Shameful Otaku Secret!

FIGHT!

In the near corner, animated by Xebec, from the Animal Spirits team, here’s the furry favorite, KANOKON! In the far corner, animated by…. Xebec? Eh? From the Space Girl team, it’s Tenchi TO LOVE-RU aka Trouble!

In last week’s preliminaries, Kanokon showed a distinct advantage with its willingness to “go there,” pummeling the competition under a barrage of rapid-fire panty shots! But To Love-Ru countered with gratuitous amounts of jiggle and an opening sequence that’s not only more stylish than the show deserves, but slightly uncomfortable at a couple moments. Let’s see how they “stacked” up this week. As always, this post is separated with a “more” link because screenshots are embarrassing at best.

Right at the bell, Kanokon comes out swinging — it has to after TLR‘s vicious OP — with our shota hero’s head wedged solidly between a pair of ginormous breasts, and doesn’t stop until the skirt comes up! It’s panty-monium.

But TLR doesn’t stay down for long, with pansy hero Rito waking up to find alien princess Lala completely naked in his bed next to him. The glorious morning sun streaming in the window ensures that we are not only not watching Golgo 13, it practically kicks the competition in the crotch until they buy the DVD.

Kanokon didn’t whip out all its tricks in episode 1, apparently, and Yuki Nagato a new wolf spirit enters the ring for a tag-team. She eats a shit-pile of short ribs, but I can’t say the scene is funny. However, seeing TLR‘s wake-and-serve scene, Kanokon‘s Chizuru jumps into Kouta’s bed herself, but not before making a quick stop off at Frederick’s of Hollywood. Fuck yes, you are daring! Though she’s more fully clothed, the audience is more fully “served.”

The appearance of Zastin makes things clear: TLR plans to seize comedy by its pubescent balls by inserting a straight man / father-of-the-bride character. Zastin ups the ante for laughs with his typical but fairly well-done “hey I’m a big powerful man in a giant funny outift having tea with your little sister.”

Kanokon simply will not be outdone, though, and begs us to ponder Paul McCartney’s immortal question: “Why don’t we do it in the road?” Through the magic of some kind of fuzetsu, Chizuru attempts to sex Kouta in the street, but Second Canine Creature girl blocks the spell and the whole town gets a free show. The standard Anime Sexy Misunderstanding is elevated to a special attack here: “Bunch of upstanding citizens of Kanokon-ville witness illicit libidinous duo,” or the BUCK WILD. I worked too hard on that.

Nude misunderstandings are easy pickings for TLR too, though — it’s a quick naked warp to the locker room where the poor purple-haired object of Rito’s affections once again is subject to the spikey haired idiot’s supposed perversions.

And then, the coup de gras: To cancel the interstellar engagement he’s unwittingly entered into, Rito must firmly grasp the same boobs he squeezed to start the whole mess. It’s total mammary madness as he attempts to get his hands on the goods within the next 48 hours.

A possible advantage is lost when Lala, who sleeps naked in Rito’s bed is somehow shy about a peek in the shower. That’s gonna hurt ‘em. However, to avoid the boob-grabbing, Rito’s sister comes in off the ropes, and if you didn’t catch a single dirty vibe coming off of this, tell me we’re watching different shows.

It’s clear that Kanokon‘s greatest asset is its endurance: it just will not let up. It’s on to the bath, where the amount of steam is at an all-time low and straining the legal limit. Here we establish that there’s something for everyone: or rather, there are small boobs, and there are big boobs.

TLR tries a different approach toward the end, the kind where a studio audience in a Tony Danza sitcom would go “aaawwww.” But sweet moments aren’t going to get us anywhere, not this early in the game. By listening to Lala’s sob story, Rito loses his chance to grab the boobs and thus also loses his chance to break the engagement.

The school infirmary is next for Kanokon, and it’s a panties-only knock-down drag-out after undressing Kouta. At this point, it’s unlikely anyone could handle more, and mercifully the final bell rings.

Will TLR be able to stand up to this endless onslaught? Perhaps not in the short run, but they’ve got their eyes on the prize, and the future, as princess Lala dons a sweater, plaid skirt, and — wait for it — thigh-highs and transfers into Rito’s school.

The Verdict

Wow! Hard to say, we’ve got a lot of craziness going on. Two transfer students, two bed invaders, but to date only one show willing to bust out the panties every couple scenes.

Animation-wise, Kanokon is winning out. To Love-Ru already seems to have dropped in quality from episode one, which was fairly shitty. But story-wise, TLR is based on a well-liked manga and probably has the benefit of a little more planning behind it. I’m guessing that even if the story isn’t very original, it’s going to hold up a little better in the long run thanks to the fact that there sort of IS one. I’m starting to wonder if it belongs here at all: there’d better be a lot more service in episode 3 or this contest is over before it started.

But TLR is looking a little rough after the hardcore beating delivered by Kanokon: time after time, scene after scene, the show delivers one serv(ic)e after another. Anyone is going to get beaten down by this eventually, including TLR. Most importantly, including me.