Yes it’s a new season which means Irina (from I Drink And Watch Anime) and I (Cactus Matt from Anime QandA) will be doing collaborative episodic reviews for one show and the pick of Fall (Autumn) 2018 is DAKAICHI -I’m being harassed by the sexiest man of the year-, boy that’s a long title! And I’m betting that’s not the only thing about this show that’s long… yes this is the level of maturity you can expect from these reviews going forward… Just so you guys know, this wasn’t MY pick. I mean…it wasn’t not my pick…I’m just saying I’m not forcing Matt to do this. We’ll come back later to forcing and doing stuff.. Wait, what?

Just so all the readers are aware, what’s your ~expertise~ level with this genre, obviously in past seasons collabs you were the sports expert where I was the sports not-liker. Here, though I have zero experience with Shounen-Ai… or is this Yaoi? I don’t even know… Have some expertise with the cute boy genre but actual BL is limited to a few episodes of ‘Junjo Romantica’ which I wasn’t crazy about. I have played a lot of Boy on Boy Pron Games though. A lot… I may not be a fan of romance but I’m all about smut! Wait…what?

There’s a lot of wood in this screencap.

So we’re introduced pretty quickly to our whole scenario and our two main boys (should we be calling them boys, I mean they are pretty much men?) and I guess they’re attractive? I mean I don’t have a lot of benchmarks for these kind of things, they’re probably better looking than your average harem protagonists that i’m used to! Anime characters are always pretty. Gotta admit, not really my favorite art style. Kinda Shoujo. But I would call them attractive.

I kinda like this guy but only because he’s the same voice actor as Kogarashi from ‘Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs’, aka best harem protagonist I’ve seen in a long time!

And our two boys are competing for being “most huggable actor”, is that some kind of Japanese euphemism, or do they literally just mean most huggable? I’m just going under the assumption that absolutely everything in this show is a double entendre….

Well there’s no mistaking what blonde boy is wanting, no double entendres, he just straight up says he wants to have sex with dark-haired boy! (I should probably look up their names) Nah, this makes it easier for me too…

What did you think about that OP? Pretty average, if I’m honest. I was expecting a more ~impactful~ song, don’t these “shows for women” usually have more exciting songs?

It’s tough… being so damned handsome…

Like what? Like, ‘Free’ and ‘Banana Fish’ and ‘Butlers x Battlers’… I have a limited knowledge base to work with here, I just recall in my seasonal listen of all the OP’s that I do the most “rock”-heavy songs seem to come from shows targeted towards women.

Noragami? Great OPs…I just wanted to put Matt on the spot there a little. I only know Splash Free of the 3 and only because of 50% off but maybe? This said I disagree. The visuals were blah but the song was incredibly striking to me. Not entirely sure if I like it or not but the quick spoken word first verse caught my attention and stood out a lot for me. The casual tone of the singer was also very unusual to my ear. There were actually a couple of shows last season (and I think the season before) that had the whole spoken word first verse… don’t put me on the spot to remember which though! Well it wasn’t Harukana or Steins;Gate…ok maybe it was Harukana, I don’t remember…

Too much alcohol.

All About Eve is one of my favorite movies so I’m digging the whole aging petty star slowly getting upstaged by a young ingenue who idolizes them. I also love stories showing the behind the scenes of the entertainment industry. Even I see though that it’s hardly an original premise. How are you enjoying it. I enjoy that it’s about actors, I love that whole ‘behind the scenes’, watching as actors film a scene thing that shows like this capture. Kind of like seeing how the sausage is made… speaking of sausages…

They’re not really doctors they just like playing doctor. Now turn and cough.

One point for dark and stormy reacting in a reasonable way to that first assault…Also spoilers. Minus 1 427 points for assault! It’s not romantic people! I was expecting it because, well, it seems like a show like this can’t be made without that kind ~trope~ I guess a part of that is because homosexuality is still scene as something of a ‘fetish’ by some people in Japan so it’s hard to divorce these tropes from reality. Or maybe I’m just pretending I know what I’m talking about, I do that a lot… know what I mean, Irina?

Nope…I mean kinda. I have seen these scenes in reverse harems A LOT. So I’m not sure if it’s the homosexual angle or the marketing to a female audience but it skeeves me out in any case. I’m taking away another 351 points.

Oh boy.

Matt, what’s with the angel wings and feathers everywhere? Is that a thing? Visual symbolism is a powerful thing, when properly executed, it seemed a little forcibly whimsical but I get what they were going for. I’ve never seen it before in an anime so maybe it’s just this show wanting to be different. All over Angles of Death but…it’s called Angels of Death…

He’s not really an angel… or maybe that’s the twist that this guy is literally an angel from heaven sent to Earth to bang dudes.

I’m not going to tell you my views yet because I don’t want to influence anything, what did you think of episode 1? I took a break for lunch midway through this review and decided to put the ep on again to get a better listen to the OP (it’s not as bad as I initially thought–but maybe that’s just you “influencing” me *winky face*) but I ended up watching the episode again. Maybe my expectations were low, heck I know they were, I didn’t think I’d find anything to like in this show, in fact I expected to be making snide remarks the whole time like I did while watching Butlers x Battlers. But I like this show, I think the whole “assault” thing is problematic but I mean it’s pretty obvious dark haired boy has been in the closet since he so quickly took to being with a man. Plus I think they even mentioned that he hadn’t ever had a girlfriend, so I guess he was just waiting for an “angel” to sweep him off his feet. I’m happy with this show and will even, dare I say, look forward to it each week. Now let’s see Irina have the opposite reaction to me! Damn I’m that predictable, am I? First – kids, assault is wrong even if both parties are attracted to each other, minus another 766 points. As for the episode it was ok. Like I said, I like the setting a lot. I also enjoyed the scenes with dark haired man being all bitter and bitchy. The drunk night twist had its moments. On the other hand blondie is a bore and by the end it got a bit “relationshippy”. If they’re already in love by the end of episode 1, what are we gonna do for the rest of the season? I didn’t hate it, I think I would say I was neutral. Still liked the pony girls better though. Even if you are in love, a messy relationship drama with two big ‘acting’ egos could have dramatic potential. Yes, that’s exactly what I’m afraid of…..

I watched 5 new Spring anime on the same day and all of them had Episode 1 love confessions (to varying degrees), I smell a conspiracy!

And that’s episode 1 finished with, you’re keeping score at home, I’m currently on a 74/100 and Irina’s on minus 2544. The reviews will alternate between my site and Irina’s with the odd numbered episodes appearing here and the even ones on her site. Thanks for reading!

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