3 Episode Taste Test: Ladies versus Butlers

With a premise remin­is­cent of My-Otome and cham­pi­on­ing the cur­rent trend of snotty faux-aristocrats, Ladies versus But­lers starts as it intends to con­tinue: copi­ous, point­less fanser­vice. The frantic first epis­ode is chase across pala­tial school grounds which sees girls of an acutely fair dis­pos­i­tion faint at the very sight of a teen­age boy with unkempt hair and a scar, com­poun­ded by a bevy of situ­ations which dis­robe or oth­er­wise strip the numer­ous busty school­girls of their pride and decency. The open­ing epis­odes cater to a wide vari­ety of devi­ances and with many names from Kan­okon on this pro­duc­tion, the series is sure to be replete with many more.

“one the most flag­rant examples of the arrog­ant but ditsy arche­type so favoured by lazy writers”

Aki­haru Hino, for reas­ons not yet dis­closed, recently trans­ferred to the pres­ti­gi­ous Hak­ur­eiryou school which edu­cates both upcom­ing maids and but­lers as well as upper class ladies (and one gen­tle­man) on mat­ters such as etiquette and intense loaf­ing. After his dis­astrous intro­duc­tion to the snooty Sel­nia Flame­heart and a brief expos­ure to a num­ber of the mad­cap stu­dent body of the school, he runs into Tomomi Saikyo, a child­hood friend he had hoped to have left in his past. Remem­ber­ing her only as schem­ing and devi­ous, her pres­ence in the school is bizarre but not as much as Akiharu’s mis­ad­ven­tures dur­ing his ten­ure at the most bizarre of campuses.

To its credit, Ladies versus But­lers is unabashedly forth­right about its motives, the first three epis­odes are a les­son in how clum­si­ness and good inten­tions can lead to the most erotic of situ­ations; whether that is the humble breast grab or a more chal­len­ging half-clothed kama sutra pos­i­tion, the series wastes no time in thor­oughly exploit­ing its cast and premise. The short scenes which show the more chased parts of the female form are dropped in almost apo­lo­get­ic­ally to demon­strate that even when fol­low­ing two sea­sons of Queen’s Blade and air­ing dur­ing the same sea­son as the almost impossibly raunchy Seikon no Qwaser, it can be more than just tit­il­la­tion. Even with these short bath-based inter­ludes though the series is wholly unspec­tac­u­lar with tired setups and pre­dict­able out­comes to the most inane of situ­ations. The only note­worthy storyline is that of a dimin­ut­ive young girl who takes every oppor­tun­ity to remind both the aggress­ively bland prot­ag­on­ist and the audi­ence that she is in fact nine­teen, which some­how jus­ti­fies her naked­ness in the third episode.

Other char­ac­ters fair little bet­ter with the blonde female prot­ag­on­ist being one of the most flag­rant examples of the arrog­ant but ditsy arche­type so favoured by lazy writers and sub­stand­ard char­ac­ter design­ers. An intro­ver­ted boy the females have homo­sexual fantas­ies about and an overly clumsy, air­headed female fill in other sup­port­ing cast pos­i­tions to sup­ply the most unin­ter­est­ing cast pos­sible. Char­ac­ter designs fol­low from Kan­okon with a dis­tinct lack of noses the most prom­in­ent fea­ture with soul­less, dead eyes for all the females a close second. A dis­turb­ing lack of adher­ence to basic human char­ac­ter­ist­ics com­pletes the pack­age with Sel­nia Flame­heart own­ing more hair than could ever be pro­duced in a life­time, and all of the females sport over-inflated, gelat­in­ous bal­loons for breasts and nipples keen to con­tinu­ously exert as much pres­sure to whatever fab­ric restrains them.

In short, there is noth­ing to like about Ladies versus But­lers; unre­mark­able in every fash­ion the open­ing trio of epis­odes fail to enter­tain, amuse or tan­tal­ise and although bright and cheer­ful it is ulti­mately a blood­less rehash of so many stag­nant ideas. Prin­cess Lover, My-Otome, Maria-sama ga Miteru, Straw­berry Panic, the list of sim­il­arly pitched shows both recent and dis­tant grows ever longer and this does noth­ing to add or switch-up the staid premise. There are much more com­pet­ent com­ed­ies avail­able, just as there are more las­ci­vi­ous shows on both sides of the increas­ingly neg­li­gible line between racy fan-service and thinly veiled por­no­graphy. This is a series only for those with a dearth of time on their hands or a spe­cial place in their hearts for a caval­cade of con­ceited mis­tresses. ¶