The Essentials

Name: DearS
Genre:: Comedy, Science Fiction, Romance
Episodes: 12 + 1
Released: July 10, 2004 – September 25, 2004 + one unaired episode
Based On: DearS manga by PEACH-PIT
Director: Takao Yoshioka
Produced By: Bandai Visual
US Distribution By: Geneon

Cast

Review

DearS is about an alien race which crash landed on the earth a year prior to the start of the series. Unable to fix their own ship and with current technology on Earth being of absolutely no help, the aliens decided to live out their lives on Earth, naming themselves DearS.

However, unawares to the people of Earth, the DearS are programed and raised to be the perfect slaves. As a result, DearS have little will of their own and any DearS which doesn’t meet up to a slave’s standards is put into frozen storage, seemingly forever. This was what happened to Ren (Ren means Zero in the DearS’ language) until one day a truck transporting her cryogenic pod crashed and she was released from captivity.

She finds Takeya who, by the way, hates the DearS, and “makes a pact” with him, making him Ren’s master and her Takeya’s slave. What follows is a muddled mess of confusion and big aliens (and human) boobs.

If you like big bouncing boobs – especially big bouncing alien boobs, you’ll probably like DearS. If you want to see an anime which contains any resemblance of a story, there isn’t much to find here. That’s not to say there isn’t a story – the mystery of what the DearS are and why Ren insists on as being treated as a slave, as well as how Takeya develops (to the extent that he does) over the 13 episodes of the series. However, that’s more of a side show between Ren’s bouncing boobs and her eternal pursuit to find and eat more melon bread and the exploits of Takeya’s exhibitionist teacher.

I just felt there was little invested interest in me caring about the characters. Takeya at least cares enough about Ren that he doesn’t want to just give her over to the DearS hierarchy just to be put back into frozen storage. I think there is an attempt to show signs that Takeya’s feelings run deeper than that. I’m not sure I’m necessarily convinced that’s the case or that his behavior would lead to that conclusion, even in a “I hate you but I love you” situation which is what his relationship to Ren ultimately is.

Ren also sticks with Takeya, but it seems to solely be because of her status has his slave. There appears to be some attempt to get around this fact by making Ren “special,” but this isn’t really played out to any conclusion in the anime series. In fact, the conclusion in the anime series appears to be left wide open with little real conclusion. The DearS hierarchy wasn’t seemingly concerned that Ren had a master when they tried to take her back before. I’m not sure why they would care after the end of the series. The end of the final episode is more an end to a subplot that ran along with the overall bigger plot of the DearS being slaves. However, that larger plot is not even close to being concluded.

Overall, DearS is subpar, relying on comedy and fan service to drive a story which otherwise has little actual plot. I’d consider the animation to be average. There isn’t really any wow to the animation, but it is at least clean. The music, I think, was trying to be somewhat “alien” in nature to fit the mood of the story. I wasn’t necessarily a fan of it however, and the opening credit theme called “I’m Your Slave” was just really creepy to me.

Scores

Animation: 3/5
Story: 3/5
Music: 3/5
English Dubs: 3/5

Overall: 2/5

First Watched: April – May 2006
Do I Own: No
Do I Recommend: No