Story:
Peter Grill is the man that’s been crowned as the strongest in this unnamed, extremely generic fantasy world. And to help celebrate his achievement at being the strongest warrior, he proposes to his senior and girlfriend, Luvelia and tries to make their relationship official in the eyes of their peers and other relating government bodies. But as it turns out, Luvelia doesn’t exactly know where babies come from. And to make the situation even worse, representatives from other races have approached Peter in hopes to claim the ‘strongest one’s seed’ for their own and bear powerful children as a result. Which, for a weak-willed man such as Peter, is apparently a tall order not to refuse.
You can probably reduce this show to the running gag of various women attempting to seduce Peter in order to have ‘baby-making sex’, and you’d be right. More and more episodes only add to this compounding problem by throwing even more women to the mix, which unfortunately for Peter, makes it very difficult to keep it in his pants because the promise of tits and ass is just too tempting.
So what even is the appeal to a show like this? Honestly, I think it comes from watching Peter fail and the hilarity that comes from a protagonist that’s dug a hole as big as this for himself. True, there are many, many, many characters that push him towards this direction, (and by many, I mean basically the rest of the cast), but at the end of the day, it’s his own infidelity and lizard brain that pushes him into these personally unfavorable situations, and him trying to get him out of the problems he’s caused for himself is what makes the show at the very least…unique, in its own regard. Especially since every other part of the show doesn’t really have much else that’s remotely interesting to note for it. Not its worldbuilding or its very few action sequences, and least of all its characters.
Unfortunately that puts this show more in something that’s good for its novelty and little else. The running gag is the show, and without it, there’s not really an identity that Peter Grill the series has that it can latch onto. You pretty much only watch the show in order to see how much deeper this man can dig himself into, and maybe some of the eye candy the show provides alongside its absurd plot. The novelty can wear off pretty fast since every episode is almost a palette swap of what’s been seen before, with only different establishing circumstances in order to get the final result. Which for anyone wanting anything else with more substance…look somewhere else.
Characters:
Being the paragon of a devoted man, Peter Grill is the shining example of what not to do to your fiancée, and does so through gritted teeth and shameless acts of public nudity as he screams down hallways severely regretting what he’s done after the fact. Honestly, Peter isn’t really all that interesting, and the series really sets him up to be the protagonist that you want to see fail. (Or one that you pity, either or really.) The most you’ll get out of him is his snappy retorts against the women who only want him as a breeding bull as well as his devotion to his fiancée whenever a spare set of tits or ass isn’t in his face begging him to sow his next generation in someone else. Which for a comedy series like this, is fine since this is the joke that the show wants you to focus on. But he’s definitely as interesting as a piece of cardboard without that, so as a character, he’s not that great.
The girls are even less so since the character traits that they’re given are all basically carbon copies of each other. With the only differences being their respective builds, races, and maybe motivation as to why they want to get pregnant with his seed. But aside from those surprisingly minor differences, you have a quartet of girls who don’t know what the word ‘no’ means, and constantly seduce Peter to get what they want. (Hell their names aren’t even that important in the long run.) They’re the driving forces of the show, which is kind of interesting since the amount of personality they all have is pretty much the same as a layer of paint that you would use to coat the piece of cardboard named Peter. Though it’s not all that interesting since the lack of variety in this show is staggering.
The last character I want to talk about is Luvelia, who’s really more of a framing device more than an actual character. She barely gets any screentime, and despite Peter showering her with a lot of praise, we don’t really get to know the relationship the two of them have with each other any more than we did at the beginning. Yeah she’s a kind of necessary part of the show, but she’s hardly anything interesting.
The side characters I feel aren’t really all that interesting. There are a couple kind of fun one off characters, and Tim, but considering the state of the show’s ‘main’ characters, talking about the ones in the background doesn’t really interest me because they’re ALSO about as interesting as drying paint.
Aesthetics:
Peter Grill being Wolfsbane’s only anime they’ve produced in their repertoire is…well, honestly I’ve never reviewed a show where the show is the only thing on the studio’s resume. To give it an actual review of the show’s aesthetics… It’s fine. It’s kinda standard, and nothing about it particularly stands out. The show’s setting being such a generic looking fantasy doesn’t give the show much of an identity, and I really couldn’t care less about the character designs or anything of the animation since there’s not really a lot to talk about given how ordinary everything kind of looks.
What IS noteworthy is the amount of times the characters are either naked or are basking in the afterglow of having had done the deed. The show having an uncensored version at least makes the show mildly more fun to watch considering just how many times the girls are done to strip and try again to hit the target, but that’s about as much actual intrigue the art has. And if one is watching for that specific reason…well, hentai exists. The show doesn’t even show the actual sex that goes on, so you’re actually better off on watching hentai for sex in a generic fantasy setting if that’s the kind of speed you’re looking for.
“Tsuranuite Yuuutsu” by Yui Ninomiya is definitely not the kind of song I expected for a show like this, but it was definitely a welcome surprise if only because it’s not at all what I was expecting. The kind of rock and modern song for a series about infidelity takes a bit to get used to it, but over time, I got used to it. Definitely not a ‘memorable’ song, but memorable if only because it’s Luvelia’s VA singing this, and that’s a fucking twist of irony if I’ve ever heard it.
“Yoridokoro” by Hilcrhyme is, by contrast, a softer rock song that’s funnier if only because it plays to the visuals of Peter feeling existential crisis while surrounded by the naked girls he regrets fucking, again. It’s honestly a pretty nice song, and definitely not something I expected from a show like…this. But I think that adds to the comedy factor; I certainly got a laugh out of it when I saw the ending credits for the first time. And it’s still kinda funny.
Final Thoughts:
This series got a lot more negative press than I expected when I heard that this was getting an adaptation. True the subject material is pretty…unfavored, and the series playing this kind of stuff for laughs definitely puts this in the very niche category of comedic value. Personally though, I find the series at the very least humorous if only because I get to laugh at the protagonist for his mistakes and being able to see how deep this hole goes is at least vaguely interesting.
What I like less though is just how repetitive the show is. There’s not really a lot of progression or anything meaningful that the show has to offer, which leaves it pretty stale and without a lot of merit behind it. You can pretty much just watch the first two or three episodes and you’d get the whole span of what there is to see with the rest of the show. Peter is certainly an unfortunate character in this whole thing, but definitely not one without his own faults and contributions to the situation he’s in. Should he have not had any autonomy on the decisions of what his next move would be towards the girls that’re seducing him, we’d be having a very, very, very different conversation to any merit or any ‘content’ problems the series has. But because Peter never once passes up the opportunity for sex in any of the major encounters he has with the girls, I can’t really see this as anything but a problem that’s at least partly his fault, and for something like that, I feel like it’s ok to portray this in a comedic light, especially since he always tries to cover up his tracks in order to not lose integrity with his peers, and especially from the girl he proposed to.
That being said, this isn’t really a series I’d recommend unless you’re someone that’s really interested in this kind of sadistic humor, want to watch with buddies to laugh at something stupid, or just want to watch a show that’s got tits and ass but you don’t really want to type in a hentai site to satisfy whatever urges that’re plaguing you at the moment. This show is definitely not for everyone, and more than that, the show only having like one joke gives the longevity and intrigue of the series not a lot of room to grow since once you’ve seen one episode, you’ve pretty much seen them all. Plus, the show’s only got 12 minute episodes; thing’s half as long as a regular cour anyway. So expecting a lot with so little time is really asking for a lot.
