Servant x Service is simply the most "sitcomesque" like anime I've ever watched, it resembles a sitcom in various ways, and I will demostrate that in the lines below. ( By the way, if you do not know what is a sitcom, it stands for situational comedy, and it is a expression used to designate some american tv shows, like "Friends" and "How I Met Your Mother").
First of all, what is SxS about ? and how does every episode plays out ?
SxS tells the story of the interactions between co-workers of a ward office speciallized in health and welfare. It does not have a major plot, but instead it carries the episodes out based on two main points : occasional comics situations, and romantic (light-mooded may I add) interactions between the characters, which is basically the formula for most sitcoms nowadays.
Ok, but just because it is following a formula it does not mean it is good, how does the execution of such formula goes ?
It goes pretty smoothly actually. Here is where one of the main points of SxS shines, that is the characters (again, almost every sucessful sitcom is so because of good characters). The characters are reallly well put together, and their interactions is almost always hilarious or sweet.
But who are these so interesting characters ?
Well, the main cast consists of the megane big breasted Lucy Kimiko Akie Airi Shiori Rinne Yoshiho (...) Yamagami, a cheerful and innocent girl who has a passion for books and hates her abnormally long name.
Secondly we got Lucy's romance interest, the hilarious Hasebe, by far the best constructed character of the anime, he is usually too cheerful and careless, but we can say he is basically much more than meets the eyes.
We also got Chihaya, Myoshi and Ichimya as part of the main cast, all of them having great nuances to their personalities, do not be fooled by the first few episodes, they may seem as cliche one dimensional character but they are definetly not.
Through the whole anime the viewer is rewarded with hilarious situations between these characters every episode (it gets even better as the series progresses ) and the romance was a really good surpirse, it progressed extremely naturally,did not felt rushed at any point, and had perfect pacing... again it resembles any sucessful sitcom out there.
The rest of the characters, the supporting cast if you will, are ok. Here we can find a few annoying characters (yes I'm looking at you Touko), but some good ones as well... nothing that will stand out (for good or for bad), but then again, they are not supposed too... a sitcom is all about the main cast, and dragging the attention or screen time away from them would be foolish, luckly it appears the writers of SxS are well aware of that.
Allright, seems good, but what about the more tecnical parts of the anime ? how does the art and sound goes ?
Well in the art department SxS comes through as well, of course we are not talking about a Mecha-Eplosions-Gunfire anime, therefore no specially good effect is required. That being said, the quality of the "normal" part of the art (color pallete, drawings, etc) is pretty standarly good.
The character design does not stand out either (with the exception of lucy, but only because she fits in cliche design). I 'm not saying they are poorly designed, after all they are supposed to be normal working people, therefore we could not expect much unusal innovative design here.
As for the sound in the anime, again it does not stands out, but again it does not have to. The OP was the only catchy song in the whole anime, really great cheerfu song (thanks again mrs Toyosaki), the ED was sweet, but it didnt stand out much, and the SDT was nnot remarkable at all, once again it resembles a sitcom, trying its best not to drive attention away from the characters.
And there you have it, a sitcom in anime format. Personally I loved it, I always liked sitcoms and animes, puting them together was a terrific idea, but as any other genres out there some people will enjoy it and some wont.
Now all that is left is to ask yourself, "Will I like this ?", Remember all that I said above, this anime consists basically comedy oriented with a bit of light romance, with no major plot, dark themed stuff, or twists. If you think you'll dig it, I say go ahead, you will get a delightful, smile maker experience. If you dont, well there is always something else out there right ?
