Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru – Series Review

It’s a very pink room for a boy

Want me to get a show off my backlog? Or even put it on and then watch it? Make it be about girls at a catholic school who call each other “onee-sama” apparently. Well, that’s not necessarily true, but as you’ll see from this article (and my last retroblogging article about Maria-sama ga Miteru), it’s a good start. As usual with one of these retroblogging reviews, there’s probably some spoilers in this post.

Class and Tact

Mariya teases Mizuho with Yukari and Kana

It’s probably hard to believe that a show that’s 1) based on an eroge, 2) about a boy who is attending a girl’s school in drag, and 3) has a legit ghost as one of the supporting characters is going to be characterized as either “Classy” (non-ironically) or “Tactful”. But 2006’s Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru – “Maidens are Falling in Love With Me” – actually does keep the prurient interest level of the show up much lower than you would ever think it would be. For one, the main character – Mizuho Miyanokouji, voiced by Yui Horie – isn’t trying to put one over on people, since he’s been compelled to go to Seiou Academy by his Grandfather’s will after he’d raised him when his mother died. So his childhood friend Mariya is helping him fit in, and the headmaster and homeroom teacher both know about him. There’s also the fact that he hasn’t cut his hair ever, so Mizuho never has to wear a wig to have waist-length hair. That doesn’t mean that it’s going to be common knowledge, tho, and when he’s discovered right away by Shion Juujou, it seems like things aren’t going to go well. But Shion is much more of an ally than anyone else, and with Mariya and Shion’s support, they set about getting Mizuho elected the school’s ‘Elder’ for the year.

Shion figures out fast

Normally, if you have a setup where it’s a boy in a girl’s school, the main humor is going to be either embarrassment at the boy having to be near the girls or the boy’s going to be a complete horndog and always trying to not get caught being a pervert. But this show only goes to the first well a couple times, and never goes to the second. The only times that Mizuho being a boy really even comes up are when he’s afraid of the girl’s bathroom in the first episode and when he gets out of swimming class (because he’s sure to be exposed in the classic school swimsuit). But there’s no making a big deal out of contact with the girls, and even when the underclass girls want to sleep in Mizuho’s bed because they’re scared, there’s no thought of shenanigans, just being a good person in comforting them. And that’s what this show’s message really is: being a good person.

Not that it gets completely away from cheap jokes and fanservice

Variable Route Quality

You mostly wanted Ichiko to go away after going to heaven, but she was much better as the series went on

There are some good characters, and there are some real throwaway characters. You really see the roots of the series as a VN (and then you start thinking about it being an eroge and… yeaaaaaah) as it goes through episodes for the different girls in the game. Past Mizuho, Mariya, and Shion (who doesn’t get nearly as much focus as she deserves), the other character of note is Takako, filling the sorta-antagonist role. She’s the student council president, and while there’s initial opposition between Mizuho and Takako, it becomes more of a rivalry between Mariya and Takako as the show goes on. The other characters of note are Kana and Yukari, two first-years who live in the same dorm as Mariya and Mizuho, and Ichiko, the ghost of a girl who died 22 years ago. Yeah, a ghost (and she’s really annoying at the beginning, but calms down significantly).

Takako and Mizuho

Some of the arcs are pretty throwaway, like I found Kana and Yukari’s arcs to be pretty much “Onee-sama cares about me, I can get through my problem!” while Ichiko actually gets what she wanted as a ghost. Thankfully, they don’t have every girl fall hopelessly in love with Mizuho, and even the girls who do fall in love with him do so because of attention and understanding. The show doesn’t really pick a winner, but it does have a fairly satisfying end, with a little bit of tension and a nice resolution.

The rivals for Mizuho

So why am I writing about this show? Because it left me feeling good about it. I really enjoyed watching the show, and from a show that I hadn’t ever really heard of, it turned into a very fun experience. I liked that it dealt with the ‘scandalous’ nature of Mizuho being a boy in a girls school without scandal, without even making a big deal about it. Mizuho is first and foremost a person, not a boy, not a girl. And the people who fall in love in this show do so because they love the person, not their gender.

I was going to put a picture of the chibi look in here, but it’s so terrible I didn’t want to

There are two additions to the main 12 episode series. First is an OVA that’s only notable for one thing: It exclusively uses the super-deformed character models. This is bad because these are the ugliest chibi characters I’ve ever seen. Just awful. The main series used these models a few times early on, but gave it up pretty quickly (except for the ED). I have no idea if it’s a good story or not, I only made it like 3 minutes in before turning off the show. The other is a second series, Futari no Elder, which is a 3-episode OVA series based at the same school, with another cross-dressing main character. This wasn’t as good, and was a lot more angsty and the reason for Chihaya to go to the school is not nearly as benign. It’s a little disappointing, but that’s what you get from short follow-ups, I think.