Maid-chan no Anime: Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata (How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend)

Konnichiwa! Maid-chan desu!

It all started when otaku Aki Tomoya saw a girl and a flying hat. He was struck by an idea: make a dating sim game!

Maid-chan likes when an anime uses cliches to tell a story about cliches. It is her sense of humor. Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata tries exactly that, starting in a train with the protagonists saying that telling the story right on start in a retrospection is a bad stereotype, and starting to tell the story.

And of course the train is en route to an onsen, where typical activities await the male lead.

In episode 2 we are at the real start, where the flying hat scene sparks the otaku’s inspiration. Unfortunately for Tomoya he doesn’t remember anything about the hat-girl and this is bad. Because she should be the heroine of his game! Tomoya has to find her! But how do you find a girl you don’t know?

Luckily the girls finds him. Tomoya is surprised to meet her at school, and even more surprised to find out that she is actually his classmate. Maid-chan is used to a lot of stupidity and ignorance of humans, especially males in harem animes, but how can even a lowly otaku male human be so stupid? Incredible! By the way, these are girl and hat:

Kato Megumi, Type: ordinary classmate. Alignment: boringly neutral.

Megumi is not impressed by Tomoya’s ignorance, but somehow finds herself agreeing to be the heroine of the game-in-making. Perhaps Tomoya should have thought again about this, because Megumi is not exactly dating game stuff. She is about as excitable as a block of melting ice and as visible as air.

But that is of course not everything that troubles the wannabe game maker. Tomoya needs staff to make the game, especially a writer and an illustrator. He already knows who he wants in this role, but they don’t want to be.

First is Eriri Spencer Sawamura for illustrations. Type: blonde, twin tail tsundere. Aligment: childhood friend.

In school Eriri plays the role of the pure princess, but in the dark confines of her home she draws lecherous doujinshi that her parents have to sell, because Eriri is legally not old enough to have such things.

The two were close otaku friends, but currently Eriri holds a grudge against Tomoya. Will our hero be able to overcome this problem, become Eriri’s prince and get her to make the game’s illustrations? Or will he stumble into a bad end of Eriri’s route?

Maid-chan will not tell you, but it is not that hard to guess, right?

But what about the story? It has to be a good one. And for Tomoya that means a certain author.

Kasumigaoka Utaha. Type: outwards: Yamato Nadeshiko (Japanese Beauty) inwards: sadistically teasing schemer. Alignment: senpai.

Utaha is Tomoya’s senpai and young author on the stairs to great success. She places a big weight on Tomoyas judgement of her writing. Utaha also likes to tease Tomoya by calling him Mister Ethical and (al)luring him with her soft, ample breasts… HEY! YOU! Come back from your dreams or Maid-chan has to send an electric shock to you!

Anyway, even with an illustrator and a writer the game needs more. Music. This is a big problem until one day another girl appears.

Hyōdō Michiru, Type: carefree, slightly genius happy-go-lucky. Alignment: cousin.

Michiru suddenly turns up in Tomoyas house, saying she has run away from her parents. Her appearance is especially troublesome to Eriri, since cousin beats childhood friend easily on the “have a history together” scale.

Michiru does not like the anime fetish of Tomoyo and even tries to throw away some of his goods. She especially does not understand why she should help Tomoyo with his game. She wants to play with her band, nothing more. But there is something she does not know about that band and that finally leads to her doing the music for the game, after some struggle for her and Tomoya.

Conclusion

Maid-chan likes when an anime uses cliches to tell a story about cliches. Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata tries exactly that, and mostly delivers. While the anime is unsurprisingly easy to predict, it seldom feels “old”. But in a few cases the cliches get too strong.
Maid-chan would especially have liked to see a more fleshed out Megumi. There are hints about and from her about her stances, but the anime always goes on instantly.

Maid-chan has the strong feeling that the episode number does not align to the story, in whatever way. Or more likely the anime tries to show the game routes all in one and has problems with that.

Whatever the reason, something feels off in what is otherwise a good, winking take on otakudom. All in all Saenai barely gets to a 7/10 on the totally objective Maid-chan scale.

Did you guys ever participate in the making of a game or an (art)book that was published?

See you next time!