O Maidens in Your Savage Season Episode 3 Review: Willy's Real Rear Wheel

This week: Hitoha discover’s Milo’s true identity, Niina drops some genuine truth bombs, and Rika takes some high damage thanks to no club advisor being found. All in all a gripping week for this anime!

Japanese Original Episode Title: バスガス爆発

‘Good-bye?’ ‘Bad-bye.’

This time it’s Rika and Hitoha we find in the bookshop, ‘merry-making for the coming battles’, but Hitoha discovers a book that deeply unsettles her and leaves in a hurry, making for the funny ‘good-bye bad-bye’ exchange. Rika once again displays her naivete, begging the store clerk to double-bag her magazine purchase…

Hitoha’s predicament brings her to make the dangerous decision to meet her chat-room ‘friend’ in real life and make their fantasies a reality, which I was instantly terrified about. I only pray that this particular thread of the story doesn’t end in such a way that plays down how risky and serious such a decision could be for a high-schooler.

Later, Izumi drags Niina out of the classroom to confront her about the filming incident from last week and more of both of their personalities are revealed. Izumi really is a good boy, he’s a bit slow, as Niina points out, and naturally still quite immature, but he truly means well and is actively trying to right his wrongs. I love him already and love that he is drawn just as cutely as all the girls.

‘Sis, take your panties off.’

Hitoha hasn’t had a huge amount of screentime or dialogue up until now, so her true character has remained mostly a mystery, but in this episode I finally felt like ‘aah, so she is human!’. She gets some unexpected news that really shakes and upsets her and we see an emotional reaction from her for the first time. As each cast member is unravelled slowly in their own way, I really began to appreciate the way this show is depicting all the individual ways these innocent characters cope with their naivete when it comes to sex and sexuality.

When Kazusa attempts to ask her parents a difficult question about, let’s say, the birds and the bees, it immediately takes a turn for becoming a huge, scary misunderstanding. Luckily for our protagonist it’s resolved within the same scene and I’m so glad – I’m pretty tired of those frustrating, all-too-common-in-anime mega-misunderstandings where the viewer knows exactly what is going on and what everybody means while the main character just suffers endlessly in their confusion. We are evolving!

Themes & Trivia

Tough Kids Drink Milo – Yamagishi-sensei here is referring to the popular Nestle kids drink, Milo, a chocolate and milk powder typically mixed with hot water and milk. Weird guy, huh.
Willy’s real…rear wheel? – the name of this week’s episode is a tongue twister in English, like the original Japanese title バスガス爆発 – literally ‘bus gas explosion’. But if you look at how it’s pronounced and maybe try to replicate it, basu gasu bakuhatsu, you’ll see why Kazusa’s request at the end of the episode is a bit cruel, haha.
Wheels on the Cummuter Bus – If you remember back in the first episode, Izumi is seen reading a train timetable book, and if you notice the details in his bedroom, it’s clear he’s a bit of a public transport-otaku (cute). The porno Kazusa finds in his room is themed on 痴漢 chikan, an unfortunately commonplace crime in Japan where (usually) women are groped or molested on trains and buses. Kazusa, putting two and two together, thinks that Izumi must fantasize about groping women on public transport and is desperate to find some sort of consolation, and attempts to do so by making a connection between Izumi’s goofy hobby and the less-than-savory blu-ray (not DVD, blu-ray!!).

‘Girls think about it, too.’

The TRUTH BOMBS this episode, my goodness. It’s such a common misconception that women and girls don’t think about sex or have sexual urges (or that they shouldn’t), and this sort of topic was something I have been desperate for this series to directly touch on. Not in the way it has been until now, tiptoeing around the topic with blushing faces and innocent ignorance, but a more unequivocal, arresting revelation. Women everywhere often have a hard time for being openly sexual or responding to their sexual desires, whereas for boys and men it’s considered only natural, commonplace – of course they have to, or what else are they going to do? So seeing Niina gently chastise Izumi for his old-fashioned remark was just delightful.

Just a couple paragraphs ago I was praising this show for shying away from common anime tropes, yet alas, we have an oops-I-fell-down-the-stairs-and-now-we’re-on-top-of-each-other! thing going on at the end of this episode. However, it’s actually not out of place at all – it’s not fanservicey, predatory or weird in any way. This series so far has been chock-a-block with verbal sexual puns and gags, and now we even get a physical one. Somehow, it works. I’m impressed!

Now that she’s finally had some lines, I can finally talk about Hitoha’s voice actress, Tomoyo Kurosawa, who I was very excited to see cast in this show. You may know her as Kumiko Omae from Hibike! Sound Euphonium (by the way, Niina’s voice actress also plays Reina!) or Phosphophyllite from Land of the Lustrous – both highly recommended series. While not exactly a newcomer to voice acting, a crazy percentage of her roles have been main characters, and after only watching a couple series with her as the protagonist I just fell in love with her realistic manner of speech and comedic delivery. Her voice is something completely new to me in this show so far and the way she nuances and pronounces certain words and sentences for her dry, sarcastic lines has been really funny so far. I am very excited to hear more of her in this role!

‘Say it ten times. Please’

The pacing hasn’t slowed down at all. There are so many facets of this anime to enjoy, I look forward to it every week. I hope you’re all enjoying it too! Let me know what you think! In the meantime, make sure to check out the rest of our Summer 2019 reviews. This series is also part of our weekly anime previews.

NEXT TIME: 本という存在