(SPOILERS) When I went into this anime, I did not expect it to go the way that it did. Besides having one of my favorite Japanese voice actresses as the lead, I was not too optimistic about it at first glance. I will keep the synopsis a little short since there's not too much to write about anyway. The anime starts off with Yuuto, your everyday nerd character with glasses to boot, stumbling around and trying to avoid his otaku friend that insists he try out the hobby. He hears about a girl named Haruka, who is wealthy, popular and talented. Naturally, he fears he won't getanywhere with her as a friend, so he backs off from the idea right away and things go about normally. But, obviously we all knew that was not going to happen since her NAME is in the title of the anime.
Anyway, the prim and proper Haruka (as the viewer currently knows her as based on the description given about her earlier) overhears that a certain manga is in the library by a loudmouthed Nobunaga (the otaku friend of Yuuto), stands straight up from her desk in an overbearing fashion, blushes in embarrassment over the ruckus and stumbles to the library. Naturally, our male lead has to get to the library for his own reasons as well.
So on, so forth, some plot stuff happens some more and, naturally, she bumps into Yuuto. Now, by this point, the viewer is well aware she is an otaku since she did walk over to the library earlier after hearing of the manga. The way that Yuuto finds out, however, is just bizarre and it feels so much like a plot device that it hurts to watch. She manages to trip around him several (yes several) times before they both fall over and knock all the books in the library down. Oddly enough, there was no comedy gag about the librarian making Yuuto clean it up, which I anticipated as soon as that occurred. Haruka naturally freaks out when Yuuto sees her manga and runs off. And through a chain of events, Yuuto promises to keep her secret and the rest of the anime begins as the romantic comedy you were waiting for.
Okay, maybe that took a bit longer than I expected to elaborate on, but there you go. I will come clean here and say that this anime will throw a ton of "romance" moments at you that will go absolutely nowhere, so don't get your hopes up at all of them establishing a relationship here, cause it is only friendship in this season. Speaking of, right as I finished this up, I found out it had another season. Otherwise, I was fully ready to write them off as friends, but now there's more to look forward to since their relationship has built up from this season. And as such, I simply can't write anything concrete here. I was a bit surprised this even lasted another season, considering how bare boned the plot is.
And speaking of, I would like to go over that for a bit. I do admire that this anime takes a very real approach on how fans of anime and manga would be treated if they go to a rough school and their hobbies are discovered. I still question how Nobunaga was never mistreated, considering how enthusiastic and loud he is about his hobby, but maybe he will have more development later on, so I can't judge for sure.
One thing is for sure, though, when the other classmates did find out that someone liked these things, things got really dark. As in, dark even for a comedy. Tons of insults, disrespect and treating their hobbies, as well as the individual, worse than trash itself. I was quite surprised at how dark it got, but only one episode truly got this bad. The other ones that did cover the topic in this manner simply did so in explanation, so it is mildly dark at most. I have to give them credit for tackling the hobby in such a serious fashion, since it reminds me of how I felt before my friends discovered I loved the stuff. I really did think they would demoralize me similar to how Yuuto's classmates disowned him when rumors spread about him being an otaku.
Other positives about the anime are that it had a real good flow of comedy, characters were bubbly, yet simple enough to be very likable. I wound up liking Ruko the most, despite how she came off as being a stereotype that I dislike in anime the most at first. That being the kind that just has their way all the time without punishment. But, she is always wasted, so it's easily forgivable. For the fewer times that she is sober, she actually works a very high-class job and is quite intelligent. But of course, she comes off as dopey most of the time cause she is always wasted. She also has that hairline that I love so much, which earned her immediate bonus points on her character, even though I'm well aware that's a pretty poor bias to judge a character on.
The other characters may take too much time for me to explain here since they were all unique in their own way. Of course, they also had their fair share of stereotypes, but their personalities weren't as overbearing as I expected them to be, which was nice. I never felt like any of the female characters were a bother to me, which is very rare for me to experience in anime. They normally always treat the male characters like garbage a lot of the time, even when they do things on accident. And speaking of, he had quite a few of those with Haruka, but she somehow respected him regardless and did not mind.
Though, I do dislike how the other women treated this, as they called her "dense" for not being angry with him, further reminding me how Japan treats men. It irritates me that an accidental sexual situation is considered punishable and that you're "dense" for simply acknowledging it as an accident. And no, Haruka is not the one that is fell on top of. She is the one that witnesses it, though, and considering the placement of one of the hands, she had every right to run away in confusion.
And speaking of these situations, I would just like to point out that this is the very first anime I have ever seen where the usual "male falls on female" accident happened and the girl did not get upset at all. I am not kidding, this actually happened and everything was fine. He even had one of his hands land on one of her breasts, clearly grasping it, and she was okay with it and treated it as an accident. Just take that in for a moment.
No "I am going to exploit this," no "you are a pervert" followed by her running away and misjudging the boy for the rest of the anime. None of this occurred after the accident. And to clarify, yes, it was the kind where he somehow landed a hand on one of her boobs, grabbing it, and nothing happened. Sorry for bringing so much emphasis on this one scene, but for many anime fans out there, it's quite significant for the scene to end as what it originally was in the first place. You know, an accident. I clearly spoiled this whole scene for you, hence my warning earlier, but if you have already seen it, then you must have been as shocked as I was.
I could cover this season a little more if I want to, but I feel I should save those thoughts for after I have seen the entire anime. And, you know, I clearly dedicated a good chunk of it just talking about how it treats sexual scenes. And I may not even be done with that yet. And if you are reading this after watching, and I am assuming you are since I have a visible warning on the top; and you enjoyed this season, then I suggest watching the next. That is the plan for me since I actually enjoyed this anime quite a bit. I liked the music, the backgrounds and the setting is strangely relaxing. I love how Haruka, alongside most of the women in this anime, follow the usual stereotypes in a less chaotic manner.
Very few "misunderstandings" that are treated with arbitrary punishments. In fact, I can't recall a single time where Yuuto received a punishment for any of his accidental sexual acts. Haruka just said it was alright and they moved on. Even for a comedy, it is quite unusual for them not to milk those scenes, but I am happy that they did not since it may have effected how I felt about the anime. I appreciate it more for not going through those comedy measures and I very much look forward to the next season and hope it retains the style of the first and does not try to etch in unnecessary comedy elements that it did not do before. Or at least, I hope they try to make it original if they do go about this path. Preferably, no "you glanced at my panties once, prepare to receive an awful punishment" moments. All I can do is hope.
Mixed Feelings
You know, for all the internet rage I've heard that this show is "Too much Otaku wish fulfillment", it failed to fulfill my wish of being entertained. ZONG! And now, ladies and germs, the actual review: Actually, I wouldn't argue that the problem with this show is that it's a substance-less, extra generous heaping of Otaku wish fulfillment as some claim, because let's face it, KissxSis and Chocotto Sister REALLY have no critical quality to them, and instead only show me just what I want to see, and yet I'm still entertained by them. No, instead, I find that there are three major problems thatcause Himitsu to fall short of it's potential.
The first is that for an Otaku-centric comedy, Himitsu feels as though it were written by a non-Otaku. While many of the stereotypes and experiences that we have all become accustomed to through real life and other shows are present, they lack the personality that shows such as Genshiken capitalize on. For example, in Hayate no Gotoku, there's an extremely short scene (Not but a single panel in the Manga) in which Nagi exits the room in order to watch an anime DVD boxset she purchased on a whim. Every fan can relate to the scenario of buying (Or downloading) anime which we have never heard of, simply for the sake of owning it, or because the cover art looked cool. You can also take Genshiken, and the strained relations between the Otaku characters and the "Normal" characters. Undoubtably each viewer has had an experience of their own with someone who was less than accepting of their hobby. Through these shared experiences, the watcher relates the characters, and connects to them. However all of Haruka's adventures feel as though they went through a game of Bohemian Telephone before they were scripted into the show. Oh sure, all the major hallmarks of an Otaku life are there (Comiket, cosplaying, Akihabara, figurine obsession), but the personality and small details have been lost in the process. This lack of a personal touch makes the series seem like a second hand story, as though the author had heard about such experiences from a friend.
The next aspect holding the show back was that the secondary characters are better developed than the main characters. Yuuto, for example, is a total blank slate. While I understand that often lead male characters in such series are made bland so that the watcher can impose their own personalities on the the character, Yuuto has absolutely no personality at all. The only noticeable aspect of his personality is that he seems to mildly care about Haruka. Haruka herself, claims to be an Otaku, but shows a forced interest in everything Otaku related. Her character is just an amalgamation of various "Moe" characteristics, without any new flavoring. At the same time, the trio of Haruka's little sister Mika, and the family maids provided more entertainment and laughs than the rest of the characters combined. They were fresh and original, and quite entertaining to watch. However, this trio was given far less airtime than they deserved, and instead the focus of the series lied with the blander characters. Obviously it would have been absurd if these bit characters became the focus of the series, however I just wish that the same amount of love and dedication went into formulating the other characters.
At the same time that this show tries to be an Otaku-centric comedy, it also plays up romantic elements, which I have no problem with. My troubles however, lie with the fact that neither party seems to make any real effort at making the other like them. This may be due in part to the fact that for half of the show Haruka shows a mild, dispassionate interest in Yuuto, while the other half of the time she seems totally unaware that there are two genders.
In closing, while this series did provide me with a little fun, at best it was disposable entertainment, not to be remembered after it's 8 month relevancy.
One more thing: For an Otaku-centric comedy, I only picked up on like three references (The blatant Shana one from the Hazuki episode, the Doujin that they buy at Comiket was drawn by the person who illustrated the original Light Novels, and the person who voice Gento voiced Gendou from Evangelion, if that even is a reference.). WTF is up with that? I mean in Pani Poni Dash, there was a heaping of thirty references per episode.
