High schoolers form a club. Two of them can read books that reveal the future.

It had some good ideas, but most of the show ended up being pointless fluff, like attending club meetings, planning for the school festival, that kind of thing. The idea with the books that could foretell the future could have been neat, but the show refused to delve into any of the ethical issues surround this. Instead, it boiled down to a question of “Do I want to make friends or be alone?” Somehow for most of the show he chose to be alone. Whatever… I don’t think this is a very hard or particularly insightful question…

I actually thought the show was pretty good as far as the harem aspects went (well, you know, pretty good for what it is). The characters are much more interesting than usual for these kinds of shows. There was best girl (well, until the stupid twist where she became Imouto) who was a total slob, there’s the idol girl who has insecurities and blatantly hits on the main dude, and there was the main girl who was kind of boring but was entertaining for how she reacted to continually being one-upped by everyone else. There were some others too who I don’t remember. But anyway, the main girls were more interesting than usual.

Also the fanservice was quite excellent. Many shows seem to think that to do just showing nudity and panty shots is how to do fanservice. But Daitoshokan outdid most of them in this department with barely any loss of clothes at all. It’s more about the atmosphere than the nakedness.

All in all, a pretty forgettable show, but I still somewhat enjoyed watching it.

• Storytelling – D – Meandering, unfocused.
• Voice -C – It does have a distinctive feel but I can’t quite put my finger on how to describe it. Perhaps the audience kind of gets wrapped up in the main character’s sense of passive indifference.
• Characters – C – Imouto and idol were great. Main characters were decent too.
• Attention Grab – C – Some episodes dragged a lot.
• Production – D – Wasn’t impressed.
• Overall – D+

Recommendations – Hyouka