First Impressions – Ookami Shoujo to Kuro Ouji
The girl who cried wolf.
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I like shoujo stories, but I have tended to not like the type where the girl lets herself be toyed with by the guy. Perhaps the worst one in that vein that I’ve tried to watch is Itazura na Kiss, which I dropped at about 5 episodes. So now we’ve got another show where, at least by the synopsis, a girl is getting herself toyed with by a guy. Will this one have the same sort of bad messages? |
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I wasn’t feeling the shoujo genre in the last season (sorry, Ao Haru Ride), but I feel like watching some now, so the Fall season works out nicely for me. |
More Getting What She Deserves
They could have made this a lot different. It would have been really easy to make Erika a really good girl, and make Kyoya be a really odious guy. But even with the expected turn in Kyoya’s personality, he really wasn’t that bad of a guy in this first episode. Instead of a “I’m going to make you do these things” feel, it’s “I will go along with your lie, but it’ll cost you.” And the things that Kyoya has had her do so far haven’t been really over the top. Spin and wan, bring him a soda. Yes, it’s treating her like a dog, but it’s also more of a pet that you care for. It’s not ‘Treating her like a dog’ in the sense of constantly degrading her or abusing her.
I know that if we get into tumblr-speak here, it’s still a bad message, with one person exerting power over the other person. But the way I see it, Erika can stop it at any time, by admitting what’s going on. As such, the compulsion is only to keep things going the way she wants them to. At any time, she could take responsibility and confess to her ‘friends’ (note that Futaba Yoshioka dumped friends like these in last season’s Ao Haru Ride, so it’s doable). But Erika doesn’t want to do that. So at least for me, not being a teenage girl, and having the opportunity to look at it objectively, this doesn’t seem like the worst kind of setup.
Lies Beget Lies. …Or Boyfriends, Apparently.
Something kind of felt off about the whole bondage play thing in the cafeteria. No, not the subject they were talking about, or even the fact that Kyouya said something along the lines of “shut up and let me protect you” afterwards. It just seems like this was a chance for Erika to come clean about something and then Kyouya just made it harder for her in the future. It’s great that he’s not a total jerk and that they’re showing off his good points, but how is the heroine supposed to grow with him constantly covering for her? Obviously the lie about Kyouya being a fake boyfriend isn’t going to come out right away (if ever), but how about starting with smaller things? Let Erika become a more honest person slowly, since that seems to be her main problem. Though on the other hand, Kyouya might also help her to become more honest. Lying all the time used to just harm Erika, but with Kyouya around, her lies affect him too. So maybe this incident will help Erika through her guilt, even if Kyouya kind of seemed like he’s hindering her progress. …Plus being in the shoujo genre, asking for fast developments is kind of asking for a lot. Right, Kimi no Todoke?
But hey, Kyouya isn’t as bad as I remember him being. Obviously he’s not an absolutely terrible person all around, since he and Erika are most likely going to become a functioning couple at some point (because shoujo). Even more towards that point, Erika is the “wolf girl” and Kyouya said that he likes dogs (albeit with a scary face, but still). Wolves are kind of like dogs, right? …Back to the point though, like Highway said above, Kyouya is “not that bad of a guy”. They could have made him a Do-S asshole, but he’s not exactly being malicious in taking advantage of Erika and she could walk away at any time. Shoujo generally does have a few bad messages and Erika is pretty much like the passive heroine that has the guy always save her. For all intents and purposes, Kyouya is kind of a jerk. However, I wouldn’t call this totally terrible. Both characters have their redeeming points that make it okay for viewers to like them. Plus as a reader of the manga (or at least, until chapter 20-something) I can say that the relationship between the characters does get better eventually. Hell, even Aki and Marin become better characters (kind of).
I was actually a bit surprised at the way this first episode turned out. I was expecting Kyoya to be an awful person, and take complete advantage of Erika. What happened was different: None of the characters are morally clear, and all of them have bad traits. In this mix of people, I think that Kyoya’s probably a little bit above the rest. Yes, he’s condescending and somewhat abusive to Erika in private, but he’s also standing up for her in public, fighting back against embarrassment that Aki and Marin try to push on her, and even being considerate of her image, as much as he can after they have just been talking about their bondage sex play in the cafeteria. I can see where there could actually be a relationship between these two, and that’s important in keeping a show like this plausible (another failure in Itazura na Kiss, where the MC was a completely uninterested jerk through what I watched). So I was pleasantly surprised and will continue to watch this one.
I was kind of surprised by the direction the story took too (er, when I read the manga; obviously I knew where this anime episode was going). I was expecting way more painful to read in regards to Erika’s lies and Kyouya’s abuse, but they kept things within reasonable levels. I really hope that continues on. I think they did a pretty good job at making Kyouya look like a jerk, but still like someone who it would be understandable to fall for (looks aside). I could have sworn that he was more of a jerk in the manga, but maybe it was just misinterpretation on my part since moving visuals and voice acting make a difference in the way scenes are expressed. Oh well, no complaints here really. Minus the OP being kind of aimless in a lot of visuals. Or maybe that’s just me (though I do love the OP song already).
About Tag Team
We live, laugh, enjoy and strictly believe on "more the merrier". When together, we usually come up with very chatty, conversation-based episodics and interesting posts.
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1557 comments
I was flying into this blind (aside from promo pics), as I always like myself a good shoujo anime (except for stuff like Itazura na Kiss, which I read the manga, dropped after a few chapters, then decided to try the anime, which promptly followed suit).
The OP kind of reminded me of Kaichou wa Maid-sama, which a couple of minutes in disabused me of that notion (unless perhaps they had switch positions of power).
I found this pretty cute, and Kyoya wasn’t too bad personality wise (when I read Itazura na Kiss, the guy was a total douche-bag in the beginning, and when I skipped a whole bunch, he was still douche-bag A, but the heroine was in puppy-love).
And what’s up with these horribad friends? While me and my friends tease each other in groups, even if we were “friends” in the loosest possible interpretation, no one would call each other out in public areas – maybe if you were enemies…
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Yeah, Itazura na Kiss is really just horrible about the male lead. I think I got 4 epsisodes into that, too, looked at the plot summary in the future, and said “I can’t stand this guy”.
I think the point of the friends is that they aren’t what you’d call friends, yet Erika is desperate to stay in their favor because she’s afraid of being foreveralone. They don’t believe her, they probably don’t even want Erika to be their friend. We’ll see if that ever changes.
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1557 comments
On the second point, I meant, does that even happen in real life? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a situation like that in person. Sure, you might have that person who really tries to appeal to the group and gets somewhat accepted, but never seen the other party at least somewhat reciprocate. Except for those situations where they know they’re just using you, but that’s not really the same situation here.
Have any of you ever seen people like this, or have I really been too sheltered?
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1557 comments
Meant usually the other party is either neutral or reciprocates somewhat, if not to the same extent.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Well, maybe instead of ‘don’t want’, I should say “don’t care at all if Erika is their friend”. And yeah, I think there have been plenty of groups where there are people who want to be in a group who get only the minimum of reciprocation and acknowledgement from them.
Erika being friends with Aki and Marin doesn’t get her any credit or defending from Aki and Marin. Except maybe they just don’t bag on her when she’s known to be in earshot.
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 163 comments
Actually… people do have “friends” like this.
My kid sister actually went through a couple of friendships where she gave everything to the friendship, and her friends just treated her like dirt.
Some people want to have friendships and don’t have a strong enough sense of self to resist the urge to attach themselves to anyone they can get a hold of.
Love when Kyouya faces the bratty friend down in the cafeteria and grabs her face – that was awesome.
POWUH: 900-999 with 915 comments
I’m not sure what to think. It’s sure surprisingly cute, though with some weird sexual jokes.
Erika being with those girls reminded me of Futaba from Ao Haru Ride, but taken to the extreme. Like, hell, if I was someone who didn’t have the same inclinations as those girls, I would be waaaaay too embarassed to be around them and participate on their conversations. But, oh well, that’s where despair takes you.
I really hope Erika becomes a better character because right now she is extremely irritating and wishy-washy and her lies are plain dumb, it’s like she lies for lying sake, wtf?
What surprised me the most was the Kuro Ouji who turned out better than I expected, of course, if he was a pitch black kind of person, there wouldn’t be any space left for romance. But when he said the reasons he likes puppies… I was kind of scared ‘-‘
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
It was a lot like Futaba, but whereas Futaba’s character growth was about breaking away from that kind of abusive friendship, Erika doesn’t really have that impetus to grow away from her bad girl group.
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 163 comments
I think Kyouya revealed a lot more potential that he is more than just a jerk in this relationship in the scene where he was explaining why he actually loves dogs in this episode.
He seemed to hint that he wasn’t interested in conventional relationships to begin with. And that this master-dog relationship is actually something he’s benefiting from in some way, and it’s more than just a joke to him.
Just a hint of it so far, but it is there.
POWUH: Meta Team and PreCure Mastah with 9203 comments
If Ao Haru Ride and Gekkan Shoujo had a baby this is what we would get! I loved the blend of OMAGER its serious with the goofball expressions so for me it has the best of both worlds! We get our serious stuffs with out comical stuffs and so far it worked.
POWUH: Meta Resident and Metanorn's Hime-chan~ with 1758 comments
This was fun. I enjoy that the MC isn’t always that honest, straight-forward girl we usually get in shoujo. She’s a teenager, so it’s only natural to do stupid stuff. Like lie about having a boyfriend who’s into bondage 😀 and having fear of being left out. Though that aspect was a little exaggerated.
Other than that, nothing stands out in this show. Graphics are normal, the OP/ED sequences were boring, the music is not memorable. But I’ll still keep watching it, just for some shoujo bubbles.