Shinigami Bocchan to Kuro Maid

While there is a lot of interest within this show from it's concept. The idea of it would appeal to most viewers. With the concept of the life of a character that had been cursed with anything that is living and breathing that he touches, will die. With only basically two people there for him to attend to his needs. Sounds a good concept right? Well, not really.

What really ruins it, is the characters more so. While there can be cute moments, very cute moments. But what ruins it, is that the characters, or least most of them are basically one trick ponies, with only ... a smudge of a bit more personality to them. As if all they have to them, is one thing, and one thing only. Let's take Alice for example. Her entire character is one gag. That gag being her flirting with Bocchan. Flirting in a sexual manner. I can deal with it once or twice, but it keeps happening, and happening, and it gets tiresome after a while. While Bocchan has a bit more to him, the first episode is a good episode to show that after all. But that's pretty much it. While their butler is the same, 'Old and works too hard.'Even is family can just be described as one particular personality trope, with just one or two added extras.

It's just a shame really, the mystery over this curse, and the idea of 'will he, or won't he be freed from it' really drives this sows interest, along with a slight bit of the character's backstories. But beyond that, there isn't really a lot.

As for the art, it's subjective. I honestly don't mind the style too much. You either love it, hate it, or don't mind it at all. So I can't really say too much on it. Besides how the characters look, the whole presentation does look decent at least. Much like the sound is, a plus for sure.

Boccan to Kuro Maid is an OK type of show, but it's just not for me, and it may not be for you. I suggest waiting it out to see how it ends for this one.

Story: 6
Art: 5
Sound: 6
Character: 3
Enjoyment: 4
Overall: 5
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Well, a new season with new animes. What do we have here?
A story about a nobleman who was cursed by a witch with a curse that have him cause death to any living creature he touches?
... Wow that seems interesting!
Huh? he has a maid with no personality whatsoever and her only job is to sexually harass him?
Oh.....

Ok first, I'll probably mention an other anime, Don't Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro, as they have a lot of similarities.

Now let's look at the anime's poster, we have our main couple, the younger sister, another cute girl, the old butler, and... a human pigeon? I guess?

I have to say, I become so skeptical with an anime where the only young male it presents is the main character.

Whatever, let's continue.

So it's a romance story between the master and his servant, that'd be nice excepts for this couple being one of the worst couples I've seen in history.

I'm not sure how you can write two lovers with little to zero chemistry between them. Even though they have the potential to be a well-written couple.
He was abandoned and feared by everyone, she was the one willing to be with him, what do you need more?

And you know what makes their couple so bad and uninteresting?
It's that Alice's only job is show any part she can show of her body.

Now I'm not saying that you can't write a couple where the girl deliberately shows her body to either show her love or embarrass the guy who has a shy and somewhat incel personality, a good example of that would be "Don't Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro".
That is because Nagatoro had a personality more than being a fanservice material, and her actions didn't feel forced.

But in this anime, it feels like the author is writing his fantasies about maids.
In other words, it feels really forced.


Another thing that this anime wastes the potential of, is the drama and mystery elements it's capable of offering.

Who are the witches? why did this witch out a curse on the MC? How can he get rid of it? Is it even possible? How would he feel if he actually caused the death of another person? Isn't it possible to make him reject Alice in fear of causing her death? Wouldn't it be nice if he had nightmares about that? What does Alice's mom have to do with witches? What would happen if the MC met his mother or younger brother?

I know that I'm asking questions that're going to be answered later, but it's already been 4 episodes with nothing but non-funny comedy scenes and non-romantic romance scenes.

With this season being only 12 episodes, 1\3 of this anime is already gone.

Are we going to waste the whole season like that? Oh god.

I generally really enjoy the story. The manga is amazing, but this is an odd adaptation.
The intro and outro songs are really good. Will add to music play list later.
The thing that kills it for me is the animation. It is unfortunately CGI and it's a bit garring at times. Its feels like I'm waiting for the cutscene in a video game to be over. The CGI is distracting. The movements of the characters are sometimes really uncanny and not normal. How is it that the background characters are animated in 2D, and the main characters are in CGI? Its normally the other ... way around, but ok. The backgrounds are really odd too. They are trying to give the backgrounds a texture like an oil painting on and canvas. While it can work in other shows, it doesn't work here. It clashes with the CGI characters.

Honestly if you like the story, just read the manga. It's so much better.

Side note- At least the CGI is better than RWBY's. This was way more palatable than that hot garbage.

Overall: 5/10

This show has plenty to hook the viewer straight away. You can't help but want to cheer for the young Duke and his love. His curse is truly horrifying and the loneliness he is forced to endure at his age makes me want to watch him find happiness in the end.

But that interest can only sustain me for so long. I realized very early on that this seems to be based off of a gag manga where the running gag is that the busty maid teases the young Duke by playing on his sexual attraction and budding love towards her. Had I enjoyed ... this gimmick, perhaps I could have kept watching. But I felt that this got tiring real fast. I may have accepted it had this been only 12 episodes long, but when I checked the manga and saw that there are over 190 chapters, I was overwhelmed. I don't think I can sit through multiple seasons of this same tired gag. When the Duke failed to make much headway in solving his case the first time he met the witches', I had to stop watching.

I was only watching to see the love story succeed. An entire saga about the two of them stuck at the same stage of their relationship seems like empty filler content to me. This si the same reason I stopped reading Nisekoi in the middle. Maybe if there had been some interesting variations to the gag, the way Kaguya-sama does it, I could have kept watching.

It's a shame because the music and animation are pretty good. The CG especially is much better than I'd have expected.

I'm going to start my review about this work.

[6] Story: Duke (protagonist) is cursed by a witch as a child, who gives him the ability to kill everything and touches.

Dispatched By His Mother He Is Sitting To Live Isolated In A Mansion With The Staff Being First The Butler (Rob) And Sometime Later His Beloved Companion Who Made Him A Better Person (Alice)

Alice teases him sexually and at the best of times, romantically making the duke very happy. Seeing the duke crazy to touch her, kiss her, creates a good situation, highlighting the beginning of ... each episode with that mini story of the couple in love who cannot touch each other.

Anyway, Alice took the final step for duke to grow up to be a man but I don't see something so complex or that tells me "this story of this is another level!" just in that. It's actually quite basic.

[7] Characters: Highlighting rob/alice, they are very charismatic and cool characters.

Rob, a mature and gentle gentleman always taking care of a duke, with the viola sister of duke taking on her foot and she is in love with him for his way of being her.

And ZAIN, another incredibly cool and charismatic beautiful piece with her caph pair, a clueless woman, and blatantly in love with him. (Zain knows she likes him) and that's a little differentiator of this work.

And compared to other works there the pairs are very nice even if some don't work like viola and rob but as a mature man he is aware that he is too old for her.

[7Animation: It's a nice cgi, it's no big deal compared to the dorohedoro one, but the jc staff has been doing a good job with the cgi compared to the older ones (A sign of evolution by the studio)
I think in 2d It would be better, but 3d gave a nice charm to the work. (I notice at times the animation getting shitty or the character looking to one side that doesn't make sense while the focus is on the other side.

[7] General Songs:

Soundtracks, op and end were awesome, highlighting the episode that Alice sings with the duke, that was sensational and touched me, it's certainly a very positive point of this work.

The story is good and calming , it's like a poetry how the plot progress ! The romance between mc and FMC was decent enough as the story focuses more on other character building ! The end was incomplete so i guess waiting for next season ! I think I am comfortable with the period in which the anime is set as the story doesn't focus on it too much ! The animation was one thing that was not well done ! Why the animation studio have to make it look 3d; like it could be made 2d ! The characters look like sand dolls ... to. Me.! Apart from that the story pace is slow which i am not so much fond of but got used to it as the episodes progressed further n hope i second season the romance and the illness of mc will be cured . Does animation review of any anime counts as spoiler ? if so then I apologize !

Those CGI's animation is really bothering me in the entire show. like the other reviews, those robotics faces really make me unfocus. I can't feel the romances. all things that I see is a maid tried to sexualized herself. The duke is really childish. I thought the duke will be - heartless and doesn't care about everything. after every trauma that he's been through. Wow, are you depressed? Get yourself a sexy childhood maid! and his sister- bruh she is simping to a literal grandpa. hopefully, Rob didn't become a pedo to Olivia. On eps 9, they start to downgrading the animation. I'm kinda interested ... in the story, but I hate the animations and the character's traits.

The Duke of Death and his Frames(per second).

I was looking forward to this anime when I saw that the animation team behind the excellent Hi Score Girl would be animated this.

However, the CG animation style doesn't really work for comedy with fast quips and zany jokes. What works in the manga doesn't hit the same way when the characters move at 20 frames per second. (I may have exaggerated that number. I don't know frames.)
This is only made worse when hand drawn animated background characters are layered onto the same shot as the CG ones. It just doesn't look natural.
It's not all bad ... though. The CG characters do look good and there are some genuinely beautiful shots which really take advantage of the CG and it's obvious that a lot of work has been put into making them.

There are also strange music choices made which don't quite match what's happening in the scene.
The weirdest example I can think of is when the Duke spreads his fingers out over an outdoor piano to presumably play a chord, but the ost plays a one note folk melody played in demi-semi quavers. It's bizarre.

Still for all of it's flaws it's still based off a really charming manga.
It has an interesting story premise and setting and the characters range from wholesome to horny to bizarre.
Alice and the Duke have wonderful chemistry and it's nice to watch/read about two teenagers who can actually talk about their feelings like normal people. Zain and Caph are fantastic supporting characters too though again, I do think the animation does kill some of their best jokes.

If you're into your Romcom's and you can get past this anime's flaws (and really don't want to read) then you will probably enjoy this one.

For me though it's not quite there.
In conclusion: Good manga,

5/10 anime - mediocre