Another of those off the hook shows, the capaciously titled “Shimoneta: A Boring World Where the Concept of Dirty Jokes Doesn’t Exist” (“Shimoneta to Iu Gainen ga Sonzai Shinai Taikutsu na Sekai^”) also really takes the concept of an alternate universe to…uh…an alternate universe. In future Japan (in trying to puzzle together the timeline, it could be, like, 2056), the Morality Police have cracked down on any and all things prurient and immoral, so no hentai, no ecchi, no eroge games, not even certain words are allowed in this squeaky clean and spiritually pure society.

Everyone wears a ‘morality collar’ (for wont of a better term), which is called a Peace Maker, that analyzes every spoken word for any action that could break the law. A new high-school student named Tanukichi Okuma (Mr. Shocked back there to the right) enters the country’s leading elite “public morals school” to reunite with his crush and student council President, Anna Nishikinomiya (Ms. Distraught Blue Eyes). However, Tanukichi quickly finds himself entwined with the perverted terrorist “Tundra Blue” when she kidnaps and forces him to join her organization, “SOX,” in creating and spreading pornographic material across the city.

The series tells a variety of tales regarding the fight against this “Big Brother” world and that sometimes the Morality Police are more perverted than what they are fighting against. Also on the student council is Ayame Kajou (glasses). She and Takunichi share the same problem: both are children of men who fought against these perversity laws to their disgrace and are viewed with varying degrees of suspicion and mistrust. We also have Raiki Gouriki (farthest right), the treasurer, who looks and acts like a big gorilla. The last lady is Otome Saotome (far left), an art prodigy whose work has gotten stale and needs something more challenging, more daring, more expressive of her talents and abilities. She also joins SOX to make these very arousing drawings and stories. With a pencil in her mouth (let it unfold during the show).

The thing is that Anna’s mom is the driving force behind these Peace Makers and wants the next gen to be released, which will also be able to detect hand movements as well, so there is a great rush to stop this. But we also see that all of this closeting from these crass things has made Anna a major pervert, as she discovers her ‘needs’ and the by-product of all of that. I feel the show would have been better if Ayama wasn’t so smutty about the whole thing.

She has a special device on her phone that lets her curse freely and discuss vulgar things for about three minutes a day. But she is the very reason that Anna’s mom did all this: we are being crude just to be crude and are subjected to an unrelenting stream of poor double entendres and smutty comments and obscene gestures just to be so (pay attention to the opening credits on this angle of it). There is also another, late-entry, character, Kosuri Onigashira, who, from the back, looks like a penis and THAT is used to rather puerile ends. This is a shame, as the battles they wage against the forces of tyranny are magnificent in both scope and results. And when other groups make the scene, presenting a type of unified offense, it is now a multi-front battle.

This was a good concept, but the messenger was not as effective as it could have been and the social commentary portion was sunken under a misapplied deluge of gratuitous grossness. Yes, it is funny, but can I take you seriously when you wear an outfit made completely of stolen panties? Still, there is more to be expected from the second season, as the conclusion of the first left the promise of a veritable One Piece of ecchi that has yet to be plumbed. I just wished they approached things a bit more mature than treating it like a trip to Spencer Gifts and going to the ‘naughty’ portion of the store. *sigh*

On a scale of 1 to 10:

Artwork           8 (Everyone looks marvelous for the most part)
Plot                  8 (Daring take on the world)
Pacing              7 (Gets bogged down in the smut parts)
Effectiveness   7 (Not fully utilized)
Conclusion       7 (It reaches a ‘coupler’, but hasn’t ended)
Fan Service      9 (A similar show would be “Eiken”)

Overall            7 (Misapplied approach to things)

And remember, it’s first run until you’ve seen it. Where DO babies come from?