Hello there. This is review number thirty five. This anime is also part of the Spring 2012 line up. It’s an anime I had on my “must watch” list but something I was completely hesitant to try. It’s Mysterious Girlfriend X and I don’t really know why there is an “X” in the title. Watching the anime didn’t answer that question too.

The anime had drool as a selling appeal. I dunno. It’s not really an exciting premise but f*ck it, let’s try it. It’s thirteen episodes long and it’s tagged as romance and ecchi. Oh boy, I wonder what the anime is about. Let’s read on.

Story

The story is about Akira Tsubaki who meets the new transfer student, Mikoto Urabe. Urabe is an anti-social loner who sleeps on her desk, carries a pair of scissors in her underwear and breaks out in sudden fits of insane laughter but there’s something about her that Tsubaki just can’t quite put his finger on. One day, he decided to put his finger in a pool of drool Mikoto left as she wakes up and leaves the school. He then got sick and the fever wouldn’t go away until Mikoto come to his house to tell him he is going through withdrawal. He is addicted to Mikoto’s drool. A taste of her drool got him better and so the two would meet every day to have Tsubaki taste Mikoto’s drool.

Tsubaki wants more though. He wants her to be his girlfriend.

Taking the Pants Off

I certainly had a nice experience watching this anime. My sister once read the manga and I was able to get a glimpse of what it was about. When it aired during Spring, I was a bit hesitant to try it. It’s no secret that the anime is about drool. The rather erotic form of exchanging spit. I’ve seen it in hentai before and mouth to mouth exchange is actually pretty cool. In this anime, they gather some up of their spit in their pointing finger and ask the other person to suck the saliva. Its…unpleasant. Yes, when I first watched the anime I was disgusted and I’m not the kind of guy who is easily disgusted. I think I just found my threshold.

What is the anime about? If you’ve got your common sense radar on, you’d know that the title had “girlfriend” in it. It’s a romance anime. It was tagged as an ecchi anime and watching the first episode, I thought the anime was going in that direction. The ecchi is minimal and almost nonexistent. There are a couple of panty shots, naked scenes and talk about sex but it isn’t that important to the plot. The only reason there is a slight sprinkling of ecchi here is because our hero, Akira Tsubaki, is a very sexually frustrated individual. The anime is mostly romance and light hearted innocent flirting.

If it’s fairly innocent then why the drool? I honestly asked myself the same question countless times. I think the exchanging of saliva is just a theme to make the anime unique. It certainly is. No other anime, so far, has explored the wonders of exchanging bodily fluids. The drool is actually very important in the plot and it gives us a layer of mystery. When the characters exchange drool, they would feel whatever emotion the person feels at the moment. If a character is horny and another character tastes the spit, they’d feel horny too even showing signs of being horny. It even goes as far as exchanging pain. When a person skinned his knees, the person who tastes his spit would get skinned knees too. The anime never explains why or how it happens other than convincing the other person that they have a special bond. Yes, not everyone would feel your feelings if you exchange saliva with him. It only happens with the person you have a deep connection with or, simply put, the person you love.

So there is sort of something magical and enchanting about tasting someone’s spit. It’s not just a random erotic fetish the characters have with each other. The premise is shocking but after the shock is gone, you’d soon realize the anime is just a normal romance anime. It’s like eating spaghetti with mayonnaise. The mayo ruins the taste but it’s still essentially spaghetti.

So the story is fairly normal. The classic boy meets girl setup. The boy becomes infatuated with the girl. He tastes her spit, they become close and then they become an item. The rest of the story revolves around the two characters getting to know each other and slowly doing things usual couples do. The two slowly learns how to be comfortable with each other. Each episode gives us more reason why their love is true and why they are meant for each other.

The pacing is ridiculously slow though. Snail paced even. The slightest chance for the guy to hold the girl’s hand is one of the best moments of the anime. Why? It’s because it takes freaking three episodes for it to happen. What happens in between? Well the boy, being an honest shy guy, hesitates on the things he wants to do with his girlfriend. Sadly, our heroine is very hard to read so it’s hard to gauge if she actually wants to hold hands with her boyfriend or not. It actually got frustrating the way the pacing goes. Half way through, I just want the two of them to have sex and get it over with.

I must admit that some of their moments were charming and cute. The unspoken feelings they hold for each other is sweet. Some of their soul baring exchanges were very romantic. Sadly, majority of the anime is slow paced romance I’ve seen done better in other anime. Even School Days had a decent pacing. The anime fixes this by adding other interesting elements to the show. The girl talk between Urabe and the big breasted friend named Oka was fun as they exchange talk about having a boyfriend. Actually, some of the plot development wouldn’t even have happened without Oka’s intervention. Oka seems to understand how a relationship is done and she has an idea of how a guy thinks. Urabe is so clueless that at times that Oka would plant ideas on her head. The farthest skinship they have achieved was thanks to Oka’s intervention. It’s really surreal how large of a role this supporting character had.

The anime had a good balance of romance and drool so the anime does work out fine despite the slow pacing. The drool got easier to watch but I still had to close my eyes at times. I even almost puked when Tsubaki tasted some from a test tube. I dunno, hour old spit isn’t that fun to watch. I did eventually got used to it so I’m sure other people will too. It’ll be a shame if it turns you off when the anime had a nice blossoming romance to tell.

Sight and Sound

The anime looks very plain but interesting at the same time. The character design is very plain. Nothing stands out as visually striking and the characters loosely resemble those from Love Hina or some other anime from awhile back. The background is astounding though. I love the orange sky the anime have when the characters meet on their parting place. It even turned red at some of the episodes and it was the best visual the anime gave.

Some of the background music is worth noting though. At some scenes, there is an instrumental background that plays along with the mood of the anime. There are some nice piano arrangements when the characters do a heart to heart talk and there are some mysterious flute sounds at some of the odd moments in the anime.

The OP and ED were great. It was very catchy. At first, I would’ve written it off as generic and your typical opening/ending songs but they grow on you. Koi no Orchestra by Ayako Yoshitani is the opening song and I appreciated the song much better when I realized that it was sang by the voice of Urabe. It was her normal voice so it was great to the ears comparing it to the out of place voice of Urabe. The opening sequence is also praise worthy because the two characters did a lot of romantic things there than it the actual anime. Plus, Urabe was smiling in some of the scenes.

The ending song, Houkago no Yakusoku, also sang by Ayako had a girl-ish theme to it and the ending sequence was nice to watch. Sleeping girls with drool going down their chin was sort of like a test to the viewers. It was odd at first but as you enjoy the anime, you’ll enjoy the drooling sleeping beauties too.

Overall Score

6/10 “Slow paced romance with an interesting premise.”

You can’t fool me. I know my romance anime and even if you pile on weird fetishes in it, the fact remains that the story is our normal slow paced anime. The anime did a great job making the story all about the couple though and nothing else. If you’re looking for a different kind of romance then this anime will do it. A few shock and a few WTF moments but an overall pleasing anime nonetheless.