Haruka is rich, powerful, and one of the prettiest girls in school, but classmate Yuto has discovered her deep, dark secret – she’s a diehard otaku. He promises to keep this secret and becomes her advisor of sorts.

Episode Summary

It’s almost 3am, but Yuto is being kept awake by the noisy sounds of late-night anime-watchers, who happen to include his teacher. The next morning his friends tease him about not liking girls and imply that he’s homosexual, which he denies – he’s just given up on women altogether. In the air they hear beautiful piano music being played. It’s Nogizaka Haruka, the most beautiful girl in school, who’s also completely unapproachable. In class, Yuto’s friend begins to talk excitedly about anime, and Haruka can barely contain herself. Yuto goes to the library later to return his friend’s anime magazine, and catches Haruka checking out manga. Her clumsiness in trying to hide it causes a mess in the library, and Yuto figures out the secret of her dirty otaku interests. She goes running from the room in tears.

School becomes a little awkward, since Nogizaka-san goes running every time she sees Yuto. He tries to talk to her, but is prevented by her “imperial guard”. Finally he gets her alone on the roof and tells her that he’ll never reveal her otaku-ness, and that he doesn’t care what her hobbies are. In fact, he’s happy that she seems closer to him as a person. Later at home, he gets a frantic call from Nogizaka – she forgot all about the due date for her magazine, meaning that her name will be announced over the intercom the next day if it doesn’t get returned. They both return to the darkened school building, but once entering the library, they begin to hear the sound of a wailing cat, which turns out to be the sound of someone’s cell phone ring. After leaving, they decide that it’s okay to call each-other by their first names, since they’re not strangers anymore.

Thoughts

I almost hate to say it, but I didn’t hate this series nearly as much as I thought I was going to based just on the plot summaries I’d seen online. Not that it was great or anything – the amount of fanservice was just enough to be eye-rolling and I can’t say that I like Nogizaka Haruka as a character one bit, but on the whole I certainly wouldn’t nominate the show for any “worst of” awards. That being said, I doubt I would want to watch any more of it, either. It seems like within the last few years, anime about otaku and otaku culture have become more prominent. I mean, it’s something that fans can identify with after all. I mostly just think that this series isn’t offering anything new. Rather, it’s the same kind of school romance story that’s a dime a dozen, with a small twist that happens to be a shout-out to all the otaku out there.

Like I mentioned, I think a lot of what else irritated me was Nogizaka-san herself. I can sympathize with having to hide a nerdy secret (though I make no secret of my geekiness, that’s for sure!) but as a character she just freaks the heck out too much. Granted, from this episode it’s difficult to imagine the extent to which she’s idolized and maybe that public face of hers really is as much of a shield as I’m suspecting, but come on. The whole scene in the library where she’s acting frantic about Yuto having seen her anime magazine, and the way she runs away from Yuto every time she sees him gets a little ridiculous after a while. For a show that seems to be courting the otaku viewership, it sure portrays the Akiba lifestyle as something pretty horrific. Kind of a slap in the face, if you ask me. Actually, come to think of it, Nogizaka reminds me a bit of Mikuru, the oft-victimized SOS Brigade member from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, though slightly less ditzy. This may be part of the reason I dislike the character.

In any case, the character designs are something one would expect to find in some sort of dating sim adaptation, by which I mean the school uniforms are completely impractical (meaning cosplayers will love them!) and all the girls have very “interesting” (and unrealistic) hairstyles. Not really my first choice, but at least in this case things didn’t look too extreme and the animation was done better than it had to be. I can appreciate effort when I see it.

I’m feeling surprisingly neutral on this show. I wanted to dislike it, and while I found fault with a few things it wasn’t enough to really light me up in anger. It’s not something I’d watch but I won’t deny that it’s mildly amusing and the setup provides a somewhat original situation in which love might blossom between the main characters.

Pros

• Story is less obnoxious that it first appears
• Some light humor

Cons

• Character designs a bit on the irritating side
• Main female character is very grating on the nerves

By Jessi – 08/30/08