Review of Rokudo's Bad Girls

tl;dr: An anime that’s strangely a non-harem harem that is still somehow pretty generic, but is well executed enough to be good. This anime is about Rokudou, a high school student who’s just trying to have a normal school life. Unfortunately for him, the school he attends is full of delinquents and thus he and his friends are the primary targets of a lot of bullying. This changes when he find a magic scroll from his late grandfather that infuses him with a spell that causes all ‘bad girls’ to fall in love with him whether he wants them to or not, wherein ‘bad girls’ forthe most part just seems to just mean delinquent girls. Getting strong delinquent girls on his side is enough to stop the bullying. However, Rokudou isn’t comfortable with a spell forcing girls to be in love with him. And as he knows nothing about magic, the only way he can think of to stop the spell is by helping reform the delinquent girls so that they’re no longer ‘bad girls.’

This anime is generally listed as harem, but it really isn’t one at all. I’m not saying that as some sort of defense as I actually generally like harem anime. However, this just doesn’t really have what is appealing about the genre, though it does have it’s own type of appeal. While this anime does have a lot of girls that are attracted to the protagonist, most all of the ones that matter seem to like him less over the course of the anime. For example, one of the first main characters that falls in love with Rokudou is Osanada. He successfully reforms her and it is explicitly made clear that this results in her no longer being in love with Rokudou, though she remains a constant presence in the story due to remaining a close friend.

How the rest of the heroines are handled is a bit more complicated. For example, Rokudou does help reform another bad girl named Himeno somewhat. But it’s not like she was a simple delinquent beforehand, so it’s kind of hard to judge just how reformed she is and it’s not like it’s clear how reformed she would have to be for the spell to stop affecting her. She definitely doesn’t seem to be in love with Rokudou as much as she was initially, but at the same time she still kind of sorta seems to care about him more than just a friend.

With others, they just kind of stop appearing after their arc so it isn’t clear where they stand. And with the main heroine, Ranna, it seems reformation is going to take a looooong time and thus the spell is just as strong at the end of the anime as the beginning. But my broader point is that the only time you’ll see Rokudou surrounded by girls that love him is when his spell actives and this causes a bunch of nameless girls that will never be seen again to mob him. Rather than girls, the vast majority of the time Rokudou is hanging out with his male friends. As such, this really doesn’t hit the notes that would be necessary to classify it as harem.

So the story isn’t really about romance with the girls, but rather about their reformation and the role Rokudou plays in that. This is where it gets complicated. While this isn’t a harem anime, Rokudou is still a lot like a generic harem protagonist. He’s overall just incredibly average. He’s not all that smart and he’s completely useless in a fight. The only things he has going for him is that he’s really strong willed and very kind. And that’s generally enough to allow him to help the girl in question overcome whatever it is that is causing her to be a delinquent. There’s usually a lot of fighting involved in this, and thus Rokudou’s traits generally manifest in things like him managing to inspire people through refusing to stay down despite how badly he’s beaten or things like his friends becoming his power. It’s all very cliche, but at the same time it’s pretty decently written and there’s a charm to the simplicity. The plot flows pretty well, though characters do seem to act very abruptly quite often. And in the end, combined with a lot of good comedy, it’s a pretty exciting and enjoyable watch.

The art and animation in this are decent. The art style is pretty unique and it definitely took some getting used to. And even then, I only find it decent and not especially good. The animation was pretty great with some surprisingly good action too. It’s obviously not at the level of the mainstream shounen battle anime, but it is much better than I expected. The OP is pretty solid in terms of the song and visuals. The ED has a pretty good song, and though the visuals are really basic I still like them. I also liked how both of them changed in the second half. Though I didn’t like how the OP played normally in the final episode, but it used the OP song as an insert in the climax too. It should be a rule to skip the OP when they do that. The background music was decent enough with some good tracks, but I can’t seem to find the soundtrack so I can’t be more specific.