Nazo no Kanojo X

Now, now, now. I've been informed that certain people think that Nazo no Kanojo is ecchi. I've also been informed that a lot of people think it's bad that it has some originality. Well, guess what? It ain't so. Not often will you find an anime which revolves around drool, and this one did a damn fine job in doing so. So, you think that people sharing drool is nasty? Well, guess what, it is. Oh, but you watched only the first episode of the anime and took upon yourself to be an arse and immediatelly toss it aside? Well, guess what, not all anime ... start off great. There needs to be progress. Fluidity. And damn right I'm not gonna sit by idly while a perfectly good anime is being dissed.
Now, let me start this review right.
The storyline is about a guy. Not your generic anime guy without a personality/cowardly/insanely courageous guy, no; it's about a simple highschool boy with his unique personality. And, by a game of chance, he tastes the spit(yeah, kinda gross, but come on, you do that when kissing as well) of a new girl in class. Now, that new girl is kind of weird. She starts laughing in the middle of class without apparent reason, she's not socialising with anyone, and half her face is covered with bangs. And yet, this guy falls in love with her. And then, in time, he realises he's hit the jackpot. Now, her personality has been presented extraordingly. She's unorthodox, and mysterious, and I think that this anime will need a season 2 in order to fully explain her backstory. Now, let me move on from the characters.
The storyline progresses pretty slowly, as it should with highschoolers, but not slow enough to make you bored. It's reasonably paced and will make you anxious in about what'll happen in the next episode. I think they were low on budget, so they couldn't make more episodes, but if there were more, I'm damn sure they would be even more awesome.
The animation reminded me of old style. I'm talking before 2000 animation here, and it invokes a wonderful feeling of nostalgy and familiarity. Not too much fanservice in my oppinion, just the right mix. Didn't register many flaws in it, really.
Now, the music. It's WONDERFUL. Track 04 from the anime, dream, is composed to reflect the mystique and the weird nature of Urabe (female protagonist). Not too thrilled about op and ed though, but thye're not bad. The songs playing during certain scenes in the anime are exceptionally fitting and they don't get boring quickly.
And, finally, my overall and my grade.
Overall, this is an unorthodox anime, with an original storyline and plot, and damn right it shouldn't be cast aside for trying something new. It has almost no mistakes/errors and it's pretty well made. It's one of the better romances I watched, and it differs from all others with it's unique way of presenting and developing the feelings of the characters; and that's why, this anime will make it in my top 5, along with GITS, NGE, Bakemonogatari and Toradora.
My overall grade is 9, and I reccomend everyone to watch this anime, and not to give up in the first episode.
Over and out, please submit your feedback about my first review :D

Mysterious Girlfriend X is a show that’s pretty icky. There’s no getting around it. As a viewer, one always has options, one can always make decisions. So, if you’re planning on watching this show, you have to get past the hurdle that is the synopsis of this show. A high school student one day discovers the new transfer student asleep at her desk after school. After she hurriedly leaves, he sees a small pool of her drool on the desk, and for some unfathomable reason, he puts his finger in said drool, and takes this finger into his mouth. He licks her drool.

Without getting into ... the other bizarre things about this anime (the main character’s proclivity for randomly laughing, the scissors she keeps in her panties, etc.), the drool issue is the most major one to contend with. Part of this piece will be about hopefully putting “the drool issue” into a larger context regarding what this show’s actually doing. It’s fairly obvious that the show is on some level about how love, at one point or another, must lead to intimacy. The protagonists of our show, because they’re weird, don’t take the usual path in these matters. They’re inching toward intimacy, but they do it in their own particular way. Mysterious Girlfriend X, in its own weird way, celebrates the time of our lives where we groped and felt around and decided what worked and didn’t work for us, what felt right; it’s a show about our sexual exploration, and how it’s a necessary aspect of relationships.

After Tsubaki, our male protagonist, tastes Urabe’s drool, he just knows he has to be with her. It’s not a question of psychology or of motivation; his body dictates it. After not tasting her drool for a couple of weeks, he’s actually bedridden and sick. It’s only after Urabe shows up and gives him her drool that he recovers. So he asks her out. She says yes. The reason behind this is simple – he had a reaction to her drool, and to her that means he’s special. Every day after school, in order to stave off sickness, Urabe sticks a finger in her mouth and lets Tsubaki suck on it for a bit. It’s a moment of an awkward physical intimacy; and, I think, an undeniably erotic moment for both of them. Later on, we find out that Urabe’s drool can also serve as a communication tool (Urabe can find out about Tsubaki’s dreams and they can even find out what the other is feeling because of it). This daily ritual is no different than kissing before saying goodbye.

I think if the drool itself were animated in a more tasteful way there wouldn’t be as much resistance to this show. Hoods Entertainment, the company who made it, do the series no favors when they choose to animate the drool, as being not at all dissimilar to other bodily fluids. The drool lingers, drips from fingers, forms puddles; in the op, it even splashes like we’re suddenly in a hentai or something. It’s distracting. In Mysterious Girlfriend X, the exchange of drool comes to represent other possible exchanges of bodily fluids. The act is both literal and metaphorical. This is really what we are talking about, isn’t it?

Tsubaki and Urabe both understand where their relationship will end up. Every time they exchange drool, they come to realize the fact of it. This is where we’re heading, this is what’s going to happen. But many of the 13 episodes are about the slow crawl toward that goal (in this series, that goal is unfulfilled). One episode finds Urabe going over to visit Tsubaki wearing nothing but a coat, because apparently this is a normal remedy for the common cold. Like Junko Nakano’s Chisa x Pon (though nowhere near as explicit), the series maps out how over time, they become more comfortable with each other. Whereas in the first few episodes, Urabe almost kills Tsubaki when he tries to hug her; near the end, it’s Urabe who demands that she be hugged. There’s even a moment later on where in a fit of blind passion, Tsubaki licks Urabe’s ear, and she’s completely overwhelmed by the sensation. Although this sense of experimentation and play is lighthearted in the show, I believe the show takes absolutely serious the drives of the main characters. Tsubaki has nightly dreams about Urabe where they dance in some strange circus-like town (not hard to understand what’s happening there), and Urabe herself often finds herself blushing and testing her own limits regarding what she’ll do (one episode finds her stripping completely down and letting Tsubaki lick her drool while his eyes are closed). The way they approach the issue is unorthodox, sure, but everyone’s different. The show even provides a foil couple to accentuate how different they are.

Although the show is relatively straightforward in its depiction of teenage confusion, hormones and love, there’s one really interesting strand that I haven’t mentioned. Tsubaki and his friend, Ueno, both get girlfriends during the show, but they insist on keeping this a secret. Whereas in other shows, there’d usually be a scene where everyone whispers about the new couple, in this show our main characters never acknowledge their girlfriends in any special way while they’re at school. While I don’t think this is done for any real reason by the characters, it betrays an uneasiness about their own sexual development. I couldn’t help thinking that they were hiding their relationships because it meant that they were growing up, that they were embarrassed by their sexual curiosity/progress/etc. And, yeah, it’s completely embarrassing. During this time in their lives, we have no idea what we’re doing. Tsubake and Urabe may understand the mechanics of where this is all going, but it doesn’t mean that they have any idea of what it means, of what it looks like, of what it feels like; and not knowing, looking foolish while you figure out, is completely embarrassing. It’s easier to pretend you don’t have a girlfriend, because then you can keep that side of yourself completely separate from people’s image of you. The only one who can see you at your most vulnerable, most ridiculous, state is your Mysterious Girlfriend; and only she knows how much her drool turns you on.

copied/pasted from my blog: thenextthingblog.wordpress.com

This is my first review and it's a bit spoilerish, mostly about the stuff that annoyed me there.

People told me Nazo no Kanojo was good, so I kept watching it despite the ridiculousness of the first episode. It was pretty weird and kind of stupid, but I've seen stuff that had more stupid premises and that was nonetheless very good.
This manga and as such the anime was written by someone who obviously has a drool fetish, but it shouldn't be enjoyable only by people who have that kind of fetish.

The first episode is about the protagonist feeling sick after tasting the girl's drool. The girl ... reveals that he's actually feeling love sick and is in withdrawal after he tasted the girl's drool. Okay. That sounds pretty stupid, but you do feel bad when you miss people you love. Urabe properly explains that her saliva isn't magical, he's only in love with her.

The following eps are then all about generic romance situations, except they solve everything with drool. First date, trip to the beach, situations that look like one of them is cheating ... Everytime, solved by tasting each other's drool. Where in other stories people would struggle to explain their feelings, there, they'd just use their cheap trick.

The art is okay and does the job. It never looks bad, but never pretty either.

The sound was good. Some songs gave some of that MYSTERIOUS feel, and Urabe's voice was a really nice surprise. It's a quiet,husky yet cute voice, which I thought was really fitting.

The characters. The protagonist is as generic he can get. He is not TOO stupid like some protagonist can be though, so i guess he does the job.
Urabe is mysterious. What does that mean ? She doesn't speak much and she has scissors in her panties. Mysterious.
I have no explanation for the X tho.
One thing that annoys me is that the protag just instantly falls in love with Mikoto after seeing her once and tasting her drool once. Similarly, Urabe is foretold that protag would be her first sexual experience, and she just goes along with it. So they start dating.
The side characters include protag's BFF and his girlfriend. That girlfriend also seems to fall in love with Urabe for some reason, going as far as keeping a naked picture of Urabe, but that never bothers anyone.
The protag's older sister looked nice, but she never interacts.

I couldn't enjoy the story and I couldn't enjoy the drool fanservice, hence the 3.