24th April 2011, 11:19 AM
Denpa Onna
It's basically a classic harem set up, complete with a bevy of cute girls for the main character to be loved by. Of course, it's Shaft and Shinbo, so obviously there's going to more going on that that. What really makes this work is that it's just so delightfully weird. All female characters are totally cute [big surprise!], but each one is just a bit...off. Although they fall into established archetypes, they each have an additional aspect of their personality that runs totally counter to the way that harem shows generally do their female characters. Two episodes in, it works. There's also the fact that the male character isn't totally bland and clueless, he has a bit of genre knowledge and has some role in the show other than to simply be a blank slate for the audience. An overall lack of ecchi-ness also helps.
It's basically a classic harem set up, complete with a bevy of cute girls for the main character to be loved by. Of course, it's Shaft and Shinbo, so obviously there's going to more going on that that. What really makes this work is that it's just so delightfully weird. All female characters are totally cute [big surprise!], but each one is just a bit...off. Although they fall into established archetypes, they each have an additional aspect of their personality that runs totally counter to the way that harem shows generally do their female characters. Two episodes in, it works. There's also the fact that the male character isn't totally bland and clueless, he has a bit of genre knowledge and has some role in the show other than to simply be a blank slate for the audience. An overall lack of ecchi-ness also helps.
Sometimes you get the scorpion.