DAKAICHI -I'm being harassed by the sexiest man of the year-

Note: my scores refer to my personal enjoyment, which in this case was abysmal. In the review, however, I tried to explain if and why this anime is not worth your time.

I went into this anime expecting to like it but, since the first episode, I understood that it wasn't my thing. I wanted to see it through the end but I decided to drop it after 6 episodes because I just couldn't stand it anymore.

I'm a pretty frequent BL consumer, and someone who is absolutely not put off by "problematic content". I'm not squicked by rape or violence, and I am able to appreciate stories about those themes, even when they're not overtly condemned. This anime, however, is in a whole different league and I personally found it absolutely revolting. The whole double standard with rape being portrayed as just another thing that happens when a certain character does it but made appear as bad when it's another character doing it was the last drop in a bucket that had been brimming from the get-go.

But one thing at a time: why do I think this anime is so bad?

I don't think I can explain everything I think in a single review since there are so many things I don't like in every single episode, but I'll try to synthesize my main points.

Plot? I don't know her.
===
What is this anime about? Hell if I know.

These two guys are actors and the main character, Takato Saijo, was #1 sexiest man on a magazine for five years until this rival, Junta Azumaya, came along and stole his #1 place, which is a huge deal for Takato for some fucking reason and that should have something to do with the plot to the point that it's what the title of the anime comes from, but it's actually just an excuse to give these two some vague sort of rivalry before they meet. They meet because they have to shoot a movie together. Junta likes Takato. They fuck. They keep fucking. Except you never see a sex scene.

That's it, that's the plot. And it could totally be ok, not all animes must have a complicated plot, if it wasn't for all the other problems the show has. One could say that a good part of said problems, especially the fact that nothing seems to be happening, is due to the fact that they took a hard BL with a plot completely centered on sex, and took the explicit sex out of the formula, then proceeded to turn it into a 12 episode anime. I agree that this is definitely part of the problem, because once you take the sex scenes out of it you're left with a generic, predictable, and frankly rather uninspired, BL plot.

So what I was faced with when I watched was four episodes of the two main characters acting or talking, Junta sexually harassing a blatantly unwilling Takato, a fade to black, then repeat. And the mindless way the sexual assault is handled, the way it's presented as a joke, especially in a certain episode, was, to me, absolutely disgusting. But I'll get there. The remaining two episodes I watched introduced a "love rival", as expected, and managed to get even more disgusting in their portrayal of sexual harassment, rape, and a blatantly abusive relationship.

In short, the plot of this anime was not just forgettable: I hope I'll forget it.

Two-dimensional is a compliment
===

All the characters in this anime are victims of a tragic illness: terrible writing.

• Takato Saijo, a veteran actor with 20 years of experience in the industry, is a man extremely focused on his career, also because he seems to have nothing but his career, at least before meeting ~~his abuser~~ Azumaya. He pretends to be extremely kind and friendly but actually he's grumpy and shy. That must be why he has literally no meaningful relationship with anyone before Junta forcibly makes his way into his ~~bed~~ life, as far as the anime tells us. In the first episode he ends up getting drunk with Azumaya, his "rival". Why, you may ask? How? We don't know. There's no explanation (just vague excuses) as to why someone like him would get seriously drunk in front of this guy he dislikes and barely knows, especially when he's repeatedly shown to be keen on hiding his vulnerable side. He is that BL character who always gets raped for some reason, and that's the only side of his supposed characterization he lives up to; the only times he has a vaguely realistic reaction to it, it's soon gone in favor of yet another harassment followed by a fade to black.

• Junta Azumaya, on the other hand, is absolutely cryptic to me. He's a mystery. He is a young actor with 3 years of experience in the industry, and he really admires Takato (which somehow translates into wanting to fuck him). Everyone likes him and thinks he's an angel because he smiles and acts childishly, and despite everyone liking him, he, too, isn't shown to have anyone else meaningful to him, or just anyone who seems to know him well, let alone who knows his self behind his "angelic" mask. His only 'friend' seems to be a kouhai, but their relationship is purely utilitarian and superficial. In conclusion, Junta's ~~only~~ most relevant character trait is undoubtedly his blind and uncontrollable desire to have sex with Takato. Everything he does in the whole anime is molesting him, abusing him, raping him, manipulating him.

What makes him so cryptic is the way he's presented as absolutely innocent while doing all of these things. I've had a very hard time reconciling the gentle, sweet, caring lover the anime seems to be portraying him as with his actual actions, which perfectly fit the definition of "abusive as*hole".

• Chihiro Ayagi,
  Spoiler, click to viewclick to hide

  a new actor gaining recognition recently, who is shown right off the bat to owe his newfound fame to favors he does in the bedroom to the right women. He's the "love rival" which obviously means he's another guy who tries to rape Takato. I appreciated that at least his portrayal is consistent with his actions and it makes me laugh a bit how in the end, despite being a complete as*hole, he was much more of a decent person with Takato than Junta will ever be. Paradoxically, he's better "inserted" in the world around him, as he has more people with which he interacts, if compared to the two main characters who seem to be wandering this world in complete solitude except for each other.

In short, the characters have two-dimensional, cliched personalities that in no way defy their expected roles and whose portrayal is often not coherent with their acts.

Rape is love. Or is it?
===

I know the portrayal of rape is a known issue of a lot of BL fiction. In my experience, I've read my share of BL mangas with different degrees of unsatisfying portrayals of the subject, but this one is the worse yet. It might be connected to the fact that actual 18+ scenes are completely absent, leading to much more focus on the lacking psychology of the characters and no possibilities to appreciate the fact that at least the sex scenes are hot. It might also be a fault with the manga, I haven't read it so I wouldn't know, but I think that with those sex scenes, I could have appreciated Dakaretai a bit more.

I do not expect an excessively realistic portrayal of issues such as rape, sexual harassment on the workplace and so on from a BL but, from every piece of fiction I expect a minimum of familiarity with basic human psychology, which in my opinion is dramatically lacking in Dakaretai. All these issues are not just left unexplored, ignored, or excused; they're not only shown as romantic, which is something I tend to expect from a BL; in some instances, Takato openly and repeatedly says "no", he's shown as unwilling, and he even cries because of Junta's inappropriate touching, and these scenes are seen as funny, presented as a sort of gag. The comedic tone the anime takes on and the scenes it chooses to do so, especially in some episodes, made me very uncomfortable; I found the choice almost alienating.

What made any kind of enjoyment and hope I had left finally leave my body and disappear in the nothingness where it should have been from the first ten minutes of the first episode, however, was when

In short, the way rape, harassment, and similar issues are handled is not only inconsistent with human psychology, but inconsistent with itself.

Obviously, I do not recommend this anime, despite wasting way more time than it deserved watching 6 episodes of it and then writing this endless review, that I hope will at least spare someone that shares my tastes from the experience of watching it. However, I do recommend listening to the opening, it's a good piece.