Takto’s plan for the competition is certainly one that fits just who he is.
What They Say:
Taketo Akutagawa is a high schooler who’s also a genius erotic writer whose work is serialized in the newspaper. He goes to a school where only people with a unique talent (Geniuses) are allowed, Inspiration Academy! A genius clarinet player, a genus mathmatician, a genius hacker and a genius idol, he gets in all kinds of sexy trouble this these crazy people. His fantasies never stop! And what about the love that’s starting to grow there? A taboo crazy academic life is about to start!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
As good as Taketo may be when it comes to writing erotica, he’s truly struggling when it comes to writing something for Narukara and her music so that she can really go the extra mile. It’s such a struggle that it’s nearly taking him out right from the beginning, but his efforts do bear some fruit in the long run and he’s able to send the package to her, through a surprising intermediary, that lets her hit the final round running in the overall school competition that’s going on. Considering her struggles with her music (and the sad fact that she knows only one song even after all this time), she’s in a difficult place right up until th eend.
While it takes the first half of the episode to get there, they do eventually get Class 3 out on stage for their performance in the final round and it’s actually a good bit of fun as Taketo has written a dirty piece that’s comical as it goes with such an uplifting set of music. You can imagine the voice actors doing their damndest not to laugh during the recording sessions, which keeps it from being truly and outpouring that’s needed to make it work effectively, but as a whole it hits the right kinds of notes as both the boys and girls come together to sing erotica this way. It’s definitely the way to marry Taketo’s skill to that of music and while he’s not the best of conductors, it lets the scene unfold just right as he has his flashbacks that have inspired him. (What does the music remind you of? I keep hearing a song from Jesus Christ Superstar in my mind).
And unfortunately, as much fun as the song is at first, the fact that it runs for ten minutes, dominating the second half, that ends up killing it because it becomes too much. There’s a lot of reactions going on to it of course which drags it out and the song is pushed into the background, but that’s the extent of it. Narukara does get her solo, and her performance changes things up a bit over what it was before, but it’s not enough to really save it. The last couple of minutes go for simple fun overall as they celebrate what they did and some of the character interactions, but the best of it all was that Narukara simply didn’t get most of the lyrics so she didn’t have a chance to be offended. All in all, it made me miss Utae san more than anything else though since she’d definitely appreciate the song and really get into it.
In Summary:
R-15 is a show that missed so much of its potential by a mile that you really can get frustrated by it. Especially since you had people boycotting the show because of its premise and the smuttiness of it all. But in the end, it played it safe and even the things it blotted out weren’t all that bad when you really get down to it. I liked the idea of the show and it definitely had its moments, but it lost its steam early and never captured it again outside of the silly and stupid camouflage suit episode. This episode has a good idea to it with an erotic song sung by the whole class, but when it becomes a ten minute piece on top of ten minutes of relative boredom, it’s just a killer. I wanted to like this show a lot more than I did but it continually disappointed me.
Grade: C+
Streamed By: Nico Nico
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
