At least Kennel Tokorozawa had the decency to be a 45 minute OVA
I was really hoping this would be something that would click with me, but just like the last time I tried to watch it when it was new in 2013, it just doesn't.
The female-on-male violence felt like animal abuse at first until I realized that you are meant to insert as the dog. So the dog is us submissives, metaphorically. That's fine, but this anime just doesn't work. It's described as a "nonsense comedy mystery" and it does try to be those things, but it's not good at any of them. The nonsense is not particularly interesting, it's not really funny, and it's mystery is just a series of vignettes in the shape of a mystery that are progressively less focused than the one the preceded it- finding the killer from the restaurant, finding the slasher / who is targeting Akiyama Shinobu, and and that's it.
Kirihime herself is exactly my type, but mentally she's immature compared a similar looking adult beauty like Sakurako from Beautiful Bones or Yuuko the witch from xxxHolic. Hell, I feel more M energy listening to Yuuko talking normally to Watanuki that I do from most of this anime's "punishment" scenes, most of which involve the dog being shaved in a flash or off camera, or maybe running from a thrown blade. Not much to be excited about at all, unless you want to be stabbed. Most of the punishments are for calling Kirihime flat, which is as stale as they get as an excuse for violence. I can overlook this, but when an anime fails to excite me, grating cliches like this become tiring. 1/3 of all Slayers dialogue is Lina Inverse's supposed lack of bust, yet Slayers anime are so good on the whole it doesn't get grating, while here it does, with "flat-chest" seeming to come out of MC's mouth every 5 seconds. All of the characters are basically gimmicks, who never deviate far from their stock dialogue- Maxi-sama is always shining, Hami is always threatening to kill herself with a fountain pen- at least Suzuna has varied dialogue for her one-note masochism, a gimmick that somehow makes her feel even more obsessed with pain and humiliation than Darkness from Konosuba - Darkness at least knows how to draw limits. That said, Suzuna was probably the next best character after Kirihime, since the Mistress / Slave play is at least the most gratifying S/M-themed content in this anime.
Can't you at least draw Kirihime puking in graphic detail? Why do we have to cut to a dam bursting like it's a comedy movie from 1980?
It's hard to care about anything when the characters are just so flat; the character artwork is pretty nice, eg. the killer maid; so it's a shame the anime is just kinda painful and cringey. Eg. the recurring joke characters, from which humor is supposed to derive from their appearance I guess - afro man, the cat-girl landlady, the muscle bros- lol so random, amirite?) For example, that third author, that maid's mistress: ok, let's just keep cameo-ing this girl none of the characters have met in person and we the audience know nothing about. Am I supposed to care about this girl?
I do wonder if watching this at a different time of day or in a different state of mind would have changed anything. It's possible the dub might have at least given me better mileage and I might have squeezed more enjoyment from this anime if Kirihime's lines went straight to my brain instead being mediated through text. But I think this is a result of me being disappointed that I couldn't like an anime that is offering a dominant waifu. But, bear in mind, one dominant waifu-, two if you can count a yandere imouto- while Princess Resurrection has three dominant waifus.
1 humiliation play out of 5
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