I'm currently watching an ongoing American TV Series under the name Leverage. It’s about these four ex-criminals led by an ex-insurance agent who form an elite team that mimics Robin Hood’s style of doing favors for the unfortunate poor by screwing over rich assholes. I haven’t gotten around to seeing every episode yet, but I will say that it’s a pretty fun watch. Anyway, I’m starting off this review this way because I couldn’t help but be reminded of Leverage as I watched Ookami-san and Her Posse of Intimate Douchebags. That said, I will not mention Leverage again.
One of these things does not belong.
Our main character, tough-guy tough-girl Ryouko Ookami, is a member of a professional club of high schoolers (a.ka. Otogi Bank a.k.a. the fucking mafia) that exchanges favors with other students. A client generally comes in with a request, which the team then tries to complete. After the request is fulfilled, the client must do them a favor in return. In this episode, a girl named Kakiri wants the team to stop her love interest Akihiro Ouji from quitting the tennis team due to his broken leg (I'm sorry, what?). The show proceeds to successfully parody Cinderella as the team tries to prevent the guy from submitting his resignation form. It also gives us some very funny narration by Satomi Arai, the voice actress of everyone's favorite lesbian, Shirai Kuroko. Actually, I don’t think she even bothered trying to come up with a different style of talking for the show, half the time it feels like I’m watching DVD outtakes of Railgun.
OH FUCK I KNEW IT
So it opens with Ookami-san and her friend Ringo Mogire Beam chasing after Generic Bad Guy #1, who stole from them. After punching him out, we get introduced to her. Personality-wise, Ookami is a lot like a taller, deeper-voiced fusion of Aisaka Taiga and Railgun’s Biribiri who goes around beating the shit out of robbers with boxing gloves made out of the Lucky Star cat. That said, she’s amazingly badass.
POW, motherfucker.
Otogi Bank gets a new recruit named Ryoushi, a wimpy guy (read: PUSSY) who confesses his love for Ryouko in the traditional Japanese style of stalking her around until he gathers enough courage to ask her out. He starts off by telling her what a beautiful woman she is and how much he admires her feminine traits.
“Sorry, my hair's blocking my eyes. You're a guy right?”
Ookami-san isn't impressed, so Ryoushi sets out to prove himself by failing miserably at preventing Akihiro (the guy quitting the tennis team, if you weren't paying attention) from resigning. Just when it looks like all hope is lost, we meet another member of Otogi Bank, Majolica le Fay, a "mad scientist" who comes up with the brilliant idea of imitating Cinderella.
Rebecca Miyamoto, shortly after mugging Dr. Insano.
Ryoushi decides to make up for his failures to Otogi Bank by once again helping fulfill Kakiri's request of stopping Akihiro from leaving tennis behind to pursue other activities (Akihiro has a broken leg, mind you). Akihiro is walking to their school with his tennis resignation form, so all the team needs to do is catch up to him and get the form. Ryoushi does this by driving Kakiri there inside a makeshift Cinderella carriage made out of a bicycle and a giant pumpkin... I'll give you a second to sit back and absorb that thought. Ready? Good. Unfortunately, this stunt also fails as Ryoushi gets nervous from all the people staring at a fucking ten-foot pumpkin mounted on top of his bike. He crashes and Kakiri goes flying, and stops herself from hitting the ground by using her hands to push off the ground and propel her feet straight into Akihiro's face (thank you for the pantyshot by the way, it was very nice).
Do I even need to write a caption for this?
Let's wrap this up. Akihiro is knocked out by Kakiri's kick, so the team steals the resignation form. Ryoushi finally proves himself an official member of the Otogi Bank to Ookami-san by shielding her from Generic Bad Guys #1, #2, and #3, who had tried assaulting her. To Ookami-san's credit, she was easily kicking their asses before he stepped in. Finally, Akihiro uses Kakiri's shoe, which she dropped after kicking him, to test every single girl in the school to figure out who kicked him, exactly like Cinderella. I'll leave you to figure out the rest.
Ookami-san is one of those series that knows it's typically weird and runs with it. Wait, let me start that over. Ookami-san is a funny, creative anime that takes characters we've seen dozens of times and still manages to keep us entertained. Ryouko Ookami is a character that we can appreciate for being badass, yet we can also admire her counterpart Ryoushi for having the guts to ask her out. Their relationship will get expanded upon in later episodes, I suppose. We'll probably also get to see some more backstory and character development for the rest of the team over the course of the show. Yes, we've seen this over and over in different anime, but heck, as long as it's fun, we'll watch it (or at least I will). The narration is funny and somehow makes Kuroko's drawl tolerable, but some people may find it to be more annoying than enjoyable. The fairy-tale parodies are a hit or miss. If you like watching characters getting into ridiculous situations that somehow reflect classic stories, you'll probably like Ookami-san. On the other hand, if you think it's a stupid premise and the outfits and scenarios are weird and you want to go bitch about how cliched the characters are on some forum, then you should probably stay away from this show.
"Dear Diary: Today I wore a ninja turtle mask while driving a pink-haired loli through the streets of Japan atop a giant pumpkin.
Also, I totally joined the Yakuza."
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