Get a haircut.

Akira Tsubaki is fascinated by the new girl in his class. Who wouldn’t be? She’s really odd. She falls asleep at her desk every lunchtime instead of eating anything, she laughs out loud for no apparent reason, and she wears her hair in front of both eyes, so one wonders how she even sees where she’s going. One day Akira is the last to leave the classroom, just after mysterious new girl Mikoto Urabe has gone home, and he notices she has left a puddle of drool on her desk from when she was asleep. Akira decides to taste it, because he’s a revolting teenage boy (you get that I’m putting my own spin on things here, but… ew!) Akira subsequently develops a fever, and then Mikoto visits him and explains that he is suffering withdrawal symptoms from her slobber. That means two things: one, he is in love with her and she is more than happy to be his girlfriend, and two, she needs to provide him with some drool every day.

At this point you’re probably thinking that means a kiss each day, but no, this series never misses an opportunity to confound expectations and be gross and perverted instead, so once a day Mikoto shuffles around her lower jaw as if she’s rummaging around for the choicest saliva, sticks her finger in her mouth, and presents Akira with a dripping finger to suck on. The animators delight in showing her slimy finger each and every episode. I’m guessing this must play on some kind of a fetish, but, again… ew!

That’s a shame, because if you can get past the revolting spit fetish there is a lot of fun to be had with this series. Mikoto is really, really strange, and seems to have some kind of an ability to read minds and sense feelings through sharing drool, or tasting that of somebody else. We never see her parents, and there are other hints that led me to wonder if she is actually an alien, but the series never explicitly states that, and the idea (if that was the intention), is fudged by introducing secondary character Ayuko Oka (anime trope: pervy glasses-wearing girl) who also seems to have a similar gift of saliva-based telepathy. And I never thought I would by typing that phrase. Mikoto also has another trick up her sleeve… well, in her undercrackers, really. She keeps a pair of scissors in her knickers, and in times of trouble she whips them out (anime trope: lame excuse for panty shots) and displays a superhuman speed and talent at using them as a weapon.

There are few secondary characters apart from the highly irritating Ayuko. There is also her highly irritating boyfriend Kouhei, and Akira’s big sister Youko, who doesn’t really have much to do until the final episode, which seems like a strange time to focus on her for the first time. Apart from the main two, the only other character whose story interested me was Aika Hayakawa, Akira’s middle school crush, who crashes back into his life and threatens to derail his burgeoning relationship with Mikoto. She’s damaged by a failed relationship and she is incredibly manipulative of Akira, so it’s a great storyline that really brings the series to life for the first and only time. Being as this is a fanservice heavy series, the battle for Akira’s heart culminates in both girls stark naked in a classroom, putting Akira to a drool test. Naturally.

By the end of these 13 episodes (there’s an OVA which I haven’t seen) I was thoroughly sick of the word “drool”, and never could get past the instinct to feel a little bit queasy at the repeated sight of somebody feeding their saliva to somebody else, which I’m pretty sure the animators thought they were using as a tool to turn people on. I also found myself developing an irrational anger about Mikoto’s stupid hair, occasionally shouting “get a haircut!” at the screen. There were moments when the comedy really worked and I found this a fun series to watch, and there are some fabulous dream sequences, but in the end I wasn’t sorry to get to the end and was more than ready to move on to a different series. I suppose some viewers will get a kick out of the panty shots (anime trope: impractically tight underwear), and if you’re a fan of spit and scissors, well, all your Christmases just came at once. For anyone who isn’t a dribble connoisseur, you’ll probably want to steer clear of this one.   RP