This is another of those ‘move-in’ animes, but done with a lot more interest and characters. “Invaders of the Rokujyōma!?” (“Rokujōma no Shinryakusha!?”, “Invaders of the Six-Tatami Mat Room!?”) starts off with Kōtarō Satomi (can you find the studly stud?). He decided that he wanted to live on his own when he began high school, and chose Room 106 of Corona House because it was cheap. (Dude, beware of room rents that are way too low. He’s paying 5000 yen a month! Look what happened!) Unfortunately, Kōtarō soon discovers that numerous otherworldly and supernatural girls also want his room for various reasons of their own. Well, he isn’t going to give it up ($50 a month? You can’t even get a storage shed for that!), and the ladies equally aren’t about to back down. As a result, Kōtarō and the girls find themselves forced to live together as they try to settle just who ends up with the room.

Let us meet all of the players, eh? From left to right:

Theiamillis Gre Fortorthe. Called Theia or Tulip, she is an intergalactic alien princess from planet Fortorthe. She must capture the room and subdue Kōtarō to prove her worthiness as a successor to the throne.
Shizuka Kasagi. She is the landlady of Corona house and had all the participants sign a contract regarding the room competition.
Yurika Nijino. She is a genuine magical girl, but a bit clumsy. The room contains high levels of magical power that she needs.
Kotaro.
Sanae Higashihongan. She is a ghost that haunts this room and is a poltergeist, so she can fling physical objects.
Kiriha Kurano. A descendant of the Earth People who moved underground, she needs the room to rebuild a shrine.
Around Kiriha are Karama and Korama, her battle drones.
Ruthkhania Nye Pardomshiha. Also known as ‘Ruth’, she is Theia’s servant. Ruth often gives useful advice to her master.

To this end, a series of games and tasks are presented to everyone. The room is divided into five tatami zones (the sixth zone is a neutral spot) and if you win, you gain room space and if you lose, room space disappears. The show follows all the struggles and machinations everyone goes through to get this Most Important Spot on the face of the earth. Now, if this wasn’t bad enough, the Sun Squad makes an appearance.

This appears to be a volunteer group, who are dedicated to finding and defeating the Earth People, but have more zeal than intelligence and spend most of their time eating or playing video games. When they are called forth, well, there’s a reason you don’t skip practice sessions. They are about as useful as a buggy whip at the Indy 500.

Overall, it was an interesting show, as everyone was allowed to present what they had. It’s just too bad that Yurika came off as both annoying and useless. And her one chance to shine gets taken from her. There was a high degree of goofy settings (you’re playing Twister to determine the fate of the world?) but it never got to anything really serious, so the whole thing comes off as frothy and a second season on the horizon, as nothing got settled. However, there were some hints dropped that things might get darker, but we’ll wait to see.

On a scale of 1 to 10:

Artwork 8 (Everyone is sooooo cute)
Plot 7 (Could have been utilized better)
Pacing 7 (Moves along consistently)
Effectiveness 7 (A bit too zig zag for its own good)
Conclusion 7 (It reaches a ‘coupler’, but doesn’t really end)
Fan Service 4 (A similar show would be “Gurren Lagann”)

Overall 7 (Lacks a bit of edge)

And remember, it’s first run until you’ve seen it. Honor the agreement.