Melodrama is what Mari Okada is known for, Araburu Kisetsu no Otome-domo yo is no different. Anything she writes that isn’t edited heavily by a director will surely be overflowing with melodrama. She’s an ambitious writer, however, she stuffed far too many ideas into this show. Sex, love, jealousy, homosexuality, social commentary, pedophilia, netorare, the list goes on and on. As someone who loves analyzing themes and the author’s intent, after watching Araburu I have no clue what the hell she was going for. There’s one thing I can say for certain, someone really needed to tell Okada when to stop.
Half of me hates Maidens of the Savage Season, and the other half loves it. So few rom-com anime are written over the top to the point where it’s hilarious. If you came here expecting a subtle drama with in-depth writing, you will be disappointed. Anyone who says this show is realistic is a liar! Sure it’s relatable at times, but it’s so intentionally unrealistic to be as enjoyable and shocking as possible. It will gut punch you immediately with the main point: sex, love, and growing up. Prepare to be beaten over the head with embarrassment until you cringe. After it grabs you by the collar and gets your attention, it slaps you in the face with endless sex metaphors. Trains going through tunnels, stimulating bowling balls, mushroom innuendos. Once it has your attention, the roller coaster is already moving and it’s too late to jump off. You’re stuck on it for every tight turn and a 200-foot drop. It’s a thrilling ride, I loved it at first.
Then the roller coaster came to a screeching halt. The writing worked, I wouldn’t call it good writing, but it worked. Eventually, it stopped being a cheesy coming-of-age romance about love and confronting adulthood. Instead, it was about jealousy, love triangles, cuckolding, homosexuality, teen pregnancy, and childhood trauma. It stopped being relatable. Rather than cringe-inducing, it was frustrating, uncomfortable, and creepy. Everything I liked about Araburu was still there, but it felt like an afterthought. When you try to force a cheesy romance to be serious, you get terrible NTR moments like this: Person A and Person B are in love, suddenly Person C inexplicably develops feelings for B. Rather than confessing their feelings, C forces B to grab their ass, cuckolding Person A. Romantic tension like this can work in a story with the proper character writing, and like I’ve said before this show does not spend time on that. We know who the characters are solely based on their personalities, which is fine for a comedy/melodrama. The moment the characters were shoved into a drama that wants to be taken seriously, the whole thing collapses. All of the characters are simplistic people.
The story follows five distinct heroines, in the same “savage season” of their lives but moving in different directions. Kazusa, the most prominent of the five has it rough. Imagine walking in on your crush beating their meat before ever being exposed to sex, it’s maddening; that’s the kind of laughable nonsense Kazusa has to go through. Her encounters are always contrived, which made them all the more entertaining. For instance, when Kazusa drops off the food at Izumi’s house, rather than calling his name or his phone, she just opens the door and walks up to his room. Something was bound to happen. Ignoring how predictable the scene is, the direction is so heavy-handed it’s comical—and it’s so good. The fear in Kazusa’s expression, the slow opening of the door, Izumi’s house shrouded in darkness, the distant rock music with a vertical slice of light shining down the long staircase. The anticipation is overwhelming. Unfortunately, the entire narrative falls apart by the end, Kazusa’s story included.
The cracks started to appear midway through the series, motivations for a few of the heroines were still unclear. Kazusa and Sonozaki were the best out of the five because it was plain and simple what they wanted: to figure out their relationships despite anxiety and a desire to remain pure. Momo had no clue what was happening; it’s so obvious from the first episode that she’s a lesbian and unfortunately that’s a defining character trait. She supports her friends, always with a smile, yet her scenes are underwhelming because she’s too busy being oblivious of her sexuality. If you’re uninterested in dudes, but tear up at the thought of a girl not liking you, then you’re probably gay—just saying. Her personality is so underdeveloped that her actions make no sense later in the show, making her seem like she’s bipolar. This is a huge issue past the halfway point in this series, at the drop of a hat as if half the cast suddenly becomes bipolar.
On the other hand, Hongou wanted to grow up faster and gain knowledge about sex. Hongou is a more subdued character, not quite standing out in the group aside from a few crude comments. She’s an aspiring erotica writer, regularly sexting with guys online to make her writing more authentic. Her motivations are clear, I liked her scenes, at first. Soon she finds out fabricating sexual experience is much different than the real thing. Her perspective focuses on the problematic pseudo-relationship with her teacher. Their encounter is unbelievable. Out of thousands of people on illicit chatrooms, they somehow meet each other. Later they decide to meet in real life, lo and behold they’re student/teacher. It’s absurd, but I wouldn’t expect any less of Maidens. Even his username is Miro, one letter off from his actual name Milo; you would think a teacher would try to hide his identity while sexting a random person online. Seeing her blackmail Milo and push around him is hilarious, at first. Eventually, the writers forgot Hongou was trying to become a more experienced writer, and she starts trying to get with Milo. There is very strange sexual tension between them; I won’t go into spoilers, all I’ll say is that the teacher also engages (don't forget she's underage). I came into Araburu expecting to cringe, laugh, and enjoy the emotional roller coaster, not to be frustrated and unsettled. There were points when it was uncomfortable to watch, however, nothing came close to the most disturbing parts of Nina’s story.
Conversely, the dark horse of the cast, Nina is by far the most flawed heroine. She’s messed up from childhood trauma (it’s not graphic, but enough to cause a warped perception of sexuality). As we all know, a flawed character doesn’t equal a bad character. However, when handled poorly they can be the worst members of the cast. Unsurprisingly Nina is the most hated character. The things she does are objectively wrong; however, you can explain most of her actions with development abuse. I wish that I didn’t need to assume ‘because trauma she is a bad person’. The absent nuances to Nina's personality seem less like a creative decision, rather it feels like Okada was ignorant about the psychological effects of trauma. Rather than connecting Nina's trauma and insecurities to her actions in the present, the show just gives us more of Nina's obnoxious self-loathing thoughts. The pedo's actions are always condemned. It’s pointless shock value—though I will admit the directing of these scenes conveys fear exceptionally well. While I can't ignore Okada's talents as a director, these themes shouldn’t have been in Araburu. Barely anything that occurs throughout the show matters at the end. Given this is a complete adaptation of the manga, it left me feeling robbed. At least the characters face consequences for their actions, Nina included. Due to the nature of melodrama, morality is rather black or white in Araburu: you do good, you get good. If you treat people badly, you will get bad in return. For example; the kids that bully Sonezaki are portrayed as sex-crazed sluts who get 'what they deserve’ in the end because they picked on the nice main characters. Dramas are meant to pull in the reader gradually so you can identify with the characters, to believe they could be real people, this is not a drama.
There's not much to say about the art. A washed-out palette plus a strange foggy filter makes it feel like your watching everything through a cloud. On top of that, the animation is very lackluster. From a distance, all the characters look off-model. Backgrounds often look hideous even up close. There were a few instances when the art style was changed for laughs, and they worked, but I wish there was more. The CGI cars look ugly and completely out of place. The character designs look much better in the manga; there is plenty of well-timed visual gags thanks to the director, however, the animation only serves to weigh it down.
Maidens of the Savage Season was a roller coaster ride. Exciting at first, then it rapidly spiraled downwards—out of control. I loved it for its flaws because it knew what they were and played them for laughs. Over time, it lost that self-awareness and it unironically became everything it mocked. It took itself far too seriously, then it became a jumbled mess of unclear themes, empty character motivations, and no playoffs whatsoever. My favorite character, Kazusa, was done a disservice with such a rushed ending. She deserved better than the cliched bullcrap she got. This is what happens when you have something great and ruin it by trying to unnecessarily add more ideas. No one told Mari Okada enough is enough. At some point, an author needs to know when to stop.
