions towards women especially in regards to tomboys I have to ask Why am I supposed to want to see this change happen? What do I as the viewer get out of it? Okay for the sake of comparison lets talk about Batman for a moment. Yes I know they have nothing in common Ryoko became a kickass vigilante because something traumatic happened to her in the past while Bruce Wayne became a kickass vigilante because Okay maybe theyre not that different. Well Batmans backstory is so well known that every single incarnation of his story has explored it at some point Except for Brave and the Bold during daytime hours because we must censor to protect the children and it ties in perfectly with the development that happens down the road. Now Im not the first person to suggest this but it would be very healthy for Bruce Wayne to just get over his parents death and give up the crime fighting. He could put aside his cape and cowl and just live life as the wealthy philanthropist playboy he was born to be. find a good woman start a family and live the American dream. So if it would be in his best interest why doesnt it happen? Because if it did nobody would care anymore. The fanbase would die off and the only readers left would be the ones holding onto the hope that its just some sick dream created by The Mad Hatter. Similarly seeing Ryoko giving up on her quest for justice would take away what is frankly the only interesting thing about her. Without it shes just another generic Tsundere. And yet her best friends And some viewers as well want to see this development happen. Apparently its okay for a grown man in a black suit to dedicate his life to being strong and kicking ass but a teenaged high school girl? Work through that shit And heres my biggest problem with this show. Bigger than my problem with the narrator or with Marchis writing. Remember Ryokos best friend Ringo? These two didnt meet until a year after Ryokos assault. The person Ringo met is through and through the very damaged tomboy shes trying to change. Im sorry but if you think that friendship is trying to change somebody into a better person that you think they can become youre not a very good friend. Back in March I wrote a review on my blog about a little anime called Oreimo a title that is more or less the shortened version of My Little Sister Cant Possibly be this Cute. Guess what its about. But despite all of its shortcomings I praised Oreimo for having a cast of characters that make the effort to try and understand and accept each other for who they are. At least in the first season. And now you expect me to be entertained by some bullshit series where an awesome characters best friend wants to hook her up with a man so shell be more ladylike? And youre going to look me in the eye and tell me that Okamisan is popular but Oreimo is despised by people? Are you fucking kidding me? Oreimos writing was great until the 2013 revival but Okamisans writing was bad right out of the gate For the first six episodes or so I didnt mind this show. The chauvinism goes pretty deep but it was kind of funny a few times it was mostly harmless and the annoying narrator was at least making one or two good jokes. It was at about the halfway point that the low quality of the writing really started to overpower what little good there may have been. It tries to do both comedy and drama but it never succeeds in creating a balance between the two. It can actually be pretty damn jarring at times. To summarize Okamisan tries to go to some really serious places while struggling to take itself seriously. They even manage to work ecchi undertones into a CPR scene for Christs sake After seeing what Ouran High School Host Club was capable of no anime should ever have an excuse to blend comedy and drama this poorly There are too many characters and the ones that we get to spend time with normally only get a single episode dedicated to them before they fade back into the background. The narrator wears out her welcome fast and doesnt tell nearly enough funny jokes to justify her presence. And if thats not bad enough this show actually seems to be terrified of itself. We never see the Otogi Bank actually pursuing a debt because its terrified of making the characters look unlikeable. The constant fairy tale references never really amount to anything because its terrified of not being taken seriously. We never find out exactly what happened to Ryoko in middle school because its terrified of upsetting the audience. We never see Ryoushi asking her out on an actual date because its terrified of exploring how such an exaggerated character would react to normal social interactions. The narrator wont shut the hell up because its scared that the writing wont hold up on its own. The writing in general is really really bad. It constantly alternates between being insultingly stupid and just plain boring. The amnesia storyline alone is an episode painful enough to skip. The episode where a butler tries to find a bride for his ward is even worse as he uses it as an excuse to make shallow despicable remarks about the entire female cast before revealing that he didnt need to be there in the first place. At no point do the characters ever act like real people. And the ending You know what? Throw up a spoiler tag because I really fucking need to address this. For the nonspoiler version The main villain who is introduced with a promising bang ultimately fades out with an anticlimactic whimper promising revenge for a sequel series that will hopefully never come. Hell thats pretty much how the series ends as a whole Nothing is resolved and early implications about the village being part of a social experiment filled with fairy tale references amounts to absolutely nothing. I know its easy to say that someone couldnt write their way out of a paper bag but it really does seem like somebody deliberately was trying to do just that And failing miserably at it. Strictly speaking Okamisan isnt the worst anime Ive ever seen. Its not even on my bottom ten. But you know what? I still hate it. I dont even hate the anime I once gave 0/10 but I hate this anime. And trust me theres a very very small list of anime that I flatout hate. Its bad enough that its stupid full of shit and blatantly sexist but the way it approaches the subject of rape just tips the scales entirely against it. I havent seen every anime so I could be wrong about this but outside of hentai rape is a subject that doesnt exist in the medium. It can be joked about or threatened but it doesnt actually happen and it doesnt get dealt with. This is one of the reasons that Now and Then Here and There is such a rare gem Any anime that introduces a plot point about one of its characters being raped and actually explores the repercussions and recovery of the attack can easily be considered a ground breaking series. What frustrates me the most about Okamisan is that by introducing the rape implications in a lazy attempt to explain Ryokos character they actually come really close to pulling this off Only to pussy out at every turn. They vaguely introduce the subject when needed then drop it cold and try to make us forget about it until the next time its needed. I know it isnt fair of me to wholeheartedly condemn this series because of what I wanted it to be rather than what it was but what it was was no peach okay? Okamisan and her Seven Companions was dubbed by Funimation and can be viewed for free on Netflix. You can also find a lot of other anime on Netflix that dont suck so dont even bother with this festering field full of fairy tale feces. It isnt well written it isnt well produced It just isnt well. I gave it a four out of ten the first time I watched it but now that Ive watched it twice I think its much more appropriate to give this series a 2/10.