Consider this a sort of a pre-first impressions, as it’s based on a pre-airing of the first Araburu Kisetsu no Otome-domo yo..  As far as I know it is the entire premiere episode apart from the opening and closing credit sequences, but I can’t even be sure of that.  The thing is, with nothing else on my docket tonight, I had to give this one a go.  During the first week of the season I simply can’t afford to have downtime – I intro so many series that once the schedule kicks into high gear, I’m wrung dry as it is.

The story with O Maidens in Your Savage Season more or less tells itself – a series about sex-obsessed high school girls written by Okada Mari, based on her own co-authored manga no less.  It’s directed by Andou Masahiro, a huge name in his own right and sometime-odd couple partner with Okada, but given the premise it’s really Okada’s name that goes above the title.  Whatever one expected from this premiere based on her track record, it’s a pretty fair bet that they got it (for better or worse), but that doesn’t mean it was totally predictable.

All in all I’d say this was quite a good start, though it should be pointed out that when it comes to original series anime Okada almost always starts better than she finishes (we’ll see if the fact that it’s based on her manga changes that).  It was wildly over the top of course – the synopsis is not at all misleading – and the fact that seemingly half the episode seemed to consist of the girls pulling ridiculous faces accentuated that.  But Okada knows how to write genuine emotion when she chooses to, and there’s enough of a serious story here to prevent Araburu from degenerating into nothing more than a raunchy ecchi comedy (though it’s definitely that too).

Of the five girls in the high school literature club at the center of the story, Onoedera Kazusa (Kono Hiyori) seems to be the most important.  And her two relationships seem to be the spine of the narrative.  Her best friend (we know, because they keep saying it) is Sudou Momoka (Asakura Momo).  And her childhood friend and neighbor is the wildly popular good boy Izumi Norimoto (Tsuchiya Shimba), who she’s clearly in love with, and it’s probably reciprocal.  Kazusa seems to be the most “normal” member of the club (i.e., the protagonist) and Izumi a very innocent sort, but if she’s thinking about sex all the time it’s a pretty good bet he is too.

The rest of the club is president Sonezaki Rika (Uesaka Sumire) – who loves to read about sex in “literature” but professes to be disgusted by talk of it in real life – Hongou Hirohara (Kurosawa Tomoyo), plain-spoken and bold, and the demure and beautiful Sugawara Niina (Anzai Chika).  She’s the one who first comes right out and says “I want to have sex” – the context being a discussion of a new “bucket list” novel by the club’s favorite author – and even though all the girls feel the same way, having Sugawara admit it openly seems to change the equation for everyone.  It certainly does for Kazusa.

There’s a lot of good stuff here.  Okada can certainly write dialogue, and she’s deft at depicting the long knives world of high school social manouvering (especially where the girls are concerned).  The difficulty in Kazusa and Izumi’s situation is especially cutting – just by being associated with him she brings a rain of scorn down on herself from girls higher up the social ladder, who deem her “boring” and unworthy of him.  And the way the popular girls – with some help from the guys – rip Sonezaki for her supposed ugliness has a raw edge to it, though she is defended by Amagiri Shun (Hirose Yuuya), which suggests a possible second romantic pairing could be in the offing.

The fact is, anime in its current form is overrun with series sexualizing adolescent girls in one way or the other – at least here it’s a woman writer doing it, and there’s no pretense about sex’ role at the heart of this story.  That gives Araburu Kisetsu no Otome-domo yo. a certain honestly that most high school romance series lack, which is why the premiere is so appealing.  The rub, of course, is whether Okada can rein in her tendency to indulge her love of excess and blow up the story in the process, but we won’t have an answer on that for quite some time.

Edit: Having now seen the final scene which takes place after the pre-air version ends, I thought I should comment on that.  In the first place, I was actually kinda relieved because I was worried Izumi would be having sex with one of the girls from school.  I’ll be very interested to see where Okada goes with this, because truthfully – and let’s be 100% clear here – Kazusa is 100% in the wrong here.  She walked into Izumi’s house and then entered his room without knocking.  She’s also a total hypocrite for being obsessed with sex and then being upset that Izumi dares to think about it.  But logic is one thing and emotional reactions another – I have no problem with the way she reacted in the moment, but I will have a problem if Okada treats it as if she’s in the right.