Amaenaide yo!!

"Buddhism turned extreme ... in an erotic way ..."

What happens when you put a monk and a bunch of nuns together in a temple? Performing exorcism all day and night? Not really ... performing perverted, ecchi stuff all day and night? O yeah!

Amaenaide yo! is an anime that can easily get faithful Buddhists ticked and non believers wonder "what the heck" is Buddhism. While this is only half of the story (you need to watch Amaenaide yo!! Katsu!! to get the complete picture to the story), it does serve its purpose quite well as a building block to the sequel.

Story:
The show is very episodic by ... nature, thus one can watch all the episodes in whichever order one pleases (except for episode 1 and 12) and will still be able to follow the story. Nearly all episodes contain some sort of ecchiness (rated R) though they can hardly be compared to Kanokon. In terms of plot, the story is rather simple and easy to comprehend throughout the series. In fact the story is so simple that if the ecchiness can be taken out of the anime, the show is actually more suitable for children than young adults. (Ecchi Power Rangers, anyone?)

Art:
When I first started watching this show, the characters looked very awkward to me due to their unusual round faces and marble-like eyes (especially Chitose the main female lead). The animation quality is very consistent throughout the series and the transition from scene to scene is also very smooth.

Sound:
The OP and ED are nothing very spectacular, however that is not to say they will make your ears bleed. There are a few notable CV:

The main female lead, Chitose, is voiced by Mai Nakahara who is known for Nagisa in Clannad, Mai in Mai HiME and Mai Otome.

Ikkou the main male lead, is voiced by Chihiro Suzuki who is known for Kouta in Elfen Lied, Luke in Tales of the Abyss.

Character:
It worried me at first (since all the girls seemed to play quite a major role in the story) that in 12 short episodes, the female characters will not have enough time to fully develop themselves as a unique character. But much to my surprise, all the females have pretty much equal screen time and most of them matured overtime as the series progresses. On the other hand, Ikkou (despite being the main focus in every episode) did not really change much from the beginning to the end.

Enjoyment + Final Thought:
While not the most ecchi anime you'll ever come across, Amaenaide yo! will not disappoint you if you are looking for perverted anime. Personally I watch it because I have been exposed to Buddhism ever since a young age and I was curious to see what it might lead me to. The anime certainly pissed off my Buddist-self, but at the same time it was entertaining with its light comedy.

*It should be noted that the anime does include a lot of Buddhism terminology, so I recommend getting some definition out of the way first while watch it (else it'll be extremely confusing)*

This review is written purely for fun (because of the words used to describe it) but it does summarise the show well.

Basically, this show is like ecchi "Power Rangers", each episode features a new enemy beaten in the exactly same way.
The only things that change are: the enemy, setting and the girl who gets her clothes taken off.

Story
6/10
Amaenaideyo is your run of the mill harem anime, with one catch...
The harem consists of 6 (7 in Amaenaideyo Katsu) nuns/monks and one very perverted guy. Don't go into any harem anime expecting a groundbreaking story, cause you will almost never find that. But considering the anime does a decent job of developing the main characters it makes it better than most, though it only seems to spend a smaller time on the other characters. Normally this would hinder an anime but for the most part they all are not that far off from one anime stereotype or another.

Overall, the story could be better, ... but it would be hindering the reasons to watch the anime, which is for laughs and some fan-service. For this reason, I was a bit more lenient on the score.

Characters
7/10
The main character is Ikko, and he is a priest living with 6 nuns. They usually end up running into some sort of disembodied spirit that has failed to ascend for various reasons. But that never usually works. There always seems to be one problem-child in the mix. The Ikko has to exorcise them. The problem is, that Ikko is useless until he sees enough skin, and then he enters a trance and turns into some sort of supermonk.

Art
8/10
The art style is good, though some of the characters look very generic, though we are talking about nuns here. I wouldn't expect radical character designs given the story and setting. There are no gravity defying hairstyles here. Just short, medium and long. The colors are very vibrant and cheery which helps sustain it's charm. And the character shapes, while not completely realistic, also are not very cartoony. In terms of art, think "Tenchi Muyo"!

It seems to fit the comedy/ecchi theme quite well and the breasts are not blown WAY WAY out of proportion like some ecchi anime. Overall, I think the art is another thing that gives the anime it's charm.

Sound
7/10
There are two series of Amaenaideyo; one is "Amaenaideyo" and the other is 'Amaenaideyo Katsu". Since I cannot choose to review one, i'll just mash em together. Overall, the backround music, voices and sound effects stay the same, but the opening and closing themes are a bit different. In "Amaenaideyo", the opening was catchy but the closing theme was a bit weak and forgettable. In " --- Katsu", both the opening and closing were weak. In fact I would say, that they were the worst part of this series. Good thing the rest of the sound is good, and although more cartoony than most, it fits the comedy motif. What the voice actors do well though, is even though the voices are similar, they make the characters distinct personalities reflect in their voices. By midway through the anime, I knew who was speaking based almost solely on HOW sentences were spoken rather than by pitch. Unfortunatly, I find alot of anime to lack in this department and just have very different sounding voices. The only one they seemed to pull this with was Sakura, and even though her personality fit, they did not need to take it that far.

Overall the sound is good, the only downfall being some of the themes.
(Note: This review was done watching the Japanese subbed version.)

Enjoyment
8/10
There is a good amount of fanservice, a bit more than something like "Love Hina". As an Ecchi show it succeeds due to the amount of fanservice, but it seems to do so without distracting you from the actual story. Although the story is weak, it is told well and looks far worse on paper than the fashion it is implemented in.
I found it way more enjoyable as a comedy than most anime, and it felt like it flowed well through the story while covering all the bases a good ecchi/comedy should.
So if you are looking for an anime to just make you laugh, and love seeing girls put the beatdown on pervs, you'll probably like this. It's nothing to completely rave about, but I certainly would lump it in the some of the better anime I have seen.