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(Because Das Squidy is still playing Tales of fucking Phantasia... It's taking for fucking ever)

Experiment 02:
Mouse

Did you say 'Jew?' I distinctly heard you say 'Jew.'

It feels like a stretch to call Mouse a harem anime because a lot of the tropes are ignored. Our lead character is lowly high school art teacher by day Sorata Muon, by night the notorious legacy thief named Mouse,who's ancestors have confounded one bumbling, screaming chief of police after another for 400 years. The Muon family has created a rather large underground organized support system to help perpetuate the crimes of later generations- the entire college where Sorata works is actually a secret high-tech base, and everyone who works there is in service to the family. In a stunning turn of events, Sorata is a man who is competent, capable, and has a pleasantly humble personality. Even more stunning- all three of his subservient, absurdly endowed assistants want to have sex with him, and he actually has sex with them. Madness! This show (unlike Sekirei) is more like your classic wish fulfillment- the main character bangs three super-hot-n-horny and completely dedicated subordinates, he's the greatest master thief who's ever lived, and best of all he resides in a super-mansion hidden in the college where he works which means no frustrating morning commute.

It's interesting (well, to me) that this show comes closer to the actual definition of the term 'harem' than a lot of harem anime. Mouse is regarded by his three female servants as 'Master,' and they essentially exist to ensure that all of his needs are met, rather than just being a bunch of random women orbiting some loser because they happen to live in the same apartment complex or whatever. Cementing anime's dedication to keeping genres as stultifying as possible, this show was a failure.

Not that the premise is all that original- it's essentially a harem show meets Diabolik meets Lupin III (both of which are based on 'gentleman thief' novels from early 20^th century France, both of which are infinitely superior to this show). I can't say with any authority exactly why the show didn't last, and I think it's noteworthy that this broke from the conventions of the harem genre by making the sex a thing that actually happens instead of a looming threat of doom, and then ended up with only 12 episodes (15 minutes each- at least it's a quick watch) before fading into obscurity. Meanwhile crap like Sekirei has two TV seasons, drama audio plays, a video game, and a (TERRIBLE) manga still going strong at 16 volumes. Hell, why did Twilight succeed where Blood and Chocolate failed (other than the fact that Twilight clearly had a less hilarious title)? 

Insert PMS joke here- then throw the plastic applicator in the trash. Rimshot! Thank you, try the veal.

Anyway, let's talk about the chicks, man. During the day, the female leads are teachers at Muon's school, berating him in front of students and dressing (relatively) professionally. After class though, the hair comes down. It's all bondage outfits and four-way sex between heists. I have no idea when any of them are supposed to sleep, or grade papers. And the animation does a fine job of showcasing their ladyparts, rendering them so jiggly, smooshy, and exaggerated that it often bypasses 'sexy' on its way to 'self parody.' Their titties practically breakdance is what I'm getting at here. 

 ... Is she smuggling a fucking peanut in her shirt?

They regularly parade themselves around in provocative outfits, barely covering themselves even when it's time to go assist their master in yet another daring jaunt into crime, literally begging our hero for sex or forcing it on him when he's resistant (or tired, or busy... they're a lot like cats, now that I think about it...). This is where just over half of the comedy from the show originates, and it gets old quick because it's just not that amusing beyond the initial shock value. It managed to drag a genuine chuckle out of me exactly one time: When the girls are jealous about him going out on a date with a student, rather than do the rational thing and ask him not to go out with one of his godamn students, they all corner him in a room and luv 'im up so spectacularly that when it's time for him to leave, he is a drained-to-the-point-of-near-death husk of a man, incapable of even considering having sex WITH HIS STUDENT. Good thinking, girls!

Mei Momozono- The older, most experienced whore of the group and longest serving minion, having met Sorota when he was a prepubescent boy and she was a teenager. This pays off hilariously later, when we find out that she gets off dressing Mouse like a schoolboy during sexytime. Did I say hilarious? I probably didn't mean that- gross might have been the word I wanted to use. 

  

Yes, gross. That was it.

  

Born the daughter of the lead servant of Sorata's estate, she was whipped into submission from childhood to be our hero's loyal thrall. Literally. As in, someone with a whip chained her to a wall and beat her until it was time to devote her life to helping Mouse steal shit. There's a sad attempt to make her character sympathetic rather than horrifying- she decides that she'll off herself if she doesn't feel that Mouse is worthy of her support, so thank God Sorata's such a solid dude, right? When the going got tough, he was there to swoop in and prove that he wouldn't sacrifice any of his subordinates ('friends'), so she has given herself over to him completely. Yep, all the ickyness from the horrible beatings and being born into servitude is washed away somehow. Anyway, when she's not henching for Mouse, she's a math teacher at the college. 

 

Yayoi Kuribayashi- Next up is a girl who's name sounds like Cornholio describing an erection, Busta Rhymes flubbing some lyrics, somebody cried out in surprise before tripping over a garbage can. She was terrified of men before Mouse came along and turned her into a godamned sex-obsessed pervert. In the flashback episode that explains their relationship, we find that Yayoi is the powerball jackpot of male fantasy- the girl who's crippling social flaws have kept her unbelievably hot body cock-free until the day that you can swoop in and teach her the ways of love. She had the Velma Dinkley/Irma Langenstein thing going on, what with the glasses, the book smarts, the modest dress, and brown-hewn librarian hair. She was terrified of men not because she was raped (see, that would spoil that fresh MOC vagina), but because she's just afraid of her own desires and doesn't know how to deal with men. (Wikipedia explains that in the manga she was traumatized by watching her parents go at it as a small child which... man, that'll do it. I don't know, if I had to be traumatized, and had to choose between being raped or watching my parents fuck I'd have to flip a coin). Her sheer terror of men is so extreme that she hides under a desk when one happens into the all-women chemistry lab where she was working before Mouse abducts her (heroically! Don't worry, she totally wanted him to abduct her, so it's fine!).

SEE! Consent! Consent removes all moral consequences from everything!

Mei (who is at this time Sorata's math tutor) takes it upon herself to break Yayoi of that terror after noticing how gobsmacked she is by Sorata's polite everyman charm. Mei forces public sex on Sorata in an area where she knew Yayoi would see it, correctly predicting that it would open Yayoi up to maybe getting sticky sometime. Mei's insane plan works, and gets Yayoi all conflicted as she lays in bed alone at night. Later, Mouse has to rescue Yayoi from a laboratory fire that she started herself accidentally because seeing a dude gave her another panic attack. Yes, he has to save her from herself literally and psychologically HOW ELSE but by kissing her, taking her up in his arms, and carrying her to safety and also sex. 

She now works as a nurse at the college by day and henches for Mouse by night, rather than advancing the world of chemistry like she was before giving in to her carnal desires. Wait, that almost sounds like the plot of an erotic novel written for women... I take it back, this show has something for everyone.

Kakio Hazuki- the last of Sorata's sexy assistants is the most shocking of all because she is... NOT a lolicon! She's iust a green-haired girl with realistically large breasts (like C cups). You heard that right- REALISTICALLY LARGE BREASTS! She makes up for her lack of absurdly huge boobs by being sillier than the other two, and dressing in a variety of costumes. Plus, she's a toilet slut.

OM NOM NOM

I thought that I had dodged a bullet here- a show that doesn't include a little girl for the pedophiles in the audience! Incredible! So of course there's an episode where she gets her heretofore undiagnosed multiple personalities separated inside a big computer simulation that causes her central inner self to be turned into a little freaking lolicon, because we can't have nice things and anime can't not make this weird. As her errant personalities get absorbed back into her main consciousness, her body starts filling out and getting sexier- so you can get a boner no matter what stage of puberty you find enticing! Like I said earlier, something for everyone. Anyway, she's the college gymnastics instructor during the day and Mouse's karate fighter hench by night.

Gaze into the true face of undiagnosed dissociative disorder.

Samasa Morijama- Surprise, I lied! There was a fourth servant, but she only shows up in the last episode, so she's there just long enough to do a little godawful Jerry Lewis style schtick, possibly participate in an orgy, and then disappear.

WAIT, WHAT?!

 

Then there's the satellite women- a trio of teenage girls who attend Mouse's art class. Two of them are mostly there to stand around (I can't even remember if they have names, annnnd neither does Wikipedia), the third is Machiko, a redhead who just became... whatever the age of consent is in Japan, I guess? Because she decides that she's going to start dating Sorata (whom she affectionately refers to as Squeak ['chuu' in Japanese] even though she doesn't know his secret identity), and just straight-up asks him out on a couple of dates, which he reluctantly accepts just to be nice because he's such a great guy. I'm probably aiming a little high by assuming that she's 18, because when she was offered a beer while on said date, she innocently replies that she's not drinking age yet (which in Japan is 20). Skipping ahead to later in the series, Machiko and her friends are discussing some magazine article about the strangely low-sounding percentage of Japanese teenage girls who have kissed a boy, and she declares that she'll join that venerated minority by kissing her teacher. Let's put this all together so that it becomes clear how little all of this makes sense.

• Sexy, red-headed 18 (I hope?) year old.
• Attending college (Japanese high school).
• Going steady with her professor.
• Is a virgin who has never even kissed a boy.
  
  
   
  
  Sounds legit.*
  
  
  
  
  Each episode revolves around Mouse and his thralls pulling off some daring heist... not that this part of the story means a whole hell of a lot. In the very first episode, our man steals an entire freaking museum. Not just the stuff inside, the actual big-ass building around the stuff, too. Rips that bitch right outta the ground. Later, he steals a god damn tower because that should be REALLY EASY to fence.

  
  

  Some of the action is alright, but none of the heists are particularly clever. The intention of starting with such absurdly impossible heists was clearly to wow the audience with our hero's incredible versatility, but that doesn't really work because if the very first thing we see him do is make off with an entire god damn museum with little to zero problems it just makes the rest of his adventures dramatically inert. Which means you'd better have some seriously compelling characters to make the show worth watching (spoilers: doesn't happen) or some kind of external struggle to complicate things. That occurs at the tail end of the series, when we're introduced to a secret cabal that protects mankind's artistic achievements and feel that Mouse is a danger to their mission, so they send an immortal assassin after him. But there aren't enough episodes to flesh any of that out, which... again, makes the whole thing feel pointless.

  
  

  It's sad, because the ingredients for something at least passable (if not interesting) are there. This feels like it fell victim to the sort of pacing that works better in manga- my assumption is that they went for a fairly direct adaptation of the source material, and that was a mistake (like Watchmen, except not as depressing). It could be an amusing 15 pages worth of fluff in a manga anthology magazine- I might even read it regularly given that it's a delivery system for drawings of boobs and butts that could be skim-read in two minutes sammiched between other, better manga. And sure, the episodes are a mere 15 minutes long, it shouldn't be a surprise that you don't get enough time to know the characters or be swept up in the plot. But then consider that 12 episodes times 15 minutes is 3 hours. That's longer than The Godfather, Star Wars, My Left Foot, or 2001: A Space Odyssey. I guess it's a better waste of life than sitting through a Syfy Channel presentation of Dinocunt vs Octopussy, but only because the abundant nudity and arguably sex-positive attitude keep the show from being completely forgettable. 

  
  

  Two H. Jon Benjamins out of five, mostly because tits.
  *That research is, appropriately, from the year this show was being written.