First Date: Kimi ga Aruji De, Shitsuji ga Ore De
Tags: first-dates , kimi-ga-aruji-de-shitsuji-ga-ore-de , winter-2007-8
- Title: Kimi ga Aruji De, Shitsuji ga Ore De (roughly, “You’re the Master, I’m the Butler”)
- Studio: ACGT
- Genre: Romantic Comedy/Harem
Ratings (out of 5):
- Story: ♥♥½
- Animation: ♥♥½
- Characters: ♥♥♥½
- OP/ED Themes: ♥♥♥
- Overall: ♥♥♥½ (Smexy and funny FTW.)
Thoughts:
In the first couple of minutes of this show, I jumped to an early conclusion: mediocre Hayate no Gotoku ripoff.
By the end of the show, my actual conclusion was: halfway decent Hayate no Gotoku ripoff.
So! The show is about Ren and Hato, a pair of siblings (with matching sibling complexes, no less) who have run away from their abusive alcoholic father. They run to the big city and try to find jobs, and thanks to a series of goofy accidents are able to find work as a maid and butler in the Kuonji house, working for three sisters: bitchy, cute-thing-loving Shinra; reluctant loli Miyu, and the jokingly unremarkable Yume (whose lack of an interesting character trait IS her character trait, so far). Also in the house are a crew of goofy maids and butlers, including a delicious trap. Well, he’s not technically dressed like a girl, but he looks and sounds like a girl, so it’s close enough.
In spite of Ren and Hato’s un-joke-like history, the show is absolute comedy, and considerably funnier than I was expecting. There was even a reference to Kuso Miso Technique (if you don’t know, you don’t want to know), as well as plenty of other meta jokes about character roles and the like.
The things that made the impression early on were a scene very reminiscent of the HnG opening, in which Hayate stands in front of a dark background while the narrator talks about what makes a good butler (in Kimi ga Aruji de, Ren stands in front of a dark background and does battle with the chief butler, who tells him what makes a good butler)…and Miyu’s character design: blonde with two pigtails. And during her introduction, a particular thing happens that I’ve juxtaposed next to a similar thing in HnG:
Oh, and a random note: Ren has weird marks under his eyes kinda like Naruto. Yeah, I don’t get it either.
The anime’s past life as an eroge is made clear pretty early on, and fans who didn’t like HnG’s devotion to, for the most part, delicious flat chests will be happy to see plenty of bazongas in Kimi ga Aruji.
Other than that: the art, animation, and music are all pretty mediocre. Not bad, mind, just not really outstanding in any way.
Overall though, better than I expected. We’ll see how it goes!