For this review, I want you to try something. First, visit Yoiko’s MAL page and read the description. Then, take a look at the OP:
While this is also a good opportunity for me to test whether or not embedded Youtube videos work on this site, I now want you to imagine what kind of series this is going to be. It sounds like a heart-warming slice of life series in the same veins of Mokke, doesn’t it? A nice and quiet series about a small child who lives in a grown-up body; an innocent tale of growing up. That’s what I thought, at least.
So yeah… where to start?
Yoiko is a series with twenty episodes of 10 minutes. Every single episode starts with a nude shower scene and a full close-up of Fuuka’s boobs. Every single episode ends with Fuuka’s brother making a masturbation joke. The rest of the series isn’t any different: chockful of fanservice jokes, boob-shots, masturbation jokes and arousal jokes. This series has no sense of shame, and the worst thing is that this is supposed to be a series about elementary schoolers. Time and time again you see grown adults of all sorts of ages getting horny over a 9-year-old who happens to have the body of an 19-year-old.
However, this isn’t the case with most fanservice shows, where I can just label it as crap and get it over with, like To Love-Ru and Kanokon. Yoiko definitely has its merits. For one, I laughed like crazy during a fair number of the episodes. A lot of the series’ humour comes from seeing what borderline of taste the creators are going to break this time, and that results into a number of absolutely hilarious situations and a fair number of actually good sex-jokes.
The other source of humour in this series comes simply from watching elementary schoolers and their usual antics. Despite the huge amounts of fanservice and the creators who keep dancing on your grave because you became aroused by a 9-year-old, this series can boast a charming cast of typical kids and their simple minds. While there are a few stereotypes here and there (like the horny teacher, et cetera), the cast somehow works.
Part of the reason of why the characters are enjoyable is the cast of voice-actors, who do a terrific job of bringing the cast alive. Especially the above-mentioned horny teacher is greatly voiced, but the rest of the cast also sounds awesome, and really like their age.
Granted, this isn’t the best comedy out there; there are a number of dull episodes in which the humour doesn’t work as well as it should have, especially in the second half of the series. Still, this series never gets too dull to just start dropping. There also isn’t really an ending. The show just stops after 20 episodes, without really concluding anything (not that there was anything that needs conclusion, though; this series did avoid going down the emo road in its final few episodes). This series does well in its characterization, but in terms of character-development it doesn’t go much beyond the introductions of the different characters.
What baffles me the most though is that this series was directed by Omori Takahiro, a powerhouse of a director who also was behind awesome series as Baccano, Jigoku Shoujo, Natsume Yuujinchou and Fancy Lala. I guess the best thing this series can be compared with is if you take Fancy Lala, remove the idol bit and any sort of serious storyline and symbolism, let the lead female in her adult body 100% of the time, remove every single border of taste and add in lots and lots of boobs. And then some more.
| Storytelling: | 8/10 |
| Characters: | 8/10 |
| Production-Values: | 8/10 |
| Setting: | 7/10 |
That was a really nice OP. And the premise looked so nice, dammit. Nice to know it never resorted to drama, though. If it ever does get subbed, I’ll still watch.
Must I think this is more outrageous than Oruchuban Ebichu XD? I’ll try this out then.
Totally recommend the Ebichu series anyway . Ah, bless non-angsty Gainax ;p http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=anime&aid=150
Once again proving that you are an amazing hypocrite. How is this ANY different from the hundreds of fanservice anime that you say you hate so much? Oh, it made you laugh? Then I guess it’s all right then.
Essedus: did you read the review, or do you just like to randomly call people hypocrites? Despite the fanservice, this series has an enjoyable cast of characters and excellent voice actors, something that I keep missing in a lot of other fanservice series. Besides, it was one of the few shows that actually makes good sex-jokes. That’s something I haven’t seen often.
Of course, most fanservice series out there are bad IMO, but that’s because they have hardly anything else to offer other than boobs and very cheesy and overdone humour. Yoiko’s fanservice indeed is one of its flaws, and yet it does have enough else to offer.
@Essedus: psgels enjoyed Umisho – a series with helluva lot more sex jokes and fanservice than this one.
I remember this anime being shown in a local TV although much of the dialogue has been changed. I really cannot remember much of it because it was aired around ten years ago.
It has at least hints that its going to a fanservice show. There are suspicious phallic looking objects in the OP.
Essedus behave… there’s no reason to insult people like that
Essedus – people that make generalizations and use the term hypocrite tend to have reading comprehension errors and are themselves demonstrating some flaw in their character.
Go meditate on your ability to make a fool of yourself in front of everyone else.