Anime: Asobi ni Iku yo!

Asobi ni Iku yo is a light-hearted ecchi harem with a bit of an action focus. It involves a lot of craziness including aliens that look like cat girls and dog-girls, and with heroines that are all size d+. Asobi starts off as an instant girlfriend series, with the main, wimpy guy mysteriously attracting more girls as the series progresses. It goes through some wild subplots and eventually settles on the wildest twist of all, which takes you up to the ending of the series. If you're looking for a light (ECCHI) show, then this is your pick. If you're looking for some more serious drama.romance or anything remotely believable, look elsewhere.

Animation:
This is pretty standard fare for its time. Colors are a bit saturated and the overall scenery relaxing (Okinawa, wha'd you expect?). The girls are okay but to be honest I don't think it's much of a competition between the 3 primary heroines (CAT GIRL vs. short-haired CIA wanna-be vs. shy but deadly girl with glasses). As is typical in a harem, these not-so average looking girls are attracted to a really plain looking wimp. I'm also not totally sold on the attire of the alien neko-girls, especially towards the end of the series.

For some reason they decided to make this action based (think sort of Princess Lover like; but not as focused and with a lot more heavy guns), I'm not completely sold on the approach, as it really takes the focus away from the actual characters. This means that there will be plenty of fighting (the series starts with one of these sequences) of okay quality with somewhat annoying CGI at times.

As a final note, this is an ECCHI series, there WILL be full top nudity and apparently the alien cats are armed with guns that DISINTEGRATE CLOTHES, creating almost an Ikkitousen scenario at times.

Sound:
The sound is average. The OP and EDs (one per heroine) are all calming and light-pop to fit the atmosphere of a beach in Okinawa. The BGM isn't all that memorable and doesn't always give enough presence during important moments. Itou Kanae does the best job of the VAs here, overall good but not stand-out.

Story:
Kio is a rather boring guy who happens to end up stuck in the middle of a fight between anti-alien humans, a secret military organization (think like Mithril in FMP), a young girl with way too much money and a fetish for nekomimi, space cats, and space dogs. He befriends unusually strong heroines along the way as it eventually turns into world vs. the dogs.

While the plot line is quite battle-focused near the end, you spend a lot of the early episodes lounging away in Okinawa with an occasional battle or two. The overall plot sequence isn't that bad but it is outrageous and quite unbelievable at times. There are a few tense moments but you never really bond with the characters that much detracts from any significant rising action.

The story really goes over the top near the climax and really pulls a wtf there. As there is a lot of focus on battles, you don't really get much time to spend with the actual characters as will be described next.

Character:
So yes, there's a standard guy who is completely dense when it comes to a girl's feelings. He apparently has three girls who really like him, two of which try to conceal this while the third cat-girl is pretty much like Lala in ToLoveRu. Since you know that the girls all harbor feelings for him, it's just a matter of them slowly trying to express this to him. Where as such a thing was so wonderfully executed repeatedly in Amagami SS, it is butchered here (it's never quite explained why the girls even like him- no being NICE is not a valid answer). Not only do you not get a sense of attachment to the characters, but their ridiculous fighting abilities just makes them feel all the more distant. This is one of the series where you just ask, is the guy really worth it?

The only redemption for this segment is the lively and innocent personality of Eris, especially when she goes into breeding-mode. But sometimes you can only take so much light-heartedness before you want something with a bit more substance.

Value:
This is a playful series that you can watch without really having to pay attention. Some of the crazy battles and armaments will draw some lols, but you won't be crying over any decisions and won't be dying to load up the next episode. Overall it's a very average harem. The series has come over to play, will you join in?

Asobi ni Iku yo!

Abstract: A schizophrenic, rambling plot and unoriginal characters doom this promising little series about cat girls from space. Excellent art and strong voice acting can not save this show from its inherent inconsistencies and inability to form a cohesive narrative. Although there is great potential, there is precious little to save by the end of the show, and we are left with nothing but to scoop out the litter box of regret. Final Grade: C+

Genre: Kemonomimi
Content: Some Ecchi/Nudity

Reasons to Watch: Brilliant backgrounds and lush scenery; Nudity; Cat girls from SPAAAAACE
Reasons not to Watch: Incoherent plot; Weak characters; Double ears

Plot: 4
Asobi ni Iku yo! is a show suffering from an identity crisis. It can't decide what exactly it is, and as it vacillates between '60s Buck Rodgers Space Adventure, classic Harem Comedy, and Hayate-style Parody Send-up, it fails to realize any of them. It is nigh impossible to keep a coherent narrative when characters spend one episode engaged in an epic shoot-em-up battle only to spend the next episode practicing their cooking skills, and AnI performs no miracles in this regard. It is far too silly to take seriously, but it lacked any real comedic elements apart from simplistic visual gags and old worn-out harem clichés. Really, the true problem is that Space Adventures and Harem Comedies don't mix well. Space Adventures are all about constant exploration and movement, leaving little room for emotional developments. Harem Comedies require a stable setting to develop the relationships. AnI tries to merge the two by alternating between the home life of Okinawa and adventures abroad, but this only results in a schizophrenic plot that never develops either side. Such a weak plot gives a rather poor ending that does not resolve either conflict. A common malady of the 'aughts was what I call 'anime inflation' or the act of taking a show that would work best as a 4-part OVA and stuffing it with filler until it was a 13 episode TV series. AnI suffers from the opposite—it would do much better as a 24 episode series, which would have allowed it time to slow down and iron out some of its internal inconsistencies. There is some potential here, but its madcap rush through its airtime never lets anything come together. Grade: C-

Art: 9
In a word: Beautiful. Asobi ni Iku yo! really captures the gorgeous tropical sights of Okinawa. Colors are very lush and vibrant, and the line art is smooth and well drawn. The character designs are done in the classic 'modern' style, and their many outfits and uniforms are well designed and animated. And what we get to see underneath those outfits is very fine as well. Oddly enough, while a lot of ecchi comedies are a celebration of the female body, they fail at presenting an accurate representation of said female body. Not so with AnI. This show has some of the best oppai I've seen. The detail and care given to creating the tropical environment is only matched by with the detail and care given to the fresh, nubile bodies of the female cast. And apart from the bewbs, there is plenty of 3-D renderings—all of which are smoothly integrated in to the 2-D artwork (except for the ship's AI, for some reason.) The OP is one of the best out there—the animation matches the rhythm of the music exactly, and it is great fun to watch. There are a few visual gags in here, too, as all the advanced space equipment looks like it came straight out of a bad B-movie. From it gun fights to car chases to space battles, the action is crisp and animated in great detail and quality. AnI is pure eyecandy, plain and simple. It does, however, suffer from one outstanding defect: characters with nekomimi also have regular ears. I can't think of another show that has double ears like this, and it does provide an underlying irritation. Grade: A-

Sound: 10
The OP song, “Now loading...SKY!!”, is a beautiful bit of pop that really kick starts the show. And there are three different EDs, personalized for each girl, and although none of them can match the OP, each is respectable. And there is that beautiful rendition of a seventies-style anime song in episode nine, done as an enka of all things. Voice acting-wise, Itoh Kanae gives a masterful display as the voice of the cat girl Eris, which is no surprise given her previous work in Shugo Chara. The voice of Minami, Tomatsu Haruka, is an experienced actress, and she gives a spot on performance as the tomboy neighbor girl. And Hanazawa Kana, another highly skilled actress, just nails the character of Aoi. The level of voice acting talent is very impressive for the harem girls. The harem lead, however, is voiced by Tamura Mutsumi, relatively unknown and inexperienced. She makes a valiant effort, but it is nowhere on the level of the other three leads. And I loved the horrible broken Japanese spoken by all the Americans. That really was a nice touch. Grade: A

Characters: 3
The female leads are not particularly original. Manic space girl and overly protective neighbor/childhood friend are generic to the extreme, and a pettanko super solider isn't much more noteworthy. But they pale in comparison to Kio, the male lead. Kio is your run-of-the-mill 'nice guy' harem lead, mild as milk, nerdy, incompetent and completely and utterly oblivious to all these women throwing their hearts at his feet. And when the story switches to Buck Rodgers mode, his personality is woefully unprepared to drive the plot. This problem is compounded by the fact that Kio is a 'reactionary' character. He doesn't act on the plot, he reacts on the plot acting on him. If the plot fails to provide a stimulus, he maintains the status quo. While this would make him a great guy to hang out with, a good protagonist he is not. Accordingly, for a lot of the show, Kio does not provide the point of view. But this creates the question: Who is this show about? Aoi is also a reactive character, which is quite acceptable with her design, but watching two introverts court each other is as interesting as watching paint dry. Minami is an active character, but she acts exclusively on Aoi. Eris is an active character, and she would make a good protagonist, except that the director takes great pains to prevent this. Much like Minami to Aoi, Eris tries to drive the plot through Kio, instead of driving it herself. This puts us in a weird state, where none of the main characters can really advance the plot forward, further compounding the already inherent issues. And things are much the same on the romantic front. Basically all chances for romances are ruined. Eris is nerfed when they hand wave away her mating season. Aoi moves too slow and Minami isn't honest with herself. The only real romantic progress occurs at the end, and it merely ups the ante instead of resolving the conflict—and it is something that should have taken place by the third episode. Grade: D+

Value: 6
Watchability: Asobi ni Iku yo! starts out strong, with the first two episodes being really catchy. But as soon as you start to think you have a winner here, the story falls apart and stumbles drunkenly to a weak and silly ending. Grade: B-
Re-watchability: There are parts that are really nice, and the art is nice enough for some time-killing, but there isn't much left here to save. Grade: C+
Historical Value: It's a better than some of the more excretable ecchi comedies in the post-moe era, but it's not particularly notable, other than an example what not to do in a story. Grade: C

Enjoyment: 6
I loved the first episode, it was a really blast of comedy and excitement. But as the show progress, it began to sour. By the end, I was starting to dread watching the next episode, as I knew the show would never recover from its fatal flaws. For each nice boob shot or gun battle, there were long stretches where the show would just drag. It did entertain, but there was so much wasted potential that all the good was swallowed up in pessimistic despair. In retrospect, the show had its moments, but it never managed to rise from the valleys of mediocrity. Grade: B-

Errata:
I watched Asobi ni Iku yo! in blue-ray format, with subs provided by polished. I have a thing for nekomimi, but the double ear effect put me off. I was totally shipping for Aoi. All reviews are done independent of the original format or other adaptions.

Final Grade: C+

An anime with minimum effort to make a convincing story. The scriptwriter practically took all possible fetishes and threw them at your face, trying to make it look funny. And indeed, ANI is really a parody of anime sexual fetishes… and nothing else.

For starters, this anime did the mistake of airing in a time when such shows are all over the place. It is not special in any way; neither does it try to offer anything out of the ordinary. In fact, it hardly tries to be average. Even if it aims towards the usual target audience of males who still find 2D interesting, there is nothing in it that other shows around the same time weren’t offering in spades. So yeah, bad first impressions.

The prime fetish here is cat girls. You know; nekomimis and tails and stuff. Using that as a base, any other fetish is an add on to spice things further. Which works for a few episodes, until the prime fetishes run out and the situation becomes far less exciting than when it began. Before I move along, I must point out that I find a girl with cat ears to be hideous. Especially if she already has a set of normal ones and the cat-like ones are popping as extra from the top of the scull. Yuck!

The story (if you are able to find one) is about cat women coming to Earth to have fun and mess with the life of the Archetypical Loser TM; anything other than that is just smokescreen. There are supposed to be conspiracies and alien invasions every now and then, spies double crossing, mecha firing energy beams and huge spaceships blowing up. All of these are presented in the most simplistic and rushed way possible, just as filler for the real focus of the show, which are excuses to have cat girls doing sexual stuff.

To be honest, the premise of the story could lead to something really interesting if it was taken seriously. I mean, it is about aliens coming to study human life and have fun while at the same time preventing their technology from being abused by shadow organizations and protecting the planet from being destroyed by their arch-enemies. Yet all we see is oversexualized nekomimis indulging in all sorts of deprived fetishes because they are supposed to be learning about human culture… which in the context of the series consists of nothing other than hentai magazines and cosplay shops. Seriously, WTF? I know it is a comedy which makes fun of otaku culture but it is doing it in such a blunt way, it is offending.

The lead male is the driest form of Indecisive Leads you can hope to never see again, yet unfortunately here he is once more. I mean, seriously, the scriptwriters didn’t even bother to give him some quirk to at least look a bit different that the rest of his brood. He is just a four-eyed nerd who never expresses his feelings, never decides to get serious with his affections, always runs away from his problems… yet look at that, all the hot chicks love him just for that. Makes sense NOT.

The lead girl is the usual bimbo with huge boobs and tiny brain who one day just drops in the fail-male’s house and immediately tries her best to have sex with him. Heck, it is part of the story too; she is on heat and MUST mate with the first male she likes. She chooses this eunuch, who for some reason hardly cares. Beyond that, there are two other human girls who are super spies or something, taking out armies of terrorists and fighting with mecha as easily as they are having their breakfast. They too are in love with the guy and his completely boring and dried up personality. There are also many other secondary characters, most of which are again oversexualized girs or lolis or MILFs who are there just to further advance the story with more FAP SERVICE. The story had lots of openings to be something really interesting and its cast had enough backdrop to be fleshed out a lot more. We clearly see scenes where the main girls offer insight to what has formed their lives and why they like the main cardboard of a protagonist. All of it gets washed away for sleazy nude and sex jokes around nekomimis, degrading them to nothing other than super hot nekomimi chicks on heat, who love to cosplay.

A special note must be given to the mascots of the show, those small cat android helpers. They are supposed to be cute and eye-catchy. Only thing THEY ARE UGLY F**KERS. Their faces are just emotionless globes with two black spots and their movements are simplistic and not perky at all. They are distasteful critters and I hate them!

Long story short, "Asobi ni Ikuyo!" ("I'm Coming to Play!") is like a weaker version of "Mayo Neko Overrun!"

OK, I know I probably lost about half of you readers in the first line, but there's more.

Animation: 9/10
Very attractive, well-drawn characters. Background art often very detailed with extremely beautiful coloring/gradients and finishing.

Background movement is sometimes CG-assisted, looks pretty well and CGI was also very effectively used on 3D objects without distracting from 2D images. Quite interesting is the product placement in this series, such as A&W and Orion Beer using real logos.

The visuals are easily the best part of this show, and nearly perfect other than cutting corners when characters are in distance (when they look slightly deformed).

Sound: 7/10
Voice acting for the main characters were average. Most of them sound like they should, but many of their high pitched voices get annoying after a while. They do have extremely talented seiyuu such as Chihara Minori and Horie Yui for some of the minor characters. Fake gaijin accent for some characters were foolish though.

BGM is mediocre, nothing much to talk about.

OP was an extremely strong paradise vacation song that was perfect image for Okinawa, the location of the story. The three main EDs were great relaxing or poignant songs, but perhaps not so suited for this series. Ep9 ED by Chihara Minori was absolutely amazing. She's an experienced singer, but making a space enka sound good? Incredible.

Story / Character: 2.5/10
I was expecting another school harem, but the first episode was like superpower action anime, catching me completely off guard. It started off pretty well, a decent action scene with demonstration of superpower. The protagonist is your average thickheaded kid who girls throw themselves at for no apparent reason. But, side characters were somewhat interesting: Cat girl alien, classmate with superpowers, childhood friend with a secret mission, and teacher who's in a secret organization. This show could've gone to many directions, some even good. Then the unthinkable happened: It turned episodic.

In my opinion, episodic format only works in 3 situations: Case based (detective, medical etc), quick comedy, or slice-of-life. All of which require extremely simple premise with a similar theme. "Asobi ni Ikuyo!" is the complete opposite. Everyone (too many characters) around the protagonist is shrouded in mystery. Is it Comedy? Ecchi? Action? Romance? Drama? Sci-fi? Meca?

It tries to be everything, and ended up being nothing. It was downhill from the first episode, by the end, it felt like I was watching a children's show with ridiculous villains. Cardboard characters, especially the protagonist being a typical dense and insensitive fool.

I have to admit though, episode 9 was a very strong filler episode, which went Sci-fi drama. It didn't belong in the series at all, but was pretty touching, and well-constructed story as a stand-alone episode.

Value / Enjoyment: 4/10
They packed way too much material for 12 episodes, especially in episodic format. On top that, filled with plot holes, inconceivable scenarios, and character behaving erratically. Overall very poor series composition.

It is somewhat watchable as change-of-pace between serious series, but keep your expectations low. Most of the enjoyment is visual.