Ore ga Ojousama Gakkou ni "Shomin Sample" Toshite Rachirareta Ken
Shomin Sample: I Was Abducted by an Elite All-Girls School as a Sample Commoner

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Believe me, when I saw the cover art, all I expected was this to be the filler ecchi trash that would intersperse between my more serious manga serieses. Boy did this series blow me away. Shomin Sample is now what I consider to be the standard for comedy ecchi anime. One that embraces a unique setting, draws comedy in every unexpected shape and way possible from that setting, and has characters and stories that are not butchered just because the tags "harem" and "ecchi" are in it.

The story comes in as a close second best aspect of SS. There's definitely a setting that's crazy, sure, ... an academy for Ojou-samas who seem to be helplessly unaware of the outside world. However, that's it. The story perfectly controls what's allowed to be ridiculous and what's in line, and the main character is the one that delivers that. He's the line between the fancy aristocratic lifestyle within the academy and the normal world outside. His reactions and interactions with the main cast are all realistic, allowing the story to flow along with his stay in the school. I'd like to also commend SS for how god damn natural the conversations and reactions are.

For the story itself, we have to talk about the characters because this story is ultimately one that revolves around its characters (except the last bits). They're the best part of the series. The overall story is about culture shock when a normal person MC enters an aristocratic school, as well as individual characters' growth. The story is created really realistically, something I'd not expect out of a harem manga (compare Konosuba's terrible placeholder story). All of the main cast have a central idea to them, they are fundamentally flawed in a way, and throughout the series they develop to overcome some of these flaws. I'm not kidding, they even made (minor spoilers) a main girl's boobs grow to symbolize her development as a character. What's the best part? The MC actually good! He's not annoying, he's down to earth, he might be a perv inside but he's mature enough to hold those urges in and actually act like a mature outsider to the girls. Okay I'm rambling now but you get the idea. If you'd shown the more storyrich chapters to a friend, I bet they'd never expect it to be from a degenrate harem manga. More character development and interaction than many more popular shows, and a solid story to back that up.

Lastly, I've not read much hunour, but I've sure had my fair share of subpar humour. SS however delivers a standard that really left an impression. Its comedy is natural and rarely forced. The best part is that it pops up at unexpected moments. Ah I'm not that good at reviewing humour, so I'll just say that you won't be disappointed. Its ecchi parts are the same. It's not in your face at all as I'd expected to see from the cover art. Hell, even the pantylifts you see each have a unique lead up to them.

I'm having a hard time understanding why this manga is so lowly rated. Maybe because people had the same realisation as I had as I read it, that they had expected trashy ecchi but got handed some wholesome storyarcs. How cruel the manga world can be huh?

Ore ga Ojousama Gakkou ni "Shomin Sample" Toshite Rachirareta Ken (2012-2018)

Plot

A sudden kidnapping of a guy with a muscle fetish who gets taken to a private all girls school in an unmarked location with maids in French maid outfits. What an amazing situation to be in. Then realising that these girls have had very little contact with people of common background and definitely not common men, so absolute jackpot. All in the format of a funny, ecchi romance that has great development which gives hope to future manga and anime a like since this has been adapted from Novel and Manga to Anime. You ... get to know the characters intimately, their flaws and what they can do and watch them develop nicely throughout the series. The real question is which you will find out is why do people think he has a muscle fetish? The answer to that is sweet yet bitter.

Character Development

Kagurazaka, Kimito is our main male lead protagonist who we get to know about his more intimate fetishes which are displayed in a great way that show his true side. He is a caring guy who is seen somewhat in a normal place as easily targeted and a girls dream in effect which makes him perfect for this role.

Tenkuubashi, Aika is the first main girl that we get to know although she is not the first we met. She is a very much pure girl who has little experience in not trusting the words of people no matter what almost. She is a very likable character and is greatly developed throughout.

Arisugawa, Reiko who is from an extremely prominent family that has a huge weight on her shoulders that has made her very popular and likable to all those around her. Although some may have some resentment against this on her it is because she only understands things her way in a very innocent way albeit sometimes unintentional.

Jinryou, Karen very much our Tsundere character who displays aggression and cold affection when really, she is a very sweet girl who only wishes nice things and love. She is an interest character to develop because of how her and Aika have much in common.

Shiodome, Hakua is a brilliant girl, not only smart but is the perfect loli. She is albeit she doesn’t look it actually a 14-year-old which we have to remember that Kimito is 15. So she is very much near his age group yet looks like a primary school girl. She fits a nice niche of being somewhat solitary and innocent but screaming internally for new experiences in her very monotone way.

Hanae, Eri is a voice actress and also a childhood friend of Kimito to which she holds great affection for in a mix-up of Tsundere and Yandere type emotions. She has reasons to be angry at him after all he is the typical protagonist who doesn’t realise how good he has it until it gets to the climax and even then doesn’t react how you want.

Finally of the main characters we have the best one of all in my opinion. Kujou, Miyuki the head maid in her outfit. She is my favourite along with all the maids through my bias dream of girls in a French maid outfit to which she pulls off amazingly. She is also a somewhat sadistic character by her nature but again has a reason for the way she acts. You eventually see her true self and the combination of her being herself and keeping up appearances is truly a spectacle to have.

Plotline Development

The story itself develops at a nice pace. The anime adaptation doesn’t go massively away from the story but has got some changes in it which I was surprised with but yet left me comforted when I saw them as it doesn’t take the story away from the manga too much.
The story itself with the characters develops in a nice steady way which gives enough progress of the main characters continuously. It has a real sense of changing minds of who you want the male protagonist to end up with. The story left me smiling whilst reading this and also almost tearful in cases. The romance is strong but yet our male barely notices much to the dismay of the girls. A trope we have heard often of before but luckily it isn’t that he doesn’t recognise it, he just thinks being a commoner he has no chance. It is comforting in this way to know there is hope.
Ultimately the majority of the story goes along the harem route with essence of clear winners at stages. You know that certain girls have no chance but yet persist, whereas normally you do not get such detail in expansion. You actually get to know who you want to know enough that if real you could meet them and understand where they are coming from.

Art

The art style used is nicely done and easy on the eyes. The art when Ecchi is very much what you want it to be. It shows it in a way of normality in that it doesn’t feel like you are getting a hentai image but just more innocence and a lot of the time it is down to the uniforms. Do the girls not get measured properly for the dress length!? Let us hope not. The detail never lacks on the characters and the background and foreground objects and other characters can sometimes seem a little less detailed, but it gives more focus on the happenings of the storyline as to not distract which is nicely done.

Overall Rating

In all I think this is a superb example of an ecchi romance comedy that is a great example of what authors can achieve when they steer clear of pure fan service. It does have fan service but in a way that isn’t too deviating and therefore you get a real great impression as you go through. For me I read it from start to finish in a week and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I almost wanted to stop so that it did not end but yet all great things must end eventually. A spin-off manga of a future jump would be great to see final closure of everyone’s lives but I can only dream.

General Comments

As shown, I have a bias personally to the maid because of the outfits being the pinnacle of mans dream in my opinion. The maid who is best girl and the one I wanted Kimito to get with until near the end when I realised the chemistry with one of our main girls was Sakimori. She is a lovely character and a delight when she is around. The spin-off special with her later on is just great too.

THIS REVIEW ONLY CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS, SO IF YOU ARE PLANNING TO READ THIS MANGA, FEEL FREE OF READING IT:

I have to say that when I started to read this manga I didn't plan to write a review after, but now that I finished I see that the other reviews are totally different to my point of view, so here we are. I'm not a huge fan of harem manga, in fact this is one of the first harem manga that I've readed, but I think that I've readed enough good manga to make a point here. First I will say the things that I ... liked about the manga and then the things I didn't like.

One of the strengths of this manga is it's art, I don't know who drawed this but I hope that he draws more manga in the future, because the reading was dynamic thanks to the disposition of the strips and most of the characters had a distinctive, beautiful design. And, if you want to read this because of the ecchi I have good news for you, because I think that it fits perfectly in the ambient of the story, it never feels like it's being forced in it. Also, if you have been an anime fan for a long time you'll enjoy the various references the characters (mostly Aika and Kimito) do to other manga series and to japanese pop culture stuff. The comedy in the series mostly made me laugh, apart from some moments when it really felt forced. Finally, it's true what most of the other reviewers say, this series innovates in the fact that the main character is forced to be there and that all that school-for-rich-girls-only stuff is a pretty refreshing concept in harem manga, but you will enjoy this only for the first few episodes, because then you will surely see some of the issues that this manga has.

The fist thing that I want to point out is the author's lack of concern on character writing and development, there are some barely decent characters (Aika, Karen and Miyuki) but most of them are one-trait characters that don't evolve a single bit in the 83 chapters that this manga has. Another character-based problem is Kimito, the main guy, he is your typical ̶h̶e̶n̶t̶a̶i̶ harem character (even his design doesn't stand out a bit), his only traits are that he is a gentle person by nature, that he doesn't get ANY of the female characters' attempts to propose to him and that he has a thigh fetish. With the fetish I arrive to my next problem with this manga, the stereotyping of homosexuality, early in the manga Kimito is accepted into the school after he is obligated to fake a fetish for musculed men, throughout the entire story when his "homosexuality" is brought forth it is treated as some kind of weird fetish or disease, not as other type of sexuality that has to be respected. Another problem is that this series has a weird development in the industry, it's anime has only one season and the manga has a totally different ending compared to the light novel, because it seems that it also was prematurely cancelled and that the author only had 3 chapters to finish the story, so if you read it all you will notice its abrupte ending. I also want to point out the lack of imagination of the writer, because we can se various times what I will call "the mood-killer door punchline", "the mood-killer door punchline" consists on the main guy and one of the femeale characters both alone in a room, and when fnally she has the guts to declare her love, one or various of the other femeale characters enter the scene, ruining it all. The first time that I readed it it was funny, the second time curious, but the fiftieth time that that happened it wasn't funny anymore. And last but not least, the biggest problem that this series has, the enourmous plotholes that we see throughout all the manga, they are usually badly patched or even not explained at all. In the story you'll see problems that could be exploited to make interesting chapters solved in pages and barely explained to the audience. An easy example is Hakua, the genius loli that the author uses as a patch for a lot of the plotholes that you'll see in the manga, "You need his mobile phone number but he left? Don't worry, I hacked it", "You want to show what's Twitter to the girls? Don't worry, I created an app just like it", "You need money? Don't worry, I have 80 billion yen in my account."... (This isn't said like this in the manga, but you get the idea)

And, maybe you'll ask me "Why have you finished this manga with all the bad things that you've noticed?" and that's a good point. I think that this manga, despite being very bad in lots of it's aspects, it hooks the reader into the story. Also Aika was best girl and I sincerely laughed out loud to lots of the "Tsunpure-san moments". This isn't by far the best manga that I've ever readed, but it surely is entretaining.

Thanks for reading :)