Let me explain. I have watched other ecchi anime in the past, such as "Strike the Blood". Not because it had the ecchi genre in it of course, but because from previews I had seen of it on YouTube, it looked like it actually had good art, sound, and a decent plot (also I used to be obsessed with vampire anime lol). However, "Strike the Blood", even though I enjoyed the story, will never be one of my favorite or highly rated anime. Why? Because all of the constant showing of cleavage, panty shots, and just overly sexualized scenes that the anime displayed 20 times an episode made me cringe constantly and also just made me overall pretty uncomfortable watching the show. In my (probably) unpopular opinion, there is such a thing as too much ecchi in anime, and it can even ruin an anime altogether at times.
Now, back to this anime. Although there were many ecchi things in it, the writers managed to make the ecchi stuff very funny and not pop up every 5 seconds and distract from what was happening in the story overall, which I found to be very impressive. Also, not every single female character was itching to get in bed with the main character (unlike in most ecchi anime). I said earlier that there can be too much ecchi themes in anime (imo), which is still true, but with this anime, I would never take the ecchi completely out of it. Why? Because the main character's slightly immature, dirty-minded personality was simply hilarious and was one of the reasons I enjoyed the show so much. Ecchi, although it is very easy to overdue in anime, can sometimes be done right depending on its execution and if it carries enough comedic undertone to it.
The plot in this anime was evenly paced, as were the episodes themselves. I also really liked how instead of having an actual OP, they just put the OP song over actual episode scenes.
The art was smooth and just really nice to look at. The sound was great as well on all counts.
The only complaint that I can think of with this anime, is the MC's lack of crying much, or lack of proper reaction to situations in general. Don't get me wrong, I understand that he is like 40 mentally and most 40 year old men don't cry that often, especially over little things like getting yelled at or falling. However, there were several scenes where I actually expected him to have more of a reaction because most people, even at his age, would've. Like when he saw Ghislaine behead someone and the blood even flowed over to him. I'm pretty sure any normal person, having not been exposed to people dying that graphically in front of them before, would either scream frightenedly or at least throw up, but Rudeus did barely anything except look shocked and maybe gasp I think. I don't know, maybe I am overthinking things and he is having the typical reaction to most things, but it just doesn't feel like he is to me... But, the reason I'm feeling this way could also be because my mind is getting confused by the fact that he appears a lot younger than he actually mentally is, lol.
Overall, I feel like I could confidently recommend this anime to most people. It was very enjoyable in spite of it being in the ecchi genre, which really surprised me. I will definitely be watching this anime again, and when season 2 comes out (hopefully soon), I will be watching that as well :)
