A No-Depth Look At Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge

Goth~ Goth~ Loli~ Loli~

I’ve actually been meaning to watch Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge for a long time now, but I never really quite found the time since I’ve always found something else better to do when I’m not doing anything. But after three activity-filled days because of the holidays, I pretended to be lazy (takes very little effort ^^!) so I can stay at home and just decided to finally get around to watch this show.

.

Summary:

Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge is about four sparkling bishonens who are renting out rooms in a mansion of an absentee millionaire.  The landlady made a deal with the boys that they would be able to stay in the mansion rent-free is they would be able to turn her niece into a lady. They took it without hesitation. What they got was Nakahara Sunako, an unkempt girl who loves anatomic dolls, occult items and slasher movies – she has given up on focusing on her looks after  a boy she was in love with in middle school called her ugly.

Episode 1: In the end, guys don’t give a shit about looks. As long as you can cook really, really well, you are a goddess to them.

Episode 2: Two bathrooms in a large mansion??? How can there only be two bathrooms for five people in one large mansion… and the other one broken???

Episode 3: In order to be a lady, you need to be able to say, “Est-ce que je peux me laver les mains???” I hate the French language.

Episode 4: I will never look at or eat peaches ever again. Damn this show for ruining my guilty pleasure fruit!

Episode 5: This is why should always earn more than just exact change for rent.

Episode 6: Just because a girl is sulking does not automatically mean you forgot her birthday… especially if the girl in question is a creature of darkness.

Episode 7: You have to be an enormous idiot not to notice that a lifesize anatomical doll got stuck on your pantleg.

Episode 8: The Japanese would probably celebrate anything and everything and have a corresponding sale along with it… even the-scary-girl-finally-getting-a-handsome-boyfriend misunderstanding.

Episode 9: You shouldn’t try too much when playing ping-pong. No matter how fast your ball goes, it’s useless when the camera can’t even catch it in slow motion.

Episode 10: Yes. They really should pick a better spot to sit on since I have a hard time believing I’m not watching a yaoi with that kind of character design.

Episode 11: Even children of the dark love Pocky.

Episode 12: This is the probably the only time ever that Sunako willingly looked at Kyouhei without having a nosebleed.

Episode 13: Oh you drop her now that she actually turned into a lady.

Episode 14: Save your playboy best friend from an arranged marriage by thinking about the poor girl.

Episode 15: This is the one of the strangest hallucinations I have ever seen two people have on each other.

Episode 16: The Japanese School System has the best Sports Festival events ever.

Episode 17: Well yeah… isn’t that what’s so great about being a guy? The fact that things can be settled at the end of a fist?

Episode 18: When the boys said that they wanted to see Sunako in a dress, they should have been more specific as to what kind. There are a lot of dresses in the world.

Episode 19: Having a bishonen for a boyfriend must be such a headache on Valentine’s Day comes around and all the fangirls come a-callin’.

Episode 20: You can’t take away a girl’s ice cream and expect to be forgiven by just saying sorry.

Episode 21: So if the father of “some girl” spy on you while you take a bath and actually compliments you on your physique, are you actually being considered to be a potential mate for his little girl?

Episode 22: So… Kyouhei was kidnap so he can be taken back home to his hometown because all the girls stopped coming to the shopping district after he left town??? And Sunako is a sacrifice… for what?

Episode 23: The only plausible explanation to how couples like this can produce dazzling, sparkling bishonens.

Episode 24: With a stunt being thrown by the cameraman when the producer to roll the camera at the fact that the mysterious gluttonous boy was lured in with shrimp tempura, I bet he’s out of a job now.

Episode 25: Sunako will ruin this pretty, probably-designer dress by bleeding on it after tripping on it.

.

Thoughts:

Story:

The only thing I was disappointed with in the series was that Sunako didn’t really change that much in the end. And when I say change, I didn’t mean that she went forth traveling the road to becoming a bishoujo. Sure, in the end, she finally started seeing the boys as her friends, but they could have at least let her stop her nosebleeds when seeing the dazzling creatures – or at least Kyouhei since he’s actually being set up to be Sunako’s pairing partner. But yeah… after watching this show, I read the currently scanlated 81 chapters – up to this point, Sunako was still getting nosebleeds at the sight of Kyouhei so I guess I’m still glad that the anime did not try to make any attempts to have an anime-only ending. By the way, they jumbled a lot of the events in the manga to suit a feasible chronology for the anime – it was actually well done.

Characters:

One of the things that I appreciate about the show is that it’s not a show of one girl with all the guys in love with him. If they implied a pairing ending for Sunako, it was only one guy. I was a little ickied by the character designs of the guys… They look a little too… Ah, it must be the way their lips were drawn. But seriously why are they drawn like they were wearing lipstick/gloss??? Anyway, since the first episode gave out really great laughs, I just continued until the end. I was kinda glad that that kind of character design decreased in succeeding episodes and they were pretty much white blobs for most of the episodes – just as much as Sunako was in chibi. I guess, that worked very well with the comedy.

Sunako. I like her character a lot because she is the character I can empathize with the most. Ah… my youth when I was into dark stuff. Like I said above, I was kinda disappointed with her lack of progress as a character since she was pretty much the same as when the series started. Her affection for any of the guys didn’t even improve, except for seemingly episodic realizations. But I guess with how the manga is… If this would mean another season – all I saw on the website was something about a movie (which was in Japanese so I didn’t care to click any further), I wouldn’t mind.

Kyouhei. He has the most dedicated-episodes so he shines (in a non-sparkling bishonen way) a lot. But apart from family issues, like with Sunako, he had little character progression from the start of the series. Not that I don’t find episodes about him touching. Even in the manga – even with the latest chapter developments, I don’t think it’s anywhere near changing soon enough.

Takenaga. I really enjoy his character, but it seems that he was the most underdeveloped since there were more of him in the manga apart from his relationship with Noi. But his character was decently laid out for the anime.

Ranmaru. I really like the scenarios that were developed for him. From his playboy ways to the only woman he ever took seriously to Tamao, his fiancee via arranged marriage. Somehow, his character is still likeable.

Yuki. Token pansy boy. He has never-seen girlfriend Michiko in the manga, couldn’t they have pretended to have one in the anime anyway?

Overall Impression:

I love this show! This totally made my Christmas, especially compared to what I watched last year – X The Series… yeah, I know. The comedy is great and it really matched the mood of what I was looking for at the moment so I was really happy with it. Not that I saw this as a shallow show about bishonens and bishoujos. But I can only really appreciate bishonen anime in comedies like this. Somehow, a series with a large fanbase bishonen character doesn’t really work for me if it’s not riddled with tons of comedy.