Well, that’s better. For a change with this season, I came into a series with low expectations and enjoyed it more than I expected.

To be sure, there’s no reason to suspect this is going to be spectacular. I’m not crazy about the character designs CD/AD Haruo Ogawara has put together. the BGM is abysmal, and the OP/ED didn’t make much of an impression. And the setup is about as generic as you can get for one of these adaptations. City boy moves to the country, vague memories of events spent there as a child, girls of every archetype show up, lots of mishaps and sexual innuendo. Without a doubt, been there and done that.

But this is done with a certain amount of wit, and carries a certain charm. The brazen nature of the sexual humor is refreshingly free of double entendre-based delivery. The situations in the first episode played out in a fairly clever way – male lead Kazuma’s disastrous slog through the woods to retrieve his otouto’s hat from a thieving monkey was a lot more involving than the description would have you believe. And the anime did a nice job of setting the scene at the onsen ryokan where the story will unfold.

It’s too early to declare this a success, if for no other reason than we can’t say where we’re going with the characters. Kazuma is about as vanilla as a lead can be at this point, and it remains to be seen if little brother Ayumu will be anything more than a shota moeblob. We met a few of the girls but don’t know enough to really place them in context with the story yet, though their respective tropes are clear enough. We even have the requisite horny and dirty-minded onee-san in whose care the brothers are placed. They’re all fine so far, though no one stands out.

I look forward to the second ep because I enjoyed watching the first one – pretty basic stuff. it certainly blew Ore-taichi’s premiere out of the water, and I’ve said from the start I’d be happy if one of those two series proved to be a keeper.