Mayoi Neko Overrun!

Takumi Tsuzuki is a high school student who attends the Umenomori Private Academy, free of charge, alongside Fumino Serizawa, a childhood friend of his whom always says the opposite of what she feels. He spends most of his time at school fending off Chise Umenomori, the granddaughter of the board chairman and a pampered princess, who is constantly roping him into her eccentric hobbies. After school, he goes to work at the "Stray Cats" confectionery, a cake shop run by his adoptive older sister, Otome Tsuzuki, until it's time to go to bed. This is the average routine in the day and the life of Takumi.

Mayoi Neko Overrun follows another seemingly average day in the life of Takumi. With his sister away from the shop, having gone to save someone else in need of help, Fumino takes it upon herself to wake him up so that he won't be late for their usual walk to school together, giving him a glimpse of her blue and white striped panties in the process. What a nice way to start the day.

When Otome returns home, she brings with her a girl named Nozomi Kiriya, whose hair and mannerisms resemble that of a large cat. It turns out that she is a runaway that Otome can't help but take in. Takumi's ordinary days are transformed into splendid chaos as he tries to unravel who this mysterious beauty is and what she's running away from...

Kiriya, Nozomi Main

Taketatsu, Ayana Japanese

Serizawa, Fumino Main

Itou, Kanae Japanese

Umenomori, Chise Main

Iguchi, Yuka Japanese

Tsuzuki, Takumi Main

Okamoto, Nobuhiko Japanese

Tsuzuki, Otome Supporting

Satou, Satomi Japanese

Chikumaen, Kaho Supporting

Tamura, Yukari Japanese

Kikuchi, Ieyasu Supporting

Yoshino, Hiroyuki Japanese

Suzuki Supporting

Arai, Satomi Japanese

Fujino, Tamao Supporting

Nanri, Yuuka Japanese

Naruko, Kanae Supporting

Horie, Yui Japanese

Oowada, Tomoyuki Producer

Nakayama, Nobuhiro Producer

Kawase, Kouhei Producer

Fukuda, Jun Producer

Reviews

Jun 30, 2010

8thSin

Recommended

'Mayoi Neko (Stray Cats) Overrun!' is a harem comedy mainly about one guy and three girls in a cake shop called "Stray Cats". The owner of the shop is a tennen ("natural boke", someone who has zero common sense) woman who likes to find stray cats and sometimes kids, and provide them shelter in the shop. Our protagonist Tsuzuki Takumi is one of those human stray cats, and the story begins with the arrival of the second human stray cat, Kiriya Nozomi.


STORY: 6/10
Pretty common setting with plenty of parodies.
As far as I can tell, only first and last three episodes were the main story with ... Kiriya Nozomi as central focus, despite all the episode titles were about her.

Just as with the animation, there was a different director for each episode. It seems like they were given the freedom to do whatever the hell they wanted to do with filler episodes from ep 4 to 9, and that's exactly what they seemed to have done.

Episode 4: Possible 'FMP Fumoffu' onsen parody with a sudden parody of Ping Pong (2002) movie?
Episode 5: Went for character development with fan service.
Episode 6: Entire episode on a PV shoot, reminds me of 'Haruhi' movie shooting episode.
Episode 7: Entire episode on mecha parodies.
Episode 8: Entire episode on a custom Jenga game.
Episode 9: Went for straight romance drama.

Whether it worked or not is up for debate, but they all had great slapstick pacing, and I personally found the noticeable difference in direction to be quite entertaining.

Final episode was a recap of the series, which is pretty rare nowadays. The commentary was pretty funny, and I think it represents the freedom in production of this series very well (since it shows that they were given total freedom even the series composition stage).


ANIMATION: 8/10
Notice the animation director and the production studio for animation work assistance is different for every single episode.
Animation quality varied by episode, like episode 1 (Studio Comet) and episode 8 (Sunrise) were significantly better than the rest, but generally above average for harem comedy series.

Character design was decent, with big-eyed attractive girls and signature features (cat ear hair, red cross-patterned ribbons etc) and comments. Despite great influence by animation director and work assistance, character animation consistency was better than average, with exception to episode 11 (Studio Blanc.), which had distinctly different drawing style that I think worked pretty well.

You can tell none of the animation directors and studios wanted to be seen as a slacker (less deadline rush probably helped too), and we are treated to quality animation with subtle difference in style for every single episode, which I found to be very fun to watch.


SOUND: 7/10
Voice acting was very strong, especially for Serizawa Fumino and Kikuchi Ieyasu. Filled with emotion and highly motivated seiyuu staff.

BGM was unremarkable, but that is expected for harem comedy series.

OP/ED were extremely weak seiyuu songs. I can kind of imagine a bunch of NEETs dancing otagei to it. Three "special EDs" for episodes 6, 7, 11 were somewhat interesting though.


CHARACTER: 7/10
Picking a girl for the indecisive protagonist sure is difficult for this series. We have Nozomi, who's a tennen cat girl who's good at everything and goes along with everything. Then Fumino, a tsundere childhood friend (i.e. the "invincible character" if this was 'eroge'). Finally Umenomori Chise, a super -pushy billionaire lolita. I have to say I liked the balance with tsundere and pushy loli fighting for the guy with tennen as a mediator.

Yes, we have a lot of stereotypical character personalities here, but they're all so off-the-chart in each characteristics (like tsundere so much that Fumino always means the opposite) actually made very interesting story developments possible, though they do get a bit annoying after a while.

Character development is not really expected in a slapstick series like this, but Fumino did start expressing her feelings, and Nozomi's gradual realization of friendship and family was depicted very well.


ENJOYMENT: 9/10
I personally liked the characters, and thought there were couple of really funny episodes. Just like Haruhi 2009's "∞8", most of the watch value was in subtle difference in animation styles and in this case, different director for each episode too.

The original setting and story may be unoriginal, but there was abundance of creativity in production stage of this series made possible by one-episode-only staff and teams. Changing animation style, good pacing, hilarious gags, constant fan service, repetitive violent retribution, great directions.

It's in a crappy genre where you can't expect any story, character development or value to begin with, but there was some of each in this series.
As far as watch-and-forget comedy goes, this is as good as it gets. 'Mayoi Neko Overrun!' was hands-down the best comedy of the season for me since all other comedies this season were plagued with horrible pacing and letdowns.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Jul 23, 2010

AuroraFlame

Mixed Feelings

I have very mixed feelings about Mayoi Neko Overrun. It's quite something to say that a series is both generic yet still one of the more... unique harems to come out in a while. This all stems from the fact that the scriptwriter, director and key artist changed every single episode for the twelve week duration of the series. The result is that studio AIC squanders what little potential the series already had and gives the directors free reign to do one-shot episode experiments. What would have been a mostly cliche but still above average harem turns into possibly "the" trainwreck of the year.

Starting off ... with the positive: The most interesting part of this series was that despite a formulaic harem setting, the show had a motif; a constantly echoed theme that ties all of the characters and stories together. The theme is stray cats, both literally and figuratively. The show examines what it means to be abandoned and alone, what it means to search for and find a place where you can belong, and what it means to have a family and a home. While not as well-developed as it should have been because of the aforementioned trainwrecking, these ideas are woven into the plot and the backstory of every single character. It all starts when Nozomi, a blue-haired emotionless catgirl with abandonment issues, is taken in by protagonist Takumi's older sister. This unofficial adoption forces the other two members of Takumi's harem to reexamine their own lives. Blond tsundere Fumino grew up with Takumi in an orphanage, a victim of non-stop bullying. Even blonder ojou-sama Chise is surrounded by wealth and yes-men who abide by her every word, but the fame of her parents ensures that they are never around and she is always alone.

Despite archetypal definitions, the characters in this series manage to have a little extra depth to differentiate them from other harems. Otome nee-san is far more mature and understanding than her carefree attitude would lead you to believe. Same goes for Kaho, a childhood friend and conniving corporate rival of Chise's, who in one episode fosters a misunderstanding in order to strengthen the bonds between all of the characters. Two seasons prior, AIC made Sora no Otoshimono a successful harem by playing up the fact that the protagonist was an unabashed pervert, proving an interesting contrast to the indifferent or wimpy male leads of most harems. Well, Overrun does the exact opposite here. Not only does Takumi try to weasel his way out of dealing with the girls, but his indecisiveness is actually justified by just how irritating and passive-aggressive the girls actually are. Nozomi is silent as ever, but the writers don't even attempt to push Chise or Fumino as moe or submissive. They are incredibly overbearing and often cause Takumi a lot more trouble than they're worth. The characters are not quite unlikeable (I was fine with them), but it was still interesting to see a show actually get away with making a guy not want his harem.

Speaking of Takumi, for a male lead in a harem, he is surprisingly absent. The show is supposedly about his developing relationship with these girls. Yet even from the first episode, he frequently seems like a supporting character in his own series. Late in the show, there is an episode about the family taking care of a lost young girl (which again allows the characters to reflect on their own thoughts of loneliness) and Takumi doesn't appear at all. This is a mixed blessing but moves toward the positive. One, the show starts with Fumino and Chise already having a crush on Takumi, preventing any contrived or shallow origin story for their romantic interest in him. The chronic absence of the male lead also keeps the girls from fawning all over him like other harems (though like I said, their characterization already prevents this). The girls have a lot of scenes to themselves, where they meditate on their own thoughts and solve their own problems. If you are tired of seeing harem girls waiting around for their "man" to come and fix everything for them, this series can be refreshing occasionally.

Describing the series like this, you'd wonder what went wrong. And here is where we come back to the dreaded switching of directors every episode. The show is a mess. Every individual episode is solid enough, but the series itself lacks coherence and is riddled by random, one-off fillers in the midseason that fail to progress the story at all. This is probably the only harem I've seen where one of the girls full-out confesses to the guy early in the series, in three episodes which build up to a nice climax despite starting off a bit shaky. And yet it takes this build-up and does nothing with it, opting instead to just go for random gag episodes. Four in particular stand out: 4 was from the director of Gag Manga Biyori and jumped the shark for many viewers, as it ignored previous plot developments, and "all" characterization up to that point. If you've seen a lot of harems, you'll know the main guy always has an otaku sidekick to make him look good by comparison. Ever wanted to know what would happen if that idiot otaku ended up being the lead in a show? Well, Overrun gives you the chance to find out in episode 6. I've gotta admit: that otaku's got guts. He literally wastes millions of dollars and still manages to troll everyone. The worst of these fillers was easily 7, which is the season finale of some super robot series. Here, Overrun subverts like no one has ever subverted before. The episode is not a parody, it is played completely straight. There is no humor, it is a completely different series featuring Mayoi Neko's characters, and it's absolutely boring. And then 8 is an episode of Saki. The final four episodes return to the main storyline, but even then: one of them doesn't feature half the cast, and two more juggle the generic school athletic competition plot. The series starts off promisingly, then proceeds to waste just enough time to make sure we don't see the fruits of that progress by the end. It's a shame because by the time the story comes back around, there are quite a few nice, sentimental moments that make you wish it went a bit further.

The technical side of things is a mixed bag as well. In the visual department, the character designs (both male and female) are quite nice to look at. The artwork manages to keep a consistent style across all of the characters. For once, a series finally decides to give characters eye colors that don't match their hair; this complimentary coloring for the female leads is especially nice. Still, with the show constantly cycling through staff, the art suffers from notable inconsistencies across the series. Episode 1 has thinner lining and more shapely clothing, episode 5 has more angular faces and emotive shading, etc. A few episodes (4 & 6) have a lot of off-models, though some may have been deliberate (though it's contested whether it was worth it). For the most part, the art survived the episode transitions better than the storytelling did. The animation is below average and never really on par with the art, but being a comedy series, it doesn't really need to be.

On the sound side: the voice acting is serviceable but as the actors are voicing archetypes, it never goes anywhere beyond the range you'd expect. The OP song is average J-pop but the lyrics really have no rhythm and seem rushed all the way through. On the other hand, the ED has a tropical ring to it and actually sounds quite nice. What background music is present is usually done well. The problem is that there simply isn't enough of it. Entire scenes and large portions of the episodes are completely silent with no music at all. Sometimes it successfully contributes to the atmosphere, but sometimes the lack of music makes unfunny scenes even less funny. Still, the recurring piano theme played during all of the emotional scenes is commendable.

My biggest disappointment with Mayoi Neko is that AIC basically sacrificed the actual adaptation to create a display booth for the talent of the various directors involved. While it may have not been a big deal with just any harem, Overrun seemed to have started off doing just enough differently from the rest of the pack to make me think the show had some potential. The fact that it's based on a light novel series and not the usual ero-manga, and a popular one at that, adds to this notion. If that weren't enough, the more faithful manga adaptation has received near unanimous praise. If you can forgive its faults, there are a lot of nice emotional beats that make it a decent recommendation for sentimental rom-com fans. Otherwise, it's strictly for harem watchers and trainwreck gazers. There is simply no excuse for a show to have so much filler when it has a short run time and a wealth of material to adapt. It feels like I've watched a four or five episode show when the series was slated for twelve. I shouldn't ever feel like that.

EDIT: The Railgun maids get a 10.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Nov 21, 2010

Mugen900

Not Recommended

From what I've read from other reviews, I'd probably agree with them in certain ways when they say that this anime doesn't make any heads or tails in it, you might think it's a usual harem type of genre but it kind goes from one point to the next, you really can't figure out as to whom the male character connects with. But still, it is decent enough to be watched because what it lacks in plot makes up with couple of good slap-stick comedy, As for the art of this anime, I find it very good because it kinda look like a ... typical manga that has come alive, never mind if there are some differences between the two. The characters, well, I'm focusing on the schools uniform for girls. I like the way that it matches with the female characters especially when it's Fumino who's wearing it, her long black socks really accentuate her very well, as if the two are mend for each other (the girls uniform and the long black socks), I also find Othome very attractive in a bikini, the way she's drawn really makes her versatile to wear any of the characters clothing from her everyday get up to her work clothes, she'll probably look good wearing the school uniform or one of Chise's maid's uniform or in some rare cases be in the nude. The bike shorts in the last 2 episodes of the anime really does give the girls (most of them that is) that professional sporty look, since the bloomers kinda makes things too ordinary even if it's sexier that the bike shorts. So, even if this anime has it's share of twist and turns that you can't seem to make of, it is still decent enough to be watched so I give it a rating of 4.


Trivia:

Bike shorts or spats (as they were called in the anime) were first made up of black knit wool before being made out of spandex.

Bloomers (as they were also called in the anime) are also called Boyshots.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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Light Novel Mayoi Neko Overrun! To Be Animated [Update Dec 4]

According to Animate Shop, the extra illustration sheet drawn by the illustrator indicated Matsu Tomohiro's light novel "Mayoi Neko Overrun!" will get...read more

Nov 14, 2009 6:13 AM by dtshyk | Discuss (35 comments)

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