The high school genre is one I have professed indifference to in the past but I started Mysterious Girlfriend X because it was one of the few titles from the winter 2012 crop that interested me. I was attracted by its short length, character design and art. At only 13 episodes and easily available on Crunchyroll, I figured I would spend a short sojourn with a weird tale peopled with characters that reminded me of anime from the 90’s.
The anime is based on Riichi Ueshiba’s manga and follows Akira Tsubaki who is your relatively normal high school kid (normal in anime terms).
He has a burgeoning interest in girls. He manages to keep things contained until he meets a strange transfer student named Mikoto Urabe. She is genuinely strange since she likes to sleep during class breaks and carries scissors hidden in her underwear.
Late one afternoon, Akira catches Mikoto asleep after class. He tries to wake her up and catches sight of her drool on the desk in the afternoon sun… and he tastes her drool… and he becomes addicted to it… and he develops something of a psychic connection with her… and this leads to Akira going out with her and discovering more about her. And this is how the strange story begins…
With a main female protagonist who keeps scissors in her panties and a main male protagonist who is a complete wimp with a fetish for girl’s drool I was hardly expecting psychological realism but with its strange drool-based premise it seemed like it could echo something like J.G. Ballard’s Rushing to Paradise where a twisted tale of psycho-sexual mind-games could make an interesting story full of power-plays between characters with weird psychologies and not just another fan-service show. Alas no. I was being foolish thinking such a thing…
Genkinahito 