If you want a comedy that's full of ecchi fan service involving children as well as loli vibes throughout the anime, look no further. You've found what you are looking for. If that's not something that would interest you, I don't recommend this anime. If you're still on the fence about it and/or want to hear what I have to say, then please read the rest of my review.
Sound: 6/10
The voice acting was fine and the music was appropriate. Nothing special, though, and nothing really stood out to me. There were some cute moments when they were singing, but otherwise it's forgettable. The voice actors did a good job of portraying their characters, so I have no complaints on that score either.
Art: 6/10
The art always felt familiar, like I'd seen it somewhere before. Then I realized that (in my opinion at least) Sako looked exactly like Kouta Hirano from Highschool of the Dead. Sora looks similar Haruhi (The Meloncholy of Haruhi Suzumiya). Hina looked like a mini version of Taiga (Toradora) with black hair. Nimura looks like Koizumi from Haruhi Suzumiya. Miu's looks kind of remind me of Asuza Nanako (K-on).Etc...Seriously all of them look like the replica of a character from a different anime. While the art was beautiful, it still felt very unoriginal.
I also found it annoying that Yuuta is supposed to be a college student, yet he looks the same age as 14 year old Sora. in the anime Yuuta is 18, making him 4 years older than Sora, so way does he look her age and sometimes younger than her? There are also times I feel that they made the 10 year old, Miu, look older than she was. Same with Hina. She looked more like a five or six year old than a three year old. I suppose if they drew people to match their ages, then the comedy and acceptance of that comedy wouldn't work as well? I don't know...moving on....
Story: 3/10
First, let me say that I have not read the manga, nor do I intend to, so this is all based solely on my impressions of the anime (and the three ova).
What makes this anime so sad is that it had such great potential. As the synopsis states, it's a about an 8 year old college freshman who takes in his three nieces (two of which aren't blood-related) after his sister and her husband's plane goes missing (and they are presumed dead - which they are). Sounds like it could be a really good anime, right? That's what I thought too. I was wrong. It was far from being a great anime, or even good or average anime, which is a shame.
This story truly could have been something great. The premise was a good one and I wanted to see it develop into something deep and meaningful (even with the genre of comedy attached to it). This simply was not to be as the powers that be ruined it with unneeded and tasteless fan service, along with some characters that were better off never being in the show given their behavior and how said behavior dragged the show into the dirt. I understand that this is a comedy and they were trying to be lighthearted, but I just felt it was done poorly. Very poorly.
The fan service was way to much for me to handle considering the premise of the show. I feel that this anime should have an ecchi lolicon warning label attached to it, so people can know about that aspect before going into for people (like me) who tries not to read reviews before watching the anime.
Let me warn you: There are A LOT of bath scenes. There are also plenty panty shots, boob shots, etc...a good majority of which center on the little girls (ages 3, 10, and 14). I didn't care for this aspect of the anime. Maybe it's because I'm a mother of two young children myself or maybe it's because I simply don't think little girls should be sexualized. Either way, the fan service added nothing meaningful to the plot and ended up leaving me feeling as if I had just seen something I had no business seeing.
To add insult to injury they just had to add pedophilia to the mix . Because what ecchi lolicon anime would it be without a pedophile(or two) that no one is really bothered by? That's what that particular tv trope (the lolicon trope) is all about, after all.
However, I didn't find it humorous. It had the complete opposite effect, actually. When that aspect came to life, I lost interest in the anime and simply watched it just to say I finished it. Using pedophilia as a joke isn't funny to me at all. So not only did it have a lot of ecchi fan service of young girls, but also pedophile elements that we were supposed to find amusing. I am not amused. Not to all.
It didn't help that the woman, Raika, struck me as being something of a pedophile herself. I can't be sure if her love and affection for the girls is platonic or not. The OVA seems to suggest something more (for some weird reason one of the OVAs seemed to turn all the girls in the show into some type of pseudo-lesbians). Innocent or not, Raika's behavior was no easier to shallow than Sako's disturbing behavior towards the girls. Both of them had an unhealthy obsession with them that, again, seemed to bother no one, yet bothered me as a viewer greatly.
Characters: 3/10
Outside of the pedophile aspect of some characters, two more examples of useless characters in this anime are the landlady's daughter who tries to evict them simply because he took in his sister's kids, and Raika (her loli moments aside) was someone I just never understood and never found funny. Maybe I just don't get the humor in this anime? I mean, who would try to evict someone for attempting to do the responsible thing? While the anime tried to explain her harsh behavior, the execution was done badly and to be honest, every time she was on screen I couldn't stop getting distracted by how she was practically the glasses-wearing version of Karan from No. 6 (anime).
As far as I can tell the friends (Raika, Sako, and Nimura) contributed next to nothing to the anime and often were shown in a poor light when they were given screen time (though my definition of poor light may vary greatly from yours). The only one of the three I found even remotely likable was Nimura, but even so, the way everyone thinks these kids are cute and practically seem to fall in love with them is a put-off. Even if Nimura's true intentions are innocent, sometimes it just doesn't feel that way. In reality, it makes me question if everyone in the show is a lolicon in some form or another.
I also hated how the girls always said that Yuuta lacked delicacy. I didn't see that. If anything, they should have been more understanding of him and realized that more often than not they were at equal fault whenever something happened that put them in an awkward situation.
I found it annoying that Yuuto had taken them all in so the sisters could stay together when no one else would do that only for them to treat him so badly because he was a boy. I get that they are young girls, but there's a limit to how childish you can be. Yet Yuuta never chastised them for it and went along with their whims, which bothered me even more as he's supposed to be the adult. Instead, he allowed them to treat him like an inferior and even apologize to them when he'd done nothing wrong.
Example: when Yuuta offered to help Sora with her luggage because he was afraid she'd fall. She refused and, go figure, she fell down the stairs. When she fell the clothes in the luggage went flying and he accidentally picked up her panties. She gets embarrassed and slaps him, for which he apologizes. I'm sorry, but how was that his fault? I didn't find that funny, I just found it stupid.
As for character development, I didn't really see too much. While it was definitely there, considering the premise of the anime, a lot more character growth should have taken place. Instead serious events or issues that would have helped them grow as people were often glossed over or ignored for irrelevant material that has no business being in an anime centering on children for the purposes of comedy or whatever it was the creators thought to do with it.
Enjoyment: 3/10
I enjoyed the anime until the point that the bad humor and excessive fan service became too much for me to continue enjoying it. As already stated, the excessively ecchi fan service and the lolicon vibe of the anime made me feel uncomfortable while watching this. They are little girls. There's nothing funny about lolicon in this situation (or any situation really).
I can't imagine any normal person wanting to see little girls taking baths or seeing their panties or boobs or naked skin. They are kids. That's not cute. This is what really ruined it for me. Even with a good plot, there was no way I could force myself to enjoy it. I ended up feeling very disconnected from the characters and the anime the more I watched and was tempted to drop it a couple times.
Overall: 5/10
Despite the good plot, I did not like this anime. The humor was distasteful and the use of fan service in regards to little girls made me uneasy. I feel that a great plot was largely ruined for worthless tropes that lowered the anime from something that could have been great to barely tolerable. At times, yes it was cute. At times, yes, the plot was wonderful. Sadly, it wasn't enough nor am I able to overcome my own personal bias to rate this higher.
If you don't mind kids being used as ecchi fan service material and pedophile tropes don't bother you then you should do fine with this anime. In fact, there's no reason you wouldn't love it. However, if things like that bother you as they do me, then I suggest skipping this anime, no matter how tempting the premise is. Had I known before startinf the anime about these details, I would have skipped it myself. It's just not worth it. At times such as these, reading some of the reviews before watching can really go a long way.
While I understand this is just an anime and that I probably need to lighten up, I can't find it in me to do that. Therefore, my score of 5/10. That's the best I can give it, based purely on the premise (that was wasted), the sound, and the copy-cat art that reminds me keenly of other anime, sometimes to the point of distraction.
If I was going to rate this as I really want to, I'd give it a three out of ten, but I'm not going to be that cynical. It did have it's good moments and it wasn't necessarily a bad anime. I'm sure there are many people who would (and do) love it and find it fun to watch. I am not one of them. That's not saying that the anime sucks or that I have poor taste. It's just that in this instance, I found that I simply couldn't enjoy it personally. So again, 5/10 is the best I can do in my overall rating and even that is being too generous in light of my personal qualms with the anime.
I hope that this review was helpful to you. Thank you for reading it.
