Review of Ah My Buddha

'Amaenaide yo!!' or 'Ah! My Buddha' could be best described as an anime that sets out to deliver ecchi/harem type entertainment... and fails at it. In a nutshell, it's an ecchi anime with minimal ecchi, lots of plot holes, incoherent script and awful character development. The story and the setting might look appealing to ecchi watchers, a young monk in a buddhist temple filled with hot nuns? It'll be interesting right? Well it would be but not in this anime. 'Ah! My Buddha' succeeds in screwing up this kind of a setting with tedious, sleep inducing subplots and fillers. In fact this whole anime feelslike you're watching a filler that just doesn't seem to fit into anything. The story goes absolutely nowhere and half-way through this nauseating 12 episode series, you feel like you're going to vomit your brains out.

For starters, the "ecchi" here is sporadic and absolutely pathetic. Aparently the makers thought that seeing a half-covered thigh for 2 seconds classes as ecchi. Laughable. Moreover there's no finesse here, the ecchi is used in the most inappropriate moments and in the most innappropriate ways. Spirits of dead people groping teenage girls... seriously? Is that what we've lowered ourselfes to?

Second thing, the male protagonist - Ikkou Satonaka. He serves no actual legitimate purpose in this anime other than being everyone's buttmonkey. Punched in the nuts, kneed in the face and tasked with a buttload of chores. This kind of humour is only good if it's used in moderation, in this anime however it's the ONLY type of humour and it's grossly overused to the point where you just wish the male protagonist would stand up and leave the funny farm and all the slavers around him to their own fuckery.

Last but not least, all the rest of the characters and their development. The rest of the main cast, which is comprised of girls, is there to look fakely serious and remind the male protagonist that he's a "worthless piece of scum" who needs to control himself. 5 minutes later they grope each other in front of him and he gets brutally mutilated because apparently it's his fault. Uhm, excuse me? I don't know about you but I'm not a fan of sadism. This kind of a thing just doesn't appeal to me. As for character development, there is none. The characters have been 'programmed' to do the same thing every episode. Hurt Ikkou and get off on his misery. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat...

Despite the plot and the characters being dreadfuly bad, there are two things preventing this anime from being a flat out disaster. That's art and sound. The art is good and precise, granted, there are a few oddities here and there from time to time but the overall quality is impressive.

Sound is perhaps the only truly remarkable component of this anime. Suprisingly, the opening is very catchy and well made giving you the impression that you're about to watch something enjoyable. Too bad the anime itself couldn't live up to that expectation. The rest of the soundtrack is also good and voice acting, despite the horrendous plot, authentic.

That however doesn't change the fact that a majority of people will not enjoy this anime and it's current rating accurately describes what you should expect. Boredom and irritation. The setting certainly had a potential but the makers (I'm looking at you DEEN) couldn't and didn't excecute that idea in the right way. Quite the contrary, they executed it in the worst way imaginable.

You won't be missing out on anything if you decide to avoid this anime.