(Ironic note: my 69th review.)
Finally, a self parodying ecchi anime! Why can't there be more of these out there? If the title didn't cue you in, this show is about the most middle school topic you can think of: cheesy sex jokes. The premise is that Japan's government is just a shadow government, taken over 16 years prior run by a bunch of overbearing prudes who seek to stamp out every trace of sexuality and obscenity from society. This group of children who were born and raised in the culture since the transition have grown up in a world where the Concept of a Dirty Joke Doesn't Exist- and SOX, a "dirty" terror organization, rises to the occasion, to spread the good word of the filth.
Artwork and Animation: 7
For a show about terrible sex jokes, a large portion of the show is visual gags- and boy do they drop the visual gags in this show. While it'd be impossible to list them all, let it suffice to say that one character is shaped like a dong, and approximately 75% of the backgrounds/scenes and items in every episode consist of innuendo or something outright sexual.
Animation wise, very solid in fluidity and consistent detail level.
Sound and Voice Acting: 7
I have to hand it to Miyu Matsuki. She really knocked it out of the park as the painfully ignorant of sexuality, but lustful to a violent degree Anna. You can feel the crazy vibes from here, and I'm 7000 miles away.
Also major props to Yuusuke Kobayashi- a relative unknown VA in a sea of ladies voicing male characters- playing Okuma. Just the right amount of indignity and protesting to turn Okuma into a sympathetic hero, I mean terrorist.
The opening and outro songs were written for the show, they're okay, but I ended up skipping them after about three epsiodes. Not really anything I'd ever want to hear again.
Characters: 7
They say the joke is all about the delivery- and in a comedy show, you have to have a varied cast of weirdos to make the humor work. Thankfully, we're provided a relatable, spunky, hyperactive heroine in the form of Ayame Kajou. Ayame performs her duties as Student Council VP during the day, valiantly upholding the rigid morality standards of the school while moonlighting as the dirty terrorist known as Blue Snow.
She has a penchant for the most middle school-esque humor of any character I've ever seen, real or animated. She turns literally everything into some really lame, really bad sex pun- just like I did when I was 12, and I loved it. It's not that her character is particularly funny (unless you actually are in middle school), it's more that I was reminded of those days, and how incredibly edgy sexual humor was back then, compared to its relative commonplace status now, as an adult.
My personal favorite character was probably the feisty shorty Saotome, however. As an impossibly talented artist, she joins SOX as the propaganda chairperson- in charge of creating and distributing lewd materials, which due to constant surveillance by the arm bands and necklaces that everyone is required to wear, became quite difficult, since any lewd drawings done with her hands would get her arrested. So she learns to draw using her mouth, and pops out the most salacious, freaky doujinshi ever created- mostly starring her classmates. She drops some of the best one liners in the show.
I can imagine most viewers of the show would likely pick Anna as the overall best thing in the show- but I disagree. I found her presence more irritating than entertaining. She serves almost entirely to be a plot device whenever Ayame and Okuma run into trouble simply because she's obsessed with Okuma and follows him around, trying to gift him her "love nectar". When she gets into these lustful moods (because she has no concept of love vs lust), she gains superhuman strength and agility- which is usually put to use "cleansing immoral activities" that the ever pious Kajo and Okuma point her towards. Honestly, if you were to remove Anna and all mention of her from the plot and replace her with any other girl for Okuma to crush on, the show wouldn't have suffered in the slightest.
Story: 6
As stated above, this near future Japan has instated constant surveillance on the youth of the nation, and any type of publicly lewd act, lewd drawings, objects, speech, or otherwise "immoral" behavior is punishable by law. After government raids eradicated the vast majority of porno, dirty magazines, toys, and other sexually related paraphernalia, that which remains is a hidden treasure- one that some, seen as "Dirty Terrorists" would seek to use to educate the wider populace and turn public opinion towards sexuality into a more favorable one. This is where SOX comes in. An organization (hardly) consisting initially of solely Ayame Kajo performing petty acts such as public indecency and distribution of lewd materials, it transforms into a serious threat through the course of the show, with discoveries and creation of new dirty materials and education of the irrationally ignorant student populace.
As it would happen though, SOX is not the only terrorist group whose activities are purely of the sexual nature. Fetishists, and other weirdo characters crop up to try and steal their sexual thunder, but there can be only one.
The story strokes off strongly at first, but is plagued by a really weak and boring middle. Episodes 7, 8, and 9 are practically filler as they're just setups for the endgame, and episode 5 is just a fetch quest episode. The climax is decent, but as with many anime... the big bad is just a stepping stone to a bigger bad, and with a "twist" that everyone saw coming, the effect is pretty weak.
Enjoyment and Overall: 7
The show is absolutely chock full of sophomoric humor, but at the same time, it's rather charming in the delivery. If there was ever an anime that took me back to being in middle school, this was it. I hearkened back to days in public middle school, discovering new combinations of bad words and trying them out on unsuspecting prudes to my endless entertainment. The show definitely has some creatively funny moments, and some lowbrow, tasteless ones too. Only with this kind of show, it at least knows it's crude, takes the balls and fondles them. I mean, runs with it.
Recommend?
If you want a refresher on the seemingly endless stream of ecchi garbage that constitutes the majority of anime in 2015, this one would be a good choice.
