Shimoneta light novel volume 1 cover

Okay let’s talk about Shimoneta

In a really quite dystopian future, Japan has embraced staunch anti-profanity laws to the point that all citizens are wearing recording devices constantly, ensuring they don’t swear or discuss sex. A group of concerned students decide to take sexual education of the populous into their own hands, so they become…erotic terrorists.

Shimoneta isn’t…good, but…

(Or, strictly speaking, even defensible; the plot is pretty silly, and characters Flanderize on the scale of episodes rather than days, but…)

It’s got a couple things that are going right for it. It really leans into the trope of Refuge in Audacity, such that every time you think it might flinch away from making a dirty joke, it makes it, and then immediately afterwards makes a filthy joke, just in case you thought it was done.

I am thirty goddamned years old. I have seen so, so, so many animes. But this sweet little weirdo of a show still makes me snort in aghast delight. It has a really good heart; every single character is kind, and crazy, and trying to do what’s right as best they see it.

Yes, the show is crass. Yes, a genderbent version of it would be, uh, deeply uncomfortable. But it sure seems like the writers sincerely believe in the message here, of embracing sexuality and living without shame. (Point in fact, one of the post-credits scenes was a live-action demonstration of how to make your own fleshlight.)

Watch the first five episodes, then stop. You’ve had the Shimoneta experience.