Otoko no Ko wa Meido Fuku ga Osuki (input needed)

This page has already been cut, but has been appealed, and someone flagged the page for content evaluation. Here's the text on the appeals page:

Assuming that's accurate, my main question is just what demographic its aimed at.

http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=60751

It's listed as shounen ai, which usually means there's nothing too explicit involved.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm...

Lemme see lemme see lemme seeeeeeee...

Bakaupdates says "Shounen" and "Shonen Ai"...

edited 7th May '12 11:42:32 AM by Raidouthe21st

The original was a web-only series of illustrated short stories, and I have no clue whatsoever as to who it was aimed at (besides "male"). The manga adaptation seems to have run in Comp Ace, which is small enough that the JMPA doesn't seem to have any info on it, the English Wikipedia thinks it's seinen, the Japanese Wikipedia thinks it's shonen.

Incidentally, Baka-Updates uses "shonen-ai" for all nonexplicit guy-on-guy regardless of audience; this work is Otokonoko Genre (for men), not Boys' Love Genre (for women).

...That's really a thing now?

Wow. That explains a lot about the story's premise.

The English Wikipedia thinks it's seinen? I haven't been able to find a page on the damned thing at all.

If it's just crossdressing...it should be OK.

How old are the characters?

Is there any sex?

Do the characters look pre-teen?

Age of the main chars...I'm thinking Japan's middle school range, which would be teenagerdom, based on comments from one of them...really can't tell, it's all shoujo-ish artstyle.

Sex? None, thank god.

Do they look pre-teen...

Yes. But, then again, they've got the whole "bright wide-eyed androgynous look" thing going on, so it's hard to tell.

edited 7th May '12 11:57:17 AM by Raidouthe21st

So it's teenagers dressed as girls. There's not any panty shots or weirdness is there?

Panty shots...

It's been a while, and like hell am I going to read through all 7 chapters again, but I think there's more than a few, yeah.

Lemme recheck the first chapter...

Edit: Only two in the first chapter. Solely for the Dropped A Bridget On Him reveal, otherwise it keeps away from that sort of thing.

As for other weirdness...like mentioned above in that defense, it's got plenty of fanservicey shit in it, although I'm inclined to believe it's being done with some level of tongue-in-cheek humor in mind...

edited 7th May '12 12:04:02 PM by Raidouthe21st

@ 7 Two Gun Angel: I was talking about Wikipedia's page on the parent magazine, which I linked to.

Regarding the manga (I think there are translations of the original web stories around, but I haven't read them): It's a light, fanservice-driven situation comedy (one brother is totally into making costumes, one hates crossdressing, one says outrageous stuff, etc). The characters aren't given ages at all, as far as I can tell, but the second-oldest seems to be in high school.

There is no sex, onscreen or off, and no full nudity, but there are lots of pantyshots and skimpy outfits (swimwear, underwear, etc.), a few bathing scenes, plus a number of raunchy jokes. There's a lot of fanservice, but it's fairly light and cheesecake-y (no groping or Not What It Looks Like).

The characters look like typical bishoujo, except not. Some might think they look underage; they just look like typical "cute crossdressers" to me, but I'm pretty inured to that art style.

...er... I'll be honest, this sounds less like pedobait to me and more like generic weird shit from Japan.

~shrug~

I'd say it's a coin-toss.

Weird shit from Japan is allowed on the wiki.

And to be fair, this isn't even all that weird, by Japanese standards. Dude makes brother crossdress in maid cafe? And there's no weird supernatural element? WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN. Your average episode of Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei is weirder, and more explicit.

Eh...once we start going to the shadier corners of the book store*, this might not be too weird by US standards, either...

• or to the comic store. The capes and tights crowd has pulled a lot of weird stuff over the years, and some indie comics are a little eyebrow raising..

This appears to have disappeared from the CV form. Was it judged as not in need of review?

I think it was just randomly removed from the worklist, perhaps by mistake.

In which case it probably needs to be retagged. Before that, though, we need to hear from the P5.

Bumping to get the locked threads to the bottom of the list.

re-bump. I will take a read on this series next after I finish reviewing the anime I'm on currently.

Bump to get the locked threads out of the way.

Sorry, got sidetracked by other things. I remember making it past a couple of volumes but couldn't give a formal opinion at the time; I can take another look when I have the time if additional input is needed.

EDIT: Okay, seven chapters / one volume (only one scanlated). Pretty short. And as much as I hate using these words...

WTF, Japan?

Okay, more input to follow.

EDIT: Okay, here goes.

• Premise: 4 brothers run a maid cafe. Slice of Life, I guess. Also... Gender Bender shenanigans out the wazoo. (No, that was not a Double Entendre. Yes, that was the sound of my professionalism dying.)
• Age: Unclear. Might be middle-school, never really stated from what I recall. Art style (incredibly androgynous) does not help. I can barely even figure out their gender, let alone their age.
• Explicit content: Very revealing outfits (on boys), a fair number of panty shots (on boys), visible nipples (on boys).
• Mitigation: Gag Series through and through. Almost seems like it's deliberately taking the piss out of your stereotypical moe, loli and maid cafe-obsessed otaku.
• Opinion: It feels like it's pandering - the question is more of, "Who the hell does it pander to?" Lolicons?*
  Flat-chested androgynous-looking individuals dressed up in costumes?
  Shotacons?*
  Youngish-looking boys with significant amounts of very revealing wear?
  Decepticons?*
  More than meets the eye?
  The aforementioned maid cafe-obsessed otaku? My current opinion is undecided, as I'm very tempted to just classify this as a Weird Japanese Thing, but that wouldn't solve matters.

What did the original page look like?

edited 4th Jun '12 9:54:10 AM by Pyrite

It panders to Otokonoko Genre fans. Which is one of those Weird Japanese Things.