I made that word up just now because nothing describes Moetan better. This is a very perverted, very Japanese show. If you are new to anime this probably isn’t the place to start. This show is basically one big long loli fan service. It’s hard to take it seriously though, because it so intensely loli fan service oriented that it’s practically self-parody. It’s certainly a good series for over-the-top comedy.
Moetan is of somewhat interesting origin however; Moetan is actually considered an ‘educational’ series. Originally a manga, Moetan is actually an English language study aid created by Sansai Books. Moetan’s name actually is an abbreviation of “‘Methodology Of English, The Academic Necessity’, however; it is fairly obvious this was a play on the words moe and tan, both being used to represent cuteness in a girl. The show has frequent scenes where the main character, known as Ink, tutors a classmate known as Nao-kun whom she secretly has a huge crush on. She conceals her true identity, Nijihara Ink, as a magical girl who refers to herself as Pastel Ink. They basically look exactly the same with different hair color, but somehow nobody seems to notice.
Nobody, that is, except her classmate and rival in both love and magical girlness; Sumi Kuroi. Everyone’s obliviousness plays a part in the humor of the show as Ink and Kuroi quite often use their powers where anyone could see them, but they somehow think nothing of it.
Ink gained her magical powers from a magician she refers to as Ah-kun who was left in her world in the form of a duck after being banished from the magical kingdom he came from. He gets a nosebleed every time Ink transforms to her magical girl form–for those that don’t know; nosebleeds are a Japanese pop culture representation of strong sexual attraction. Ink is naked during her transformation sequence, so Ah-kun gets to see various things that are illegal in many countries, if you catch my meaning.
One of my favorite parts of the show is the english tutoring scenes. The phrases that Ink try to teach to Nao-kun are almost always direct rants from the production staff about how difficult there jobs are. It makes for much amusement hearing characters in an anime talk about how poorly drawn things are and such things as that.
Also, this guy is awesome. He’s always running into a scene, making some pedophile remark and then running off before a police officer shows up seconds later asking if anyone has scene a ‘suspicious man’. His entrances are, as you can see in the picture below, overly dramatic and hilarious.
It’s not exactly what you’d expect an ‘educational anime’ to be like, but who am I to argue? It’s hilarious; that’s all that matters to me. If you haven’t seen a wide variety of anime you will probably miss several of the references, but it’s still a very watchable show and is very entertaining. If you like over-the-top somewhat perverted humor than this is the show for you!
All sorts of cool Moetan stuff is available at Play-Asia.
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