Ah, puberty. That weird time when your body is changing, your hormones are going crazy, and you start getting curious about this thing called ‘sex’, whether you’re ready to have it or not. We’ve seen plenty of high school sex comedies showcasing the shenanigans of boys. But we really haven’t seen a ton from the female perspective. O Maidens in your Savage Season attempts to remedy that. And oh boy does it not disappoint- up to a certain point.
We’re introduced to the Literature Club, made up of five girls: Kazusa, Rika, Hongou, Momoko, and Niina. When Niina brings up sex in a “what do you want to do before you die” conversation, that suddenly became a topic on everyone’s mind, whether they wanted it to be or not. I’m not going to break down each of their character’s but they had their own unique personality and opinions on sex, or “es-sui-batsu” as they called it. The deadly serious Rika and the sweet “girl next door” type of character, Kazusa, are probably the two stand-outs for me. There, of course, were other characters as well. The two most noteworthy were probably Izumi, Kazusa’s childhood friend, and Yamagishi-sensei, who has an unfortunate connection to one of the girls. They aren’t the highlight of the show, but their presence does instigate a couple interesting storylines.
There is romance involved, but most of the appeal is the random, day-to-day comedic situations they find themselves in. One random example is Kazusa worrying about sex, and thinking out loud to herself “it’s not going to fit”, then becoming relieved as the train in fact does fit through the tunnel. There’s clearly another very NSFW meaning to this, and they were able to convey that without getting graphic, while nailing the comedic timing. It’s those little moments sprinkled throughout that really made this a real joy to watch. However, the last few episodes experienced quite the tonal shift. It went from a light, funny, charming show to a more melodramatic, almost soap-opera-y one. The change was not for the better IMO, which is unfortunate because of how much I enjoyed the first three-quarters of the show. Although I will say it did end on a sweet note to sort of make up for it.
I don’t have a ton to say about the art and sound. They were both adequate, but certainly nothing special. The OP was quite good, but the ED was sort of meh. The art style reminds me a little of March Comes in Like a Lion, but maybe that’s just me.
Overall, I had a great time watching this show, even if it fell off a little in quality the last few episodes. But given that most of it was quite good, an 8 out of 10 sounds about right.
