School Babysitters Episodes 1 + 2: Boys in a Babysitting Club

Overview:

Ryuichi and Kotaro have lost their parents leaving Ryuichi to take care of his younger brother. The two of them are taken in by the chairwoman of a school with the understanding that Ryuichi will work in the babysitter club outside of school hours and help take care of the teacher’s children.

Review Episode 1:

We have another contrived and fairly common set up of kids lose parents and so have to (fill in the blank) which leads to (the usual sorts of anime cliches). This one is full of sweetness and light with just enough drama when the younger brother gets a fever to stop you falling asleep.

But really, there’s no personality for our characters yet as this is strictly set the scenario kind of stuff with only a little bit of an attempt to build some backstory or emotional depth late in the second half and while it works well enough it is hardly something noteworthy. Of course the middle-school boy is emotional because he’s lost his parents and realises he can’t call them when his brother is sick.

Still, I don’t like kids and anime kids have a real tendency to set my teeth on edge with their overly high pitched voices and either obnoxious or over the top cute antics so the fact that I was still watching at the end of the episode surprised me.

More surprising, I might go for another episode. I don’t know that I’ll make a season of this, but I did actually feel kind of sad for Ryuichi when I was supposed to and the kids in the daycare, while doing everything I normally find annoying, didn’t annoy (let’s give them another episode and I’m sure they’ll manage it).

Review Episode 2:

The kids decide not to stay in the daycare and try to accompany Ryuichi to class (which is as close to the classroom as we get this episode so I’m wondering if Ryuichi ever did get to school). It is kind of adorable but I kind of get the other girl’s issue with him bringing distractions into the school.

The chairwoman continues to be quite cold in her direct dealings with the brothers but has shown that she certainly is concerned about their well-being. While that might get tiresome after awhile everything else is so excessively sweet that it is kind of nice to have a few sharp tongued characters make the scene.

They round out the second episode with a trip to the zoo. There aren’t really any surprises here or any paths taken that you can’t see coming a mile away but it remains fairly watchable and occasionally manages to make even me admit it is kind of cute.

So, while this isn’t really my kind of thing and while I’m hardly claiming this is some sort of masterpiece, I might leave it on the list for a bit longer because there’s a certain charm to it and it is fairly relaxed viewing.

Thanks for reading.

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