Step Up Love Story (Futari Ecchi) is a four-episode OVA that tells the deeply uninteresting story of two deeply uninteresting 25-year-od newlyweds, Makoto and Yura, who just happen to be virgins. LIKE I CARE. So they get married and start shagging. The end.
Well, okay, a few other things happen. Yura's slutty sister shows up and causes trouble. Makoto's sexually frustrated cousin shows up and causes trouble. The student Makoto used to tutor shows up and tries to seduce him (trouble). Yura gets a job as a waitress in a maid café. They go to a hot springs resort. Yes, this show has been beaten half to death with the cliché stick and proceeds to stagger around bruised and bleeding for 100 torturous minutes.
And while Step Up Love Story is billed as a comedy, I found myself neither laughing nor even smiling as much as I had anticipated. Like, not at all. It feels like a kids show with its simplistic characterization and banal dialogue, and only the frequent soft porn scenes (so poorly animated that the participants look like malfunctioning robots) remind the viewer that it's actually supposed to be for adults. What attracted me to the series in the first place was that the protagonists were both in their mid-20s, but the series left me wondering why they weren’t written as kids straight out of high school, because that’s the level of maturity on display from them. They’re basically 25 year-old children.
There was, however, some entertainment to be had. Imagine my surprise when the credits rolled and revealed that none other than Chiaki friggin’ Konaka did the screenplay. Yes, that Chiaki Konaka, the guy who worked on Lain, Texhnolyze, Rahxephon, BGC 2040, Armitage III, and… you get the idea. I almost did one of those comical anime faints. Almost as surprising is that the Japanese voice actors didn’t use pseudonyms, so the viewer is under no illusions that they really are listening to bad grunting and moaning from Yuji “Keitaro” Ueda and Tomoko “Rosette” Kawakami.
I’m going to be generous and award Step Up Love Story three points because it has boobs, lots of boobs, even though they’re not particularly well drawn boobs. And also because it's so bad that I've resorted to writing this, which has proved a gazillion times more enjoyable.
