Mayoi Neko Overrun! Anime Review
So you have a family member who likes to pick up stray kitties and bring them home. This guy's stepsister brings home a cat girl!
PRODUCTION INFO
Mayoi Neko Overrun! was originally a light novel series that began release in October 2008. A manga was released January 2010. Both the light novel and the manga were written by Tomohiro Matsu, who also directed part of the anime. The anime was produced by studio AIC and aired spring 2010.
SUMMARY
Mayoi Neko Overrun! is about a high school boy named Takumi Tsuzuki whose older stepsister Otome likes to pick up stray cats and bring them home. One day, however, she takes in a cat girl named Nozomi, and Fumino, Takumi's childhood friend, does not like this at all. Both her and Chise, his other friend, get extremely jealous of Nozomi for living under the same roof as Takumi. It's hard for Takumi to cope with all the chaos, but he does his best to make everyone get along.
WHAT TO EXPECT
You should watch this show with the expectancy of a typical harem that involves girls fighting over each other, and lots of random episode-long plot devices. That is, the focus is on fun and the humour is ridiculously silly if ecchi, but there is nothing much for plot. As you can be safe to assume, there's a lot of cute instances involving the shining cat girl heroine Nozomi! Seriously, you should watch it for her if not anything else. *Ahem* Expect lots of tsundere, as not only one girl, but two, are tsundere in this show. Finally, there are dumb, perverted boys who are friends with the protagonist.
CHARACTERS
Takumi Tsuzuki used to live in an orphanage with his childhood friend Fumino until one day when he ran away. Otome found and adopted him as her younger brother, having a habit of picking up lost "strays". He is usually the one who runs her shop titled Stray Cats. His personality is rather lacking as typical male lead for a harem. He does not have much character and acts as an average boy, despite being abandoned as a child. He is, however, the only character who can understand Fumino, even though he is oblivious to her feelings for him.
Fumino Serizawa is Takumi's childhood friend who stayed at the same orphanage as him. She has obvious feelings for him, but Takumi is unaware of this. Takumi used to stand up for Fumino when she was bullied, which is why she feels so strongly for him, but at the same time she is also very harsh and tsundere towards him.
Nozomi Kiriya is the cat girl Otome picked up. She is the typical "no personality" character who acts very calm and emotionless in most situations. She doesn't understand certain basic concepts, such as not to be nude around others.
Chise Umenomori is another friend of Takumi's. She comes from a rich family that is almost always away for work, resulting in a loss of critical attention for Chise. As such, she developed a bad personality and became rather spoilt. She has feelings for Takumi since he was the first person to treat Chise like a regular person on his level, rather than a person of higher-ranking society. Takumi doesn't know about Chise's feelings, though. Since Chise and Fumino have similar personalities, they often argue, which forces Takumi to intervene.
OPINIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS
Nozomi Kiriya is my absolute favourite catgirl in anime! She's adorable, with her lazy ears and face, just like a real cat's lack of enthusiasm, except it's only appearance for Nozomi-- she's not actually lazy. In any case, if I had a pet catgirl, I'd want her to be like Nozomi! Moving on (before I get further carried away), the other girls in the series bother me. They're either way too tsun for my tastes or in the case of Takumi's stepsister, she just had the feel of a side character. Don't get me wrong; they're all cute and very much likeable depending on your preference in characters! They just didn't fit that bill for me in particular. As for the story, there isn't much to it. The show doesn't take itself seriously and is mostly meant for fun and comedy, so the lack of a plot doesn't bother me too much. The comedy is enjoyable, after all! I found a lot of Mayoi Neko Overrun! to be amusing, and what didn't make me laugh made up for itself in cuteness. Of course, I can't excuse the lack of story completely, and the fact that there are multiple tsundere characters kind of irks me. I think that there is no reason to include two characters of the same/similar personality in one show, and that Mayoi Neko Overrun! may have done better with more variety in characters. The art is very pretty and moe in my opinion, and the opening sequence makes my heart melt with cuteness, although I can also see how people might find it annoying. I suppose it's one of my guilty pleasures as a moe fan. For some better harems that involve girls fighting with each other, I recommend Haganai and Nyaruko: Crawling with Love.
RATING
★7/10★
