Hiro ShimonoYuuki OnoWataru HatanoTakuya Sato
DAKAICHI: I'm being harassed by the sexiest man of the year
Episode 1 also reviewed here: Anime 1st episodes 2018: D
Also known as: Dakaretai Otoko 1-ni Odosarete Imasu
Medium: TV, series
Year: 2018
Director: Naoyuki Tatsuwa
Writer: Yoshimi Narita
Original creator: Hashigo Sakurabi
Actor: Hiro Shimono, Hiroki Takahashi, Kousuke Toriumi, Momo Asakura, Satoshi Hino, Takuya Sato, Wataru Hatano, Yoji Ueda, Yuma Uchida, Yuuki Ono
Keywords: anime
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Format: 13 episodes
Url: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=20808
Website category: Anime 2018
Review date: 8 March 2019
Dakaretai Otoko ichi ni Odosarete Imasu
It's a slightly uncomfortable Boys' Love. It has consent issues, with the main character (Takato) being stalked, abducted and molested by his would-be boyfriend (Junta). This is played for laughs. Furthermore, Takato's an arrogant, swollen-headed dick who thinks he's the world's greatest and has very little fondness for inferior beings (i.e. everyone).
Personally I thought it was quite good. I wouldn't say I'd always be enjoying it, but then again I'd picked this show partly because it does me good to watch stuff I wouldn't normally. I'm not the target audience. Let's get some verdicts from people who are!
(a) Tomoko thought it sounded great, including the dodgy content, but a Google image search made her lose interest. Takato isn't her type. He's supposedly a super-hot top actor who makes everyone drool, but the art makes him look reptilian and sneering. What's more, the artist can only draw six faces and so you might find yourself confusing different characters, e.g. Junta and Ayagi.
(b) a professional reviewer who called this her least favourite anime of the season. She didn't like the art, she thought the men lacked chemistry and she thought Junta came across as a predator.
I'd semi-recommend it, though. For starters, it's a Boy's Love anime that I could imagine gay men watching and to some extent recognising. That's unusual. The point of the genre is that it's female fantasy, without much reality permitted. It has a "seme" and an "uke", with the latter being a girl with a penis. (That's the reason for terrifying fangirl fights over whether a given hypothetical pairing would be, say, Zoro-Sanji or Sanji-Zoro.) If you're male and watching such shows, you'll be saying "that's not a man". It's nothing to do with being effeminate, but with actually being female. The "uke" is the audience identification figure, with a woman's modesty, reactions and psychology. You don't need me to tell you what role/position (s)he's locked into when they're having sex.
(There can be effeminate characters in Boy's Love, mind you. There's one here. He's a flamboyant camp queen and quite amusing, but also very much a minor comedic cameo.)
This show, though, is stomping on all that, or at least that's how it seems at first. The main character (Takato) is a dick. He's a preening alpha male who'll seethe with hidden rage if anyone beats him at anything. Unfortunately he's an acting megastar with enough talent that he's had everything his own way for years... but that's about to change. Hello, Junta. It's hilarious to see Takato getting foiled in ep.1. He'd never do anything to hurt his image, so it's not hard to make him smilingly agree with a proposition he despises.
"I'm used to being the number one star, but it's tough being popular!"
He's not blushing or maidenly. (Initially, at least.) The personality he thinks he has is absolutely, definitely not female. He's obnoxiously masculine and it's glorious to see annoying things happen to him. It's funny. It's also messed up, but that's why it feels real. There's lots of sex and deeply questionable behaviour, lots of bad temper and a general sense that... yeah, I can imagine this in real life. It wouldn't be healthy or nice, but I could believe in it.
The later episodes evolve, though. Takato discovers his inner Blushing Maiden, but this still works because the show's exploring the boundaries between the two Takatos. He's a complex character who's growing, but in denial about himself. It's also only fair to note that he's nicer than he appears, so he'll give invaluable acting advice even to despised rivals, if he has enough respect for their potential.
The plot in later episodes gets a bit fanservicey and less credible, with other men falling for Takato and the audience rolling their eyes a bit. (I didn't always buy Takato's reactions.) Ep.8 tries to get away with a daft coincidence by having the characters comment on it. It's a dynamic story with a ton of character development, though, because there's so much ground to cover. Takato will become a different person and go through big relationship stages. Hostility, abduction, affection that he furiously denies, etc. Eventually, though, both men will be prepared to put their careers on the line for each other.
Then there's Junta. He's Takato's rival, stalker and biggest fan. He's also such a huge star that he's threatening to eclipse Takato professionally too. The show's imagery for him is "angel", with white wings and feathers appearing when he's particularly aroused and/or planning something dodgy. This can be funny in itself, e.g. the schoolboy roleplay in ep.4 that's throwing yet another scary element into an already questionable show. Junta getting that idea makes his eyes glow devil-red as police sirens blare on the soundtrack and his wings explode out.
"But I won't be able to abduct... er, spend time with you!"
A completely different thing I liked here, incidentally, was the show's portrayal of the acting industry. It feels credible. Insecure people work hard, have ego clashes and genuinely care about the quality of their work. I'd have been delighted just to watch these people going about their jobs and indeed some of my favourite episodes were the flashback ones from before Takato and Junta got together (e.g. ep.7, ep.9), with no sex at all.
Oh, and I also enjoyed the end title sequence.
This show isn't a particularly easy watch, although it won't help if you're not the target audience for the fantasy it's selling. It's multiple kinds of dodgy. It will eventually become a romance, but the road it takes there is rocky for both the audience and for Takato. (Junta's on cloud nine, though.) However it is funny and I think it gets away with its dodgy stuff.