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Oookay. I read this series on the recommend of a friend and I was not sold. Till I realised I had live blogged the whole thing to her and was 4 volumes deep. Eventually I had to admit to myself that "Yeah, this shit is deeply screwed in the head, but damn it's funny".

The anime adaptation takes some special.... liberties with the source material to *flesh out* some *character moments*. And hoo boy are those moments ones where you DON'T want your mum, dad, sibling, friend, spouse, roommate walking in on you. And I can't say that I'm a huge fan of these *additional ... assets*, but I'm willing to overlook how uncomfortable they made me.

The animation looks good most of the time, but you can tell corners were cut to get all 13 episodes out. And just like the source material you can tell that the story takes a while to understand what makes the series tick underneath all the fan-service; once they get there though I'd say everything sings the way it should.

Seeing some of the reaction gags animated made my week, and revisiting those moments hasn't lost it's spark. Which is what tells me I'm enjoying this show more than for just what's on the tin. I had a blast going back with my watch group to see how the manga compares to the anime: checking what worked and didn't work, which version of the story did things better (it was usually the manga), and looking at why we loved certain moments.

Fuuka Izumi well and truly brings Utena/Baiser to life in a why I didn't think was possible. I just feel that the over all look of the series drags her performance down from being truly stellar.

Also, the OST didn't have to go as hard as it does. Yasuharu Takanashi, Akinari Suzuki, and Johannes Nilsson did an amazing job scoring a show they could've just phoned in to hell and back. Basier's themes were pitch perfect, thank you for that.

I truly hope we get a season 2 and that the team over at Asahi Production will get the time to animate the next arcs with as much care as they can muster, because we've been left with nothing but bangers from here on out (the obstacle course is gonna be riot).

TL:DR - It's not for everyone, but if you can stand all weird and uncomfortable baggage I think you'll have a good time.