When you are a young youth, you have hopes and dreams and fantasies. One of them is that there will be a girl who likes you for you and you can have a lot of romantic events. Another is that you are needed to help people along, just by being you. Well, what if that came to pass? Thus is the plot idea for “Shomin Sample” (“Shomin Sample: I Was Abducted by an Elite All-Girls School as a Sample Commoner” or “Ore ga Ojōsama Gakkō ni ‘Shomin Sanpuru’ Toshite Rachirareta Ken”) and what a massive title that is for anything.
Kimito Kagurazaka is an ordinary high school student (and can you find Mr Ordinary?). One day, he is forcefully enrolled in All-Girls School Seikain, where its noble female students are cut off from the rest of the world to preserve their innocence and allow them to focus fully on their top-notch education. However, this deep isolation leaves a large number of school graduates fully and completely unprepared to be with the world, especially with interactions with males (who make up about half the population of the world, more or less).
To deal with this problem, the school has decided to kidnap a male commoner, Kimito, hoping that his “common man’s” influence will be a gentle way to introduce the girls to the realities of life outside. Unfortunately for Kimito, the school only considered him a candidate for this project because they thought that he was a homosexual with a male muscle fetish. The truth is he is a Thighmaster, as he is really attracted to that part of the ladies’ anatomy (he has a couple of posters to that effect). Therefore, the school concluded (potentially incorrectly) that Kimito is no threat to the innocent girls’ chastity. Once he learns that he will face castration and get dumped from the school should this be proven otherwise, he has no choice but to cooperate. Wow, and I though my high school entrance exam was tough.
Despite interacting with the whole student body (about 1000 ladies), we concentrate on four of them, plus some sidebar help. Left to right:
Miyuki Kujō, Kimito’s ‘personal’ maid, although she would like nothing more than if he were dead.
Hakua Shiodome, child math genius who sometimes strips while writing complex formulae.
Reiko Arisugawa, the most perfect person in school. Everyone wants to be like her.
Aika Tenkūbashi, very shy and wants the other girls to like her.
Karen Jinryō, carries a katana with her and also wants to kill Kimito.
Eri Hanae, Kimito’s childhood friend and an idol voice actress.
As a commoner, it is his job to show the ladies what the real world is like. I mean, they haven’t even seen or used a cell phone! Ramen is like ambrosia and when they make a trip to Akihabara, Katy bar the door! With the exception of Hakua stripping down, this is a standard fish-out-of-water show. Their education into history, mathematics, philosophy, grammar and science is beyond reproach. If you can’t figure out how to operate the subway system, you are in deep sushi. We do see the eventual awakening of awareness that there is more than the cloistered world that we all live in and that emotions play a huge part in one’s life. They do comment that Hakua seems more personable and even Karen is less murderous with Kimito around.
All in all, it is a wacky show, as Kimito has real feelings for these ladies, but cannot show it, having to contend himself with manly men and their marvelous thighs. At the very least, he is getting a quality education. And we have a second season to look forward towards.
On a scale of 1 to 10:
Artwork 8 (Damn, those girls are cute)
Plot 7 (Pretty standard)
Pacing 7 (Sitcom madness)
Effectiveness 8 (Good use of ‘reminders’)
Conclusion 7 (It reaches a ‘coupler point’, but hasn’t ended)
Fan Service 2 (A similar show would be “Okamisan”)
Overall 7 (Could have used a bit more bite)
And remember, it’s first run until you’ve seen it. Everyone has one of these?
