Do people in Real Life actually play that Pocky game? I know there's the whole Lady and the Tramp spaghetti thing, which seems to be a sort of cliche by now; I don't think I've seen it truly played straight, or at least played straight without a mention of the original.

But the Pocky thing seems to turn up whenever a romantic comedy anime, or even any anime with a hint of both romance and comedy, enters a scene which has party connotations. Two people are paired off by in-universe random chance, which happens to be something completely different beyond the fourth wall, concentrating on maximum hilarity potential. Some plot may even be progressed.

The only other party games I'm aware of with more harem romantic comedy anime screentime are Twister and what I've seen translated as the King's Game, which is the one with the numbered sticks and the one marked for the King, but which I can't seem to find on Wikipedia. For some reason Spin The Bottle is popular in fanfics, but I don't think I've seen an occasion in an anime itself. (Or if I have, it was quickly forgotten.) Twister makes for an excuse to entangle limbs of opposite genders, while the King's Game is straight in-character sadism.

This could be like the beach activity of splitting open watermelons by brute impact. We see it referenced in many places in anime, but as the girls in Lucky Star comment, only rich people can afford to do this, and rich people tend not to be the sort to do it. (Except for Haruka Nogizaka.)

I'm also assuming that I don't need to put a trademark sign after every mention of Pocky, since I don't know how. I know it's registered under Glico, but I'm hoping I don't get sued or anything for this, especially since strawberry-flavoured Pocky remains my favourite snack.

Why are most of the customers in the Maid-ish Cafe female? Fushigi mystery.

Contrary to what Kaede and apparently most of the NPC cast says, I don't really think Natsuru's Special Maid Outfit is all that attractive. It's too showy, and makes her look like she's Trying Too Hard to be sexy. Well, okay, she's not really; presumably it's the fault of the class rep and her cronies.

Thanks to the opening and ending animations, the identity of this New Kampfer is no surprise. What I did find refreshing was that the Obvious Questions asked in the usual fan-speculation manner are, if not answered, then at least acknowledged: where do Kampfers come from? Why are the Messengers all from the same toyline that apparently only Kaede likes? Is Kaede involved in this somehow?

I'm not actually expecting much by way of revelations in this season. If Kampfer gets extended for another season it would be nice, but for now I'll just enjoy this guilty pleasure without guilt, of cute girls in cute costumes, despite one of them only doing it part-time.

I'm not sure that I would have done better if I had been in Natsuru's place. On the one hand, girls seem to get a lot more cosplay opportunities. On the other hand, having to keep in shape has to be a lot more difficult. Presumably part of the advantage of Kampfer-ism is the ability to keep a svelte figure no matter what the circumstances.

Gender-benders with the character in question switching back and forth have that extra risk involved of embarrassment when the transformation wears off somehow with the male character now in female clothes. This doesn't often apply the other way, apart from the character shrinking a few sizes, and the Clothes A Few Sizes Too Large thing can be pulled off as a fashion statement anyway.

So far Kampfer has not gone down that route, but I find it interesting that I seem to have this reluctance to see such a thing happening anyway. It's the equivalent in embarrassment quotient of those cliched dreams (which I've never had myself, although it must be a matter of time) where one is not wearing any pants. It's a level of schadenfreude that is quite beyond my tolerance.

This, even though I am perfectly happy to see a man (be he transformed into a pretty lady) caught between several women, and the dispute is not laced with Drama and Angst, but instead Wacky Comedy Hijinks. It's not serious, the show tells us. It's okay to laugh.

Hearing Yuko Goto as the perverted assistant class rep, especially using her Mikuru-voice, probably helps in that.

Kampfer has been getting… well, not rave reviews. It is, in fact, getting slammed pretty hard, in the way just about every show I like has been slammed at one point or another (the sole exception is Card Captor Sakura, which appears unslammable). The difference is that after all that slamming, if the slammer is still around, the disclaimer invariably appears: "it's bad, but I can't stop watching it."

There are apocryphal stories of Ranma 1/2, often cited to be the most popular gender-bender anime series among Anglophone audiences, being a sort of gateway to the realization of gender dysphoria among some viewers. Occasionally I suspect that the reason I keep playing as female characters in games is due to Ranma 1/2 being my very first anime. I don't think I have Gender Identity Disorder, because despite my interests and what I have been told is a disturbing lack of Internet Testosterone, I do still like looking at cute girls. Then again, you never know.

In all the male-to-female gender-bender stories that I have viewed, read, or otherwise experienced since then, assuming the story was made for popular consumption and not, say, a deliberate subversion (which to my view is good only for a one-shot gag, and quite unsustainable through an entire series), one truth appears to be unquestioned: the former male is certainly going to turn into an attractive female. It is a convention as established as drawing characters with the usual number of limbs and appendages.

Being that Kampfer is not the sort of show to troll viewers with a subversion in this, Natsuru appears to follow this trend. In fact, she (changing pronouns as appropriate) follows it too well, and I half-expect some sort of psuedo-scientific explanation of why she seems so popular among the female students. Perhaps Girl-Natsuru is seen to be more manly than Guy-Natsuru? It is a mystery.

And then there is the tradition of giving the genderbent-into-female character even larger cup-sizes than most of the rest of the cast, for no conceivable reason. (Well, other than the meta-reason of fanservice, which is always a good reason.) Presumably back problems are avoided by turning into girl-form only occasionally, but having those assets without any real need for them seems a little odd. Not unwelcome, just… odd.

In my darker moments, I often wonder if the joke about breasts being good flotation devices would preclude the existence of the Jusenkyo Spring of Drowned Girl, unless she was not as well-endowed as her spiritual descendants turned out to be.

City of Heroes has a number of dance emotes, for a given value of "dance". This is because the animator who first manipulated the game model frames for this purpose based the moves off his own flailing attempts, and I use these less-than-flattering words because I am quoting to the best of my knowledge the man himself.

One of these dances, known among players as the Hyperactive Monkey, requires such great movements of the abdomen that when I introduced a friend to the game, she noted that doing that dance in real life would likely rupture something important.

Watching the ending animation for Kampfer, I cannot help but think of that phrase.

Kampfer has been billed as a "guilty pleasure", if it has been billed positively at all. While I am certainly going to be following this show, assuming it does not deviate too far from the source, I cannot quite call it a "guilty pleasure", as I feel refreshingly free of guilt.

We'll keep on trying. We'll tread that fine line. We'll keep on trying, until the end of time.

I admit that I didn't expect Marina Inoue to voice both versions of Natsuru. When I read the manga, Guy!Natsuru seemed like he'd be voiced by a Standard Harem Comedy Protagonist Voice Actor. I shouldn't be surprised, considering some small plot points hinged on Girl!Natsuru sounding a lot like Guy!Natsuru.

Speaking of which, the fourth-wall-breaking voice actress jokes in this episode fall just short of excessive. Yukari Tamura got the longest mention, which is a little brain-breaking in her role as a foul-mouthed plush bunny post-ritual disembowelment. Yui Horie and "the original Shizuka" (Michiko Nomura; reference to Doraemon) were also mentioned. One gets the feeling that the writers felt like being a little too clever.

This can also be seen in the vast amount of double- and single-entendres which pass for much of the comedy. I cannot find fault in this, seeing as I usually do much the same thing anyway. Clearly this is not a show to be taken seriously.

Gender-bender premises, especially aimed at the male demographics, are a fascinating source of observation for the reactions. We've seen it in action with Mizuho in Otoboku and Jun in Happiness, as well as unofficially with Kyonko. Anime, already a commonly-used art style for good-looking characters in general, is able to sidestep all the messy biology inherent in the problem.

And so we end up admiring what is, to all intents and purposes, a cute girl, while still knowing that there is still a technical male presence in that picture, be their magical transformation sequence ever so pretty and sparkly.