Ore Twintails ni Narimasu (Gonna Be the Twintail!)

I’m glad this exists, but I’m not sure if it’s as good as it should’ve been. I do agree with the main character about twintails. It’s a beautiful hairstyle. Sadly, the anime connected to it is less than stellar. What is this? A celebration of fetishes? A satire of it? Is it making fun, laughing with me or all of the above? Why are last episodes so generic?

You’d think that a genre as overflowing as Harem would lead to tighly-focused anime. You have so many shows to learn from and yet the anime is still a confused mess. If it were just cliched, fine. Haganai was also cliche but at least it had focus. Twintails is too busy being confused over its genre to settle for a direction.


The obvious point of comparison is Date A Live. That underrated anime, while not amazing, was still a unique harem. It had a weird premise that turned the Action on its head and gave a new context for the Harem aspects.

The premise of Twintails doesn’t actually add anything. Our hero transforms into a girl and the enemies give big speeches about their favorite fetish. Every episode concludes with a lightshow and characters giving their attacks pet names. Thankfully we never get insight into how the battle system actually works – it wouldn’t make the lightshow any less dull.


Beyond the speeches and the fact our heroes all have twintails, the story is derivative and common. The creators clearly didn’t want just another story, but their attempts at turning the fetishes into plot points fail. Most of the time it’s just creepy fetishism. Borrowing the Hero’s Honor bullshit from JoJo doesn’t make your anime more diverse. It only highlights how confused the creators were. What does macho bullshit have to with twintails and harems?

It all ends with a big fight draped in red and black. The hero is full of doubts, about to lose the fight because they don’t have faith. Then suddenly he has an encounter outside of time. A figure speaks to him in a vision and he regains his love, screams the attack name and defeats the enemy. After that we see everyone going to school like nothing happened, with tsundere beating up the big-breasted girl as always.

Again, what does this has to do with, well, anything?


The whole structure is a mess, and it can’t be saved. None of the ingridients are worthwhile unless you focus on them. Heroic stories are a common template and fetish stories often sexually harass the audience. The anime at least doesn’t go too far in what in subjects the audience. Anyone looking for juicy screenshots will be disappointed. Still, even a messy plot can survive if the characters are good enough.

Even there the series fails, despite trying hard. Everyone is exaggerated and our main character, for a chance, has a personality. Although it’s not much, being an obsessive over something is definitely progress over typical heroism. In fact, there’s a specific moment where the MC reveals he’s driven more by his selfish obsession than saving the world. For a change, our Harem MC isn’t just a convenient moral compass.


Too bad everyone around him is an exagerrated archetype. If the creators could imagine funny situations in which these archetypes are effective, fine. How many times can the flat-chested childhood friend beat up the big-breasted new girl? There’s no difference between each time it happens. Twoearle makes something sexual and Aika beats her up.

The line between failures like these and successes like Neptunia are blurry. Both rely on silly archetypes, but Neptunia has wilder situations. Its archetypes are more well-thought out. They don’t govern just the funny situations but every aspect of the character lives. Here the quirks only rear their heads when it’s time to beat up the perverted girl. At some point, it becomes characters abuse. When your Harem comedy resembles Saw in its treatment of characters, something is wrong.


Even the visual design doesn’t rescue it. Shows like this are an example why sexy character design is a positive thing. Although all the girls are meant to be pretty, nothing about their design is interesting. Twoearle is closest thing to a good visual idea. Although twintails are an awesome hairstyle, the show does nothing with it. Generic big eyes are all you have left. The battle suits are also typical pieces of metal stuck on bodies. The enemies are equally just blobs of metal, a macho mess inspired by an animal but no different than a Transformer

The series starts off being some fun and the concept is ridiculous enough. This is another case where a Harem anime doesn’t take advantage of its silly premise. What’s disappointing in these anime is that they’re never as outlandish as they promise. In the end, this isn’t a story about how glorious twintails are. It’s just another anime with heroes in dull outfits who shout attack names and beats blobs of metal.

2 twintails out of 5

Hyperdimension Neptunia: The Animation






















3 plushies out of 5