Whether you like it or hate it due to the themes it has, Studio Bind has crafted another masterpiece of animation in their relatively new hands as an studio even if not really fully new animators, giving us animation so good that would put MAPPA, Cloverworks and A-1 Pictures to shame in every single episode. Filled with “questionable” scenes that I couldn’t give less of a fuck if people complain about them or not, the series is about the NEET Mahiro who one day finds himself waking up as a girl due to a experiment from her sister who has been very worried about him, as she is basically searching for him to stop being a NEET, and what better way to do it than making him girl? There’s obviously no better way, right? Well the series won’t bother to answer you that question, but it will show you the way it plays out.

The premise of the series probably goes a little weird, but the way it plays out isn’t the big deal, and it is actually quite endearing and funny, and it’s not difficult to get attached to Mahiro, and with this I mean that it’s pretty easy to relate to Mahiro. As a guy, he turned into a NEET ever since he left high school and definitely had some kind of low self-esteem seeing how much his little sister improved and can live going without him helping her, after all, their parents are basically never around the house so he is left as the “man of the family” and you can even see when he tuns into a girl that he’s still fixated to that, to being the one around in charge even though he can’t, because his sister is more proactive than him and is so good that even goes to the university while being younger, and since he doesn’t have any big capacities, he feels as if he was left behind. His, or now, her social anxiety kicks in when she has to go outside and even return to school, to talk to people and make friends! You know, all of that complicated stuff that you are supposed to do. So we can see her struggle with it, but getting used little by little, while still retaining some of her antics that came with her being a NEET. I mean, this girl still has her room fully decorated with hot anime girls’ posters and figures without any kind of shame whatsoever, it really tells you when she was a guy he probably didn’t even come out of his room.

Stuff like when she watches the trailer of a movie and goes “oh, I can’t wait for it to be available online” hits pretty close to home, as I mostly watch movies months after they premiere, specially if they are anime movies, since no movie theater has screened anime movies in my country for years and the last anime movie I remember seeing at the cinema was Dragon Ball Z: Fukkatsu no F, so these are the kind of little moments that really draws you close to Mahiro, as is not difficult to feel in a similar fashion to her and seeing her reactions to everyday stuff. There is also one episode where some guys give her back chocolates for White Day, since she gave them chocolates for Valentine’s Day before, and then trying to take advantage of the situation, she asks them if it was only going to be one gift, and holy, I know this sounds weird, but I’m sure more than one person has asked themselves “how would I be if I were of the opposite gender?” out of sheer curiosity, and I have to say that very thing she did there is something that I have very much imagined I would do and she even left with a similar feel that maybe that would be too rude, but she had the opportunity to do it and took it.

So I can really appreciate Mahiro when watching the series, however, at some point there was this scene in episode 8, and I don’t want to sound like someone that likes to compare series disregarding a lot of stuff, but I have been like this for a long time, and when watching that episode seeing the girls at a sleepover talking and playing with each other I couldn’t help but to suddenly think in K-On! Season 2 episode 4 where a similar scene plays out, and that made me feel a little a bad, not because I think it is copying it, but because when I saw this scene in Onimai it seemed to lack emotion from both the episode and from myself, I couldn’t immerse myself on it no matter what happened, probably because my mind kept returning to K-On!, my best analogy would probably be that K-On! scene would be like eating your favorite food and you love it through and through because of how perfectly made it is, and watching that Onimai scene is like eating your favorite food, but suddenly you bite something hard and when you see it, it’s plastic, half of your food is made of plastic and you kinda just stop enjoying it for a second no matter how well it tasted before or how well done it looks like. So, after watching that episode I had to take a step back, leave Mahiro aside and think to myself: “who the fuck are these people?” And I mean that for Mahiro’s friends mainly, because this scene couldn’t feel fully organic from my point of view. Seeing them more thoughtfully I cannot help but think that they feel lifeless, not in the sense that they have no personality, they clearly have one, but in the sense that I can’t see these people as actual people, so there’s a big contrast between Mahiro and these girls.

There’s a reason why I love shows like Yuru Camp and K-On! so much, and it is because of how much I can relate to the characters and see people around me in them, but I cannot do the same for Onimai, it suffers from the same problem I had with Bocchi the Rock!, incredibly high productions values and the main character is relatable, I would say that Mahiro is arguably more relatable than Bocchi as her social anxiety aren’t being so exaggerated for comedy, but the other characters just aren’t on that same level, and I’m not saying Momiji, Asahi, Miyo or Kaede can’t have eccentricities ,but that’s really all they have to them, and this is one of the reasons as to why I cannot rate this anime higher.

No matter how much I love the series, no matter how much I like seeing Mahiro on screen, no matter how beautiful the animation looks like, no matter how many cute moments there are, the characters are the biggest detriment that I feel on here, and I got to that conclusion from that episode onwards, like they go too hard on them with Momiji literally going chuuni in a couple of episodes, Miyo’s only notable trait is that she seeing lesbians and that reminds me too much of a character from Fate/Kaleid that’s basically the same but with gay guys, Asahi is literally just there as she is dumb and not much more, and while I love every single time Kaede’s big fat voluptuous round anime tiddies are on screen, for Mahiro she is basically just the onee-san. I can give props to Mihari though, since I can actually see how she was worried by her brother and even if her methods of “helping him” reintegrating to society are questionable by turning him into a girl of all things, her worries feel real enough for me, as people around me do worry about me by similar reasons of not even being able to communicate for more than a couple of lines when I find myself alongside a classmate or even being almost incapable of going out and meet new people, her tears of happiness whenever Mahiro comes back after doing something she would have never made before are a really nice touch.

I’m making a harsh point on this since I think the biggest part of how to judge a slice of life series is their characters, they are the driving force of the series and the more you can make the audience to feel for them and to make them think of someone they can look forward to see just as if they were important to them, that’s why I loved Yuru Camp so much, that’s why K-On! is one of my favorite anime ever, because I can feel for the girls and feel happy while watching every single one of the episodes and feel very fond to the memories of watching them. This, sadly, and for my own distaste with myself, does not happen with Onimai, you could blame it on me for not enjoying those characters too much, but it is how I see them.

As I mentioned before the animation is always delightful to watch, the really fluid and natural movements of the characters on top of the extremely beautiful and consistent art. The background always look good, with a simple palette not making it too complex, which actually goes well with the setting of the series. There is a really high difficulty in finding fan service as well animated as in this series, as there is always animation bumps every time there are big breasts on the screen, seeing how much effort was put into every single movement was great. There is even this scene in episode 3 where there is a sudden art style change for a single scene and looks completely beautiful to the point of being movie quality, and it was made for a fricking joke of a trailer of something called “Space Titanic” with a Leonardo di Caprio parody included and all, there is also the ending song video which goes more similar to the art style of the manga but the animation demonstrated there is also incredible, you can really see all the effort put into this and how much passion the studio has over their work. I really hope Studio Bind can keep the good job they have been making so far both for this series and Mushoku Tensei, because if they remain on such high quality as they have so far, we’re probably seeing the early days of one of the new best studios in the industry, up there with legends like Production IG, Kyoto Animation, Sunrise and Shaft.

I really liked this series, and even if I think it is lacking in something that goes beyond what I’m seeing on screen, and it goes into something that I can’t put into words since I’m pretty bad at expressing myself, let alone expressing feelings. It is still a very enjoyable series and I’m sure if I check out the manga it will feel like the inferior version, I really doubt it will be as good as the anime because of everything put into it, but I’ll try anyways, the only thing I’m sure is that this series will maintain the status quo for a long time and whether that is good or not, I’m sure at some point of the series Mahiro will have to come to a conclusion on whether he wants to stay as a girl and keep living this life or return as a man, and seeing how gender bend series works, the option seem pretty obvious, but one may never know, even if it will always be easier to go for the cutest option since the other would be difficult to pull off.

Thank you for reading.