Ojousama no Shimobe review

cim1018
Apr 07, 2021
This review was written as of chapter 30. I will only spoil the præmise and the clichés that all see coming.

The præmise is that our male lead comes from a line of servants of rich families and wants to escape this fate. Alas for whatever reason both parents have independently arranged that an "ozyou-sama" (upper class young female) will be living with our protagonist and he will simultaneously function as their butler, maid, cook and underwear-remover filled with fan-service moments.

Okay so what sets this apart from all the other such stories filled with fan-service? First off our male protagonist is for a change not a complete pushover (does various things under protest however) and also the opposite of oblivious to love and completely perceptive about the his two carees' growing affection for him; he's also not a case of "Let's make this guy look average so the audience can sympathize more" character but as much of a pleaser on the eyes as two ozyou-sama he's supposed to take care of. The m.c. also seems to have a fairly normal teenage-male sex drive and responses to all of the nudity and sexual advances but just think's it's improper and is uncomfortable with and tries to suppress them.

Thus far if we follow the rule that two makes not a harem it's not a harem (yet) with no indication that it'll be one but more so a triangle for attention and love.

So onto the two ozyou-sama: it's actually a rare case where I personally like both æqually: the first is a cute kuudere-type trap-ish character that could have just as easily been a male and really looks like the m.c. with severe developmental lacking that seems to only have learned a week back that such a thing as males even exists and treats them like a curiosity that thus has no concept of shame which frequently finds the character undressed in front of our reluctant servant of two masters. This character is in my opinion absolutely adorable in all his innocence. I would draw some parallels with Masiro Siina from Sakurasou in how without any prætentiousness and disregard for social appropriateness this character expresses affection towards the main character as well as how this character literally can't dress himself at the start relying on the m.c. to do so who is even more uncomfortable with this idea than Sorata was.

The second one is your spoilt, rich, haughty tundere-type character that transparently from the start tries to hide his affections and desire to be special for the m.c.(, and as said for a change the m.c. hasn't a blind spot for this and sees right through like any sane man would) — apparently the m.c. knew this character from way back after being selected as playmate when they were very young and this character retained some crush on the m.c. ever since. This character has developed a one-sided rivalry with the former for the m.c.'s affections and definitely possesses a sense of shame and cultural awareness of nudity but (reluctantly )undresses in front of the m.c. anyway out of a believe that he needs to do this to compete with the former. The tundere-act in my opinion is actually very well done and makes the character endearing.

There's also a fourth character around that is not as prominent that is a live-in maid of the second ozyou-sama that's there to teach the m.c. the ropes. He occasionally pops up and is also completely aware of the complex love situation and enjoys adding fuel to the fire and watch it burn. This character also sometimes makes some vague sexual advances to the m.c. but more so seems to do it to make the m.c. uncomfortable if anything and has no serious intentions. This is the only character I personally have no real aesthetic response to.

Plot? There is obviously no real plot; there's some chaos of the week that gets resolved but the relationships between the characters do absolutely grow and they grow as people; it's definitely not a status-quo-ante series but it's very slice-of-life.

Humor? It made me laugh a couple of times — most of the humor is of course fan-service and sex related but some of it is pretty funny.

Art? Very good, the expressions are done well and all the characters are very pleasing for the eye.

Characters? The characters aren't super complicated with complex motivations but they're very endearing and I like all of them.

So at the end it's your basic love-complication-fighting-for-attention series but I feel it does enough differently in a see of such things and other things simply better that at the very least it sits somewhere at the top 15% of such series.

I would also argue that outright skipping chapters 06, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 18, 19, 20, 23 provides a better story from a purely narrative perspective as these chapters are filler that don't tie into the overarching story.
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Ojousama no Shimobe
Ojousama no Shimobe
Auteur Taguchi, Hoshino
Artiste