But it actually turned out more enjoyable than expected, despite the fairly ridiculous premise, and the inherently distasteful idea of some guy making a girl his "dog" and trampling all over her feelings with impunity. But hey it's anime, and ridiculous behaviour is pretty much the norm.
Story (5/10): Erika wants to desperately fit in with people in her new high school class, make friends, and create those special youthful memories, but by the time she gets her courage up, most people have grouped up already, and she is stuck with two girls who're pretentious as all get-out and talk about nothing but their elite boyfriends. And so Erika lies through her teeth about HER boyfriend. She really would like to have one, she wants to experience romance, and she has very specific ideas what that means -- very stereotypical ideas. It's all about appearances with Erika.
When her new "friends" become suspicious because she doesn't even have a picture of her boyfriend, in momentary panic she takes a picture of a real hottie on the street, whom she then passes off as her boyfriend. Unfortunately for her, that person turns out Sata Kyouya, who goes to the same school, and one of her hoity-toity friends recognizes him. Kyouya is known as a "prince" for his good looks and his amiable if distant personality; all the girls squee over him.
Erika freaks out, afraid she will be found out as the liar that she is and ridiculed and outcast -- pretty much the worst thing that could happen to her. But because Kyouya has such a sterling reputation, she decides to talk to him, fesses up, and begs him to pretend to be her boyfriend. He smiles at her and agrees.
And that's the last moment of peace Erika will have for a while. Because she isn't the only liar -- underneath his princely public behaviour Kyouya is a bitter loner who despises everything Erika wishes for. And he has a condition for pretending to be her boyfriend: she has to become his "dog", do everything he demands when he demands it. You'd kind of expect a little demonic behaviour from a character with red eyes, right?
I am not as offended as other people by the dog thing, and by his treatment of Erika. It provides a wakeup call for her in every which way -- not everything that glitters is gold, the cost of a big lie might not be worth it, it's exhausting to keep up appearances. Kouya is quite mean to her, even though he also drops a lot of comments that make her think, and he is unexpectedly nice when other people mess with her.
So of course she falls in love. She is still much more in love with the idea of a boyfriend than she is with Kouya, and it's pretty clear he knows that even if she doesn't. What develops is not uninteresting; I like how Erika and Kyouya manage to cobble an actual relationship together while coming from such divergent viewpoints.
Art (7 of 10): It's quite pretty; the characters are easy to tell apart, the very-very-shoujo backgrounds are lovely if you like that sort of thing, and the animation is decent. Erika has a very expressive face, and Kyouya is hot.
Sound (5/10): The OP has an interesting singer, the ED left me cold, the BGM is sort of just there. AS reviously mentioned, I am a Sakurai Takahiro fanboy; the man can do no wrong. Itou Kanae does a good job with Erika, Kayano Ai gives a very appropriately laconic performance for Erika's real friend Sanda Ayumi, the rest of the cast is decent but nobody stands out for me.
Character (6/10): I like Kyouya a lot. Sorry, haters -- I fully understand why you hate him, and I agree he acts like a jerk, but frankly, the jerk behaviour only really bothers me when he hurts Erika in regard to her love for him. That is cruel. The rest is... he is actually helping her, though he is not a nice task master. Why did he even agree to the pretense? He didn't have to; he could have let her hang out to dry; her being his "dog" isn't actually benefiting him a whole lot. He despises what she tries to do and still he helps her. And he is a jerk while doing it because he is as flawed as she is. He lies to himself about not having abandonment issues, and he has a negative view of romance because he has seen it fail spectacularly, and destroy his family. He's pretty much a tsundere because his kindness is at odds with the hard armour he has built around himself to not end up like his parents.
No, there is no Stockholm Syndrome here; Erika can quit this game at any time; he has no real power over her at all -- and she does indeed do that eventually, when he goes too far. Good on her. I also appreciate that there is no sexual misconduct here, no sexual pressure -- the tasks he sets her as his "dog" are not demeaning in that sense. I found that a welcome relief from the constant sexual harassment so prevalent in anime.
I like Erika too, even though I feel about her aspirations much the same as Kyouya does. But aside from the lying and the yearning for a romance that would ultimately be empty, she's a good kid, even a little naive (how could anyone not see through Kamiya?). She has empathy, and I can see her grow up to be a much less superficial person than she starts out as.
I like Sanda, Hibiya, and Kusakabe. They're just prop characters, and in a longer anime I would have liked to see more of them. In general I felt the anime was too short; I would have liked there to have been more time for things to develop; this could have been a much more solid story.
Enjoyment (7/10): I quite enjoyed it. It'll never be among my favourite anime, but I thought it was above average in depth, and it was sufficiently different for me to not be bored; though it became more typical in the last third.
