Nopy's Blog

At the start of the spring 2010 season, Mayoi Neko Overrun was one of the anime that I was on the fence about so I decided to watch a few more episodes. Well, a few more episodes ended up being more than I thought and I am now up to episode 6 of the anime, which is halfway through the series. In case you haven’t heard of Mayoi Neko Overrun before, here’s the synopsis from MyAnimeList:

A heart warming love comedy. Tsuzuki Takumi is a high school boy, who is running a confectionery “Stray Cats” with his sister-in-law Otome. Otome is an extremely good-natured person and is always running around to help people. One day she brings home a runaway girl Kiriya Nozomi. Nozomi’s closed mind gradually opens to them as she works as a pâtissière at Stray Cats.

When you’ve watched anime for as long as I have, you’ll learn that “a heart warming love comedy” is actually a secret code meaning “an ecchi harem anime.” That was one of the things that initially put me off; I’ve seen enough ecchi anime in my younger days to last a very long time. On the other hand, there are some very entertaining characters in the anime. Takumi is your typical guy, but Otome is pretty cool. She travels the world doing charity work and you can kind her almost anywhere, from the deserts of Egypt to the top of Mt. Everest. Otome also has a huge bust and carefree attitude which really reminds me of Mutsumi from Love Hina. Nozomi is a quiet girl, but also very talented and says “nyaa” every once in a while. The synopsis fails to mention Serizawa Fumino and Umenomori Chise, my two favourite characters in the series. Fumino is Takumi’s childhood friend who also works at the confectionery with him. She’s special in that she always says the opposite of what she means and she’ll tell you to “die twice” if you manage to piss her off. My other favourite, Chise, is a super-rich girl of small stature who also happens to be an otaku. In the first episode she even tries to get Nozomi to cosplay as a certain character from a certain anime. Chise is also very impulsive, usually dragging the rest of the cast into some wild adventure.

Other notable characters are Chikumaen Kaho, Kikuchi Ieyasu, and Kouya Daigorou. Kaho, like Chise, is a super-rich girl, but is significantly more mature. She doesn’t play as prominent a role in the series as the other characters, but when she does appear, she always seems to have a handle on the situation, sometimes even controlling it. Ieyasu is your typical perverted otaku who says that 2D is better than 3D, but still ogles at Fumino, Chise, and Nozomi’s panties. Daigorou is a down-to-earth kind of guy that doesn’t seem to talk much. It’s implied that Ieyasu and Daigorou actually have a gay relationship with Ieyasu being the uke and Daigorou being the seme, making for some hilarious moments.

While I do enjoy all of the characters in the anime, that’s not enough for me to like it. A good anime needs a good plot (or lots of humour), and Mayoi Neko Overrun has failed to deliver in that department so far. As with any “love comedy,” there’s the usual bonding between friends and getting along with each other, but nothing carries over to the next episode. That was my main gripe with this anime, it follows most other anime in the genre and starts with a clean slate every episode. What made anime like Love Hina stand out compared to anime like Mayoi Neko Overrun was how the relationship between Keitaro and Naru develop over time. We see none of that happening here, it’s all just random events that get settled before the episodes’ end. The reason for adding cats into the anime also completely eludes me. The only role that the cats get are sitting around Nozomi while she pets them. My belief is that the writer simply added a bunch of cats to Mayoi Neko Overrun because he’s a cat lover (also note that neko = cat).

The animation and music were good, but it’s not anything impressive. One thing I did like, however, was that although this is an ecchi anime, they actually keep it at a pretty low level. Yes, there are panty shots, and some cleavage showing, but there are no bare breasts or anything extreme like what we’re seeing in anime nowadays.

So, after watching half of the series, I’d have to say that Mayoi Neko Overrun is an average anime. It’s not something you’ll remember in a few years, but it has a good set of characters and is perfect for passing the time.

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