(My friend tricked me into watching this show and it was a mixed bag. Here are my random musings. They are not nearly as detailed as the Smartphone review.)

So I came into this show expecting a normal harem anime and was quickly disappointed. This show feels 100% like a harem up until they recruit Kurumi (Bear Loli) since most harems spend their early eps piling on girls. So I tried to not treat this show like a harem even though it employs some of the most blatant harem tropes:

The protagonist is repeatedly physically assaulted for comedic effect, often by the girls (Mai’s headlocks, and Reina’s overhead tosses). It might be an exaggeration to call this a harem trope, but it occurs in enough harem shows to make me always associate this occurrence with them.

The girls all have some intimacy with the protagonist. Multiple times it seems like Mai might have feelings for the protag. At the end of the episode where they defeated the Cerberus, Koito (Singer girl) also seems like she might have feelings for the protag. Reina (Kirby) and Bear Loli each got dragged into their own personal episode with the protag. However, these romantic possibilities were ignored until the scene at the dining table in episode 11 where Enigma (Mewtwo) dredged them up perfectly. Hell even the scene in episode 12 where protag and Ruru had to kiss to save the day was basically a PG version of how they defeated Darkness in To Loveru (aka the protag having to use sexuality to save the day).

Anyway, enough about why this show felt like a harem. To be honest this show kept switching up its tone all season. It was a comedy (fighting the pantie stealing UFO), a drama (Kirby’s shit relationship with her parents), a dementia (The fucking cat mansion ep) and a supernatural battle show (various fights, but best shown in episodes 11-12) and it never focused enough on one genre to master it.

These concerns apply to each character now that I think about it:

Protag is basically a reasonable albeit bland guy, who doesn’t gain any real character development until episode 11. He just makes his boring speeches and gets acted upon by the girls/plot. The problem was that I didn’t find his suffering funny (after Kirby threw him out the window the 2nd time, I just started feeling genuine pity). Why was this? He was just too reasonable. For me to enjoy watching a character get harmed repeatedl,y there must be a good reason. His long boring speeches really didn’t make me want to see him get hurt in every single ep… (outside of episode 12 when he was being stupid)

Mai (Big sister) was also a reasonable character, but they never really dug into her background. She’s suffering from crippling poverty in ep 1
and by episode 11... she’s still poor,
They gave her a really good character motivation and then only brought it up twice. The episodes where she was the focus were some of the better ones though and I’m saddened that she didn’t get more focus. In episode 12 when she grabbed protag’s face before the final battle though I was hyped.

Reina (Kirby) was painfully bland to me. Growing up with Goku, I’m not enthused by a character who eats a lot. She seemed gay for Mai, but this plot point was forgotten after episode 5 and She was pretty much just there for her power to be brought up as to why it wouldn’t work in any given crisis. I wish they expanded on the plot with her parents (who we literally never even see). It seemed like another interesting plot point that the anime swept under the rug. Tbs in episode 12 she too had a godly line when she called out Protag’s bullshit.

Kurumi (Bear Loli) was really annoying. I know she was just an inexperienced kid, but I found her input consistently useless. Albrecht (the bear) was cool, but that’s not saying much. I was enjoying the show until her focus episode. That ep was really weird, like REALLY REALLY weird. I haven’t seen a setup that strange since Saturday morning cartoons. Basically, Kurumi never really clicked for me and was easily the weakest character in the whole show. It could also be because she did the least in episodes 11 and 12.

Koito (Singer Girl) was pretty good if only because her “dere” at the end of the Cerberus episode was the most quality Tsundere I’ve seen in ages. Also, to her credit she was the one actively trying to find Enigma in episode 12 to save the day.

I enjoyed Ruru the most throughout the show. She was the only one who just worked for me being consistently funny and cute. I was a bit let down in her focus episode and also her connections to Protag in episode 12 felt incredibly rushed… Despite this, I was never truly upset with her character.

So I can’t help, but reference episodes 11 and 12 because they were ACTUALLY INSANE AND GREAT. The show became laser focused on a really cool plot and actually gripped me for the full two episodes. Why couldn’t this be the whole series? Cool fights against dangerous phantoms that were a clear threat to humanity. Two of the phantoms were in the character’s heads (the bunnies and the bears), the Cerberus, pervert UFO and the monkeys were all isolated incidents (NOT THE SCHOOL’S CHICKEN COOPS/temperature), the cats weren’t truly malicious either. Other than the crazy sentient firework and the evil sandbox there were no really credibly evil phantoms until episode 11.

WHERE SUDDENLY THE HOT VAMPIRE PHANTOM MEWTWO DESCENDED UPON THE SCHOOL!

It truly felt like I was watching a different show. I was yelling at the screen, “DUDE THAT’S NOT YOUR MOM, IT’S A TRAP!” I was into it. This show could’ve been a really great series where they fought EVIL phantoms with drama and high stakes. Instead we got weird shit as the show tried to be a jack of all trades, master of none…
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Final Score:

Episodes 1-4: 7 of 10 because it still feels like a budding harem

Episodes 5-11: 5 of 10, watch only for the acid trips and quality animation

Episodes 12-13: 9 of 10, they took a show that I was really hating and made me briefly love it.

Now real quick because it seems like I’m mad at this show for not being a simple fight of good vs evil. My thoughts are if you are going to try to have a super nuanced show where some monsters are good and some are evil, then it needs to have a stronger genre focus.
This show could’ve been a decent harem, a passable comedy, a great shounen or a creepy dementia and outside of the last two episodes it was just a complete mess.

Do yourself a favor and just watch episodes 1-4 and then 11-13. (Episode 11 set up the mommy issues decently)