Review of Nagasarete Airantou

Nagasarete Airantou is in many ways a great anime. It's a harem anime down to its very core, but don't let that chase you away. The comedy in it is fantastic, the girls are very cute, and the romance in it is decent. Now that the complement's are out of the way.... Nagasarete as an anime suffers from the same problems as any other harem anime: it really feels like once you've seen one harem anime, you've seen them all, and this one is no exception. Just like any other harem, there's one male lead, and batches and batches of women who adore the male lead.The male lead is quiet and reserved, gets greatly embarrassed whenever any ecchi things happen, and he gets very protective whenever any of the many ladies are in danger. It doesn't really add any new spices to the same old recipe, leaving me with a lukewarm feeling after having watched it all.

Though I hate to admit it, despite its lack of originality, I still enjoy watching this type of anime. Stuff like Seto no Hanayome, To Love Ru, or even Two Heart 2 are great animes in my eyes. I genuinely find the comedy to be quite enjoyable, and I do like the ecchi. Sadly, I'm not sure how many more of these I can sit through. The episodes really start to drag on after episodes and episodes of harem plot, and this anime in particular seems to recycle jokes far too often. Events in these animes just seem to blur together and upon completion it's near impossible to remember everything that happened unless you took notes.

However, nobody can deny that this anime is funny and that the ecchi is very good at times. I particularly like the relaxed, floaty mood that this harem has. From start to almost the end, the anime never tries to be serious, and spends twenty minutes just trying to tell short fun stories and crack jokes. It's not like Death Note which requires lots of thinking to truly enjoy, nor is it like Code Geass which will get you emotionally involved. It's just a harem anime, which I can watch, enjoy, and if I'm feeling up for it, wank afterwards.

There is one more problem I experience with the harems, and that is their endings. Harem endings are quite often dark and very serious, and exist to create drama in the last few episodes, which was absent from the last twenty-ish episodes. The ending is completely different from the rest of the show, and it feels out of place. It disgraces the mood the previous episodes had maintained and basically makes them feel like they were a waste of time just keeping the viewers from reaching the ending. Some people like these endings, but I don't. If the anime wanted to end dramatically and with a serious tragic tone, why wasn't the entire anime like this? Why only the last half hour? In these endings, it's also quite typical that the cast starts acting completely out of character, and quite often plots are inconsistent and full of holes. Is it worth it just to have a dramatic ending? I don't think so.

I refuse to let an anime's ending ruin it for me, so ignoring the ending, I felt this anime was quite good and worth a watch, especially if you like harem animes. However, don't expect anything innovative to blow you away.