Summer 2021 First Impressions – Mother of the Goddess’ Dormitory

Streaming: HIDIVE

Episodes: 10

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: After his family home was burned in a fire and his dad walked out on the family, rather than take advantage of any social program to get by Koushi decides the best course of action is to try to make his own way on the streets. Being a kid, however, it’s not easy to live independently, so when he’s offered a cushy job as the “dorm mother” of a problematic dormitory associated with the local women’s college, he thinks it may be a dream come true.

Unfortunately the residents are something of a handful. Mineru, the seemingly kind soul who invites Koushi to work at the dorm, is a mad scientist type who has an aversion to wearing clothes. On the other hand, Frey is a cosplayer who enjoys dressing other people up in costumes (whether they want to or not). Possibly the biggest hurdle is Atena, a young woman whose past living situations have left her with a fear of men (apparently even pre-adolescents). It takes a little time, but Atena tries to come to terms with her fears while also attempting to clean up the behavior of the other women for Koushi’s sake.

Impressions: I’m not sure why this continues to happen, but just when I think I’ve seen it all an anime appears that reminds me that, in the grand scheme of things, I am but a naïve neophyte who has no idea about the depths to which storytelling is willing to stoop.

Many years ago, I showed a friend an anime series called Kurenai. In it, a teenage boy named Shinkurou helps to rescue a young girl named Murasaki whose rich and powerful family has a tradition of familial intermarriage. Girls are groomed from a young age to accept this arrangement and the women of the family are essentially imprisoned inside the family compound in a so-called “inner sanctum” where they are separated from society. Throughout the story we learn that Murasaki’s father, the patriarch of the family, has begun to waver on keeping up this tradition as a result of his relationship with Murasaki’s mother, who has since passed away. Ultimately, Murasaki returns to the family home to build a relationship with her father that’s more based on the typical parent-child bond than it is based on her potential use as a political tool, on the condition that the family’s traditions that have kept her and others imprisoned are no longer upheld.

I honestly loved this series, not just because it featured a lot of cool, interesting women in various roles, but because I actually liked how it ended. It didn’t result in any huge changes in the overall makeup of the rich family, but it presented several small changes in perspective that had massive implications, and left us, the audience, to imagine the eventual transformation of circumstances. I tend to like these sorts of endings, because they don’t try to imply that huge systemic problems are easily wiped-out by well-meaning actions. While I might wish to eliminate prejudice in all its forms, I think the best we can do is continue to chip away at them over time (although I’ll admit that I’m also in a good enough position that I can survive some incrementalism; many people cannot). My friend, on the other hand, wasn’t as impressed. Why wasn’t child protective services called to rescue Murasaki (rather than a teenage orphan with weird powers living with a group of women)? Why wasn’t her father arrested and taken away? Believe me, I get it; there were a lot of very wrong things done throughout the narrative that, in real life, I’d want to see some more direct consequences for. But for me at least, the quality of the production and the more serious nature of the anime versus the manga (seriously, I read part of the manga and it’s probably best described as mediocre in comparison) provided a context that allowed me personally to consider the story in a broader, more symbolic way. Some traditions are terrible, but the best ways to dismantle them are from the inside by influencing the people who’re mindlessly adhering to them.

The thing about Kurenai, though, is that as far as I remember, Murasaki isn’t shown being assaulted or sexualized. The idea of what she’s being groomed for is so heinous and the actual villain – the relative to whom she’s betrothed – is so obviously terrible, that our minds can reach that logical endpoint without being forced to witness it. The show isn’t gratuitous and its story has a message, two aspects that help reinforce the fact that its purpose isn’t simply the victimization of its characters.

The Mother of the Goddess’ Dormitory, on the other hand, seems to gleefully put its 12-year-old protagonist in sexual situations for laffs and yuks as a way of obscuring its utter emptiness as a story. I expected for this episode to make me extremely offended and upset, and yet this episode is just so devoid and bankrupt of any real thought or feeling that, after it was done, I just felt nothing. Taken at face value, just about everything that happens is gross and wrong – a kid repeatedly encounters adult women in various stages of undress who joke about how sexually “forward” he is; his face is accidentally mashed into boobs and crotches. And yet, somehow this is framed as a better situation than the complete failure of the system that allowed him to live starving on the streets after his deadbeat dad abdicated all responsibility toward him. It’s all so morally repugnant and yet it also has absolutely nothing valuable to say about it, other than a disclaimer early in the episode that the events of the series represent no actual laws or situations. It’s just a way of deflecting criticism, and I find that to be very boring, honestly.

Ecchi isn’t typically my cup of tea, but I like to think I can identify when there’s more to it than just straight hijinks. I spent a lot of words examining Interspecies Reviewers because, while it had its own issues, I felt like it was well-made, interesting, and occasionally even sexy. But I’m honestly just sort of baffled by this, and any other property that implies putting kids in sexual harm’s way is fun to watch. And honestly? I’m not especially interested in trying to understand the appeal.

Pros: While I think it’s a good exercise to be able to say something nice about something you don’t like, I don’t necessarily think it’s responsible to imply that something repugnant is necessarily offset by minor good traits it might happen to exhibit. One thing I will say is that, if you’re interested in this series, apparently HIDIVE is streaming multiple versions based around various degrees of obscuring the nudity (including an uncensored version). So you can pick your poison, so-to-speak.

Cons: I think my review pretty well sums up the issues that I have. I actually don’t really have much hate for fanservice entertainment; for various reasons it’s usually not to my taste and I’m not going to pretend like it is, but I also don’t have this aching desire to see it disappear from the anime landscape. In this case, the main issue I have is more around the nature of the content relative to the disparate ages of the characters. This concept could easily have been realized, with very few changes, using a male character the same age as the women but perhaps just inexperienced. Yet here we are.

Content Warnings: Nudity (the level of which will be dependent on the version you watch). Fanservice (mainly panty shots). An underage character’s motivations being jokingly referred to as sexual by adult characters. Depictions of sexual assault, played for comedy. Parental abandonment. A character living on the street due to lack of resources. Copious bloody nosebleeds.

Would I Watch More? – Eh, no. This episode was just boring in its depravity.