Honestly, I think the story behind Kunoichi Tsubaki no Mune no Uchi is more interesting than the series itself.  It’s a low bar, as the series isn’t especially interesting, but still.  It’s fair to ask – how many serialized manga does a mangaka need?  Yamamoto Souichirou has no less than four – and three of them (this series, Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san, and Soredemo Ayumu wa Yosetekuru) he both writes and draws the art.  Four – at once?  It makes me wonder if assistants are doing an awful lot of the actual work.  Not because I have any reason to doubt Yamamoto-sensei, but sheer reality – how can one person do 3.5 weekly manga serializations simultaneously?

The real kicker is that as of summer, all three of Yamamoto’s main series will have gotten adaptations.  I think Karakai Jouzu is the clear lead dog in the stable – it’s the only one with a spinoff (and it’s had two).  But Soredemo Ayumu has a fairly high profile and decent sales in its own right.  That leaves Kunoichi Tsubaki no Mune no Uchi as the forgotten sibling to an extent.  To be honest until the anime was announced I’d never even heard of it.  I’m pretty certain if it didn’t already have an already well-established figure behind it an anime would never have happened.  But of course that doesn’t mean it can’t be deserving of one – just look at Majimoji Rurumo (from Yowapeda mangaka Watanabe Wataru).

Unfortunately, I don’t see anything in this premiere to make me think it ranks with Yamamoto’s best work.  There’s basically one joke here and it’s not all that funny to begin with.  We have a young girl (the titular Tsubaki) who lives in an all-female ninja village where contact with males is strictly prohibited.  Naturally enough for a teenager, Tsubaki becomes obsessed with the mystery of men.  And because the girls in the village have had no contact with them, their image of the opposite sex consists mainly of preposterous urban (rural?) legends.

I have a friend in the movie business who’s fond of saying “you can’t copyright an idea, only an execution of an idea”.  I don’t know if this idea is funny (I have my suspicions) but I know that this execution is not.  It’s just a lot of double entendres and soft ecchi shots of young girls.  The premise feels worn out after about seven minutes and never gathers any momentum after that.  If a gag comedy built around one gag is going to work, it better be a damn good one.  This isn’t.  This show isn’t egregiously awful or anything – just utterly forgettable and kind of lazy.  Maybe it has an audience out there but for my part, I’ll wait for Soredemo Ayumu and the Takagi-san movie.