The Appeal of Ecchi Shows

Ecchi shows get a negative initial response from the general public. These are often looked down upon as cheaply made, horrible shows, that are only focused on the audience that gets turned on by that type of stuff. Well, as I’ve been grinding through Trinity Seven with Jun (which started off as a joke) I ended up liking it. But… for the wrong reason.

In contrast to what you may think, I don’t think that Ecchi shows are not meant for you to get horny. Honestly, who’s going to watch Ecchi shows for pleasure when plethora of superior mediums exist. Unless you have some fetishes for something that’s like porn but not really porn.

In my opinion, Ecchi shows are for comedy. No. Ecchi is just literally comedy. Ecchi = comedy

There are two types of Ecchi shows: Good (for different reasons) and boring; no “bad” ecchi show exists. I won’t really be talking about boring shows because they are what they are, boring (usually because they have other aspects like isekai tied to them), but there are definitely many ecchis I enjoy.

First, the Ecchi shows that are actually good. Unlike what you may expect there’s quite a few of these shows. Monogatari Series, No Game No Life or Kill La Kill are three good examples of widely beloved ecchi shows. But my focus here aren’t shows like these. These shows are obviously popular for different reasons than its ecchi-ness (some reasons being Monogatari Series with its characters, interesting events, and its unique Shaft Aesthetics; No Game No Life with its exciting concept; Kill La Kill with its crazy animations and fun action) These are shows that are pretty much beyond ecchi shows. What I want to look at are more so shows that are geared towards having their main point be the Ecchi aspect of the show. A few shows I can name like this are Prison School or Shimoneta.  

These types of shows know that they are Ecchi shows. And they utilize this perfectly.

The best part about this is that these shows have weirdly bizarre concepts just with the concepts themselves they can get you to laugh.

To give an example, Shimoneta is about a world where no porongraphic materials exist. So porn distributors are known as terrorists. And the main characters are two high schools who are one of the most infamous terrorists in the organization (SOX, short for Sex happens most Often on X-Mas) along with the daughter of the person who invented the technology to make porn illegal. Oh these 3 characters all go to the same school and are all members of the Student Council.

There’s a few others like this (B-gata H-kei is about a teenage girl who wants to have sex with 100 men but doesn’t know how to seduce people, Seitokai Yakuindomo is about a formerly all-girls school that turned to a co-ed school and its student council group that just recruit a male for “male-perspective” and a group of weirdly perverse female council members (though this one is slightly less original), etc) and you will see that the common theme between these shows are that the plot pretty crazy. While the visual side of most of these shows aren’t as good, the sheer ridiculousness of the plot really allows them to make different hilarious moments in the show. This makes these types of shows genuinely good because they are actually pretty funny.

Meanwhile you have good bad ecchi shows. These are the types of shows that are funny because they are Ecchi and Ecchi is bad. Most of these shows have normal/boring plots and characters (normal school setting, isekai/cliched fantasy, pervy guy that tries to look at underwear of the female protagonist, and finally the baka! or embarrassed main girl) and pretty regular visuals as well. 

But when something is overdone, more overdone than one can possibly imagine, more overdone than what would typically be considered “overdone”, and you keep watching it, it gets to a point where it becomes… hilarious. 

For example, let’s look at accidental groping — a very common event that happens in these ecchi shows. I know a lot of people think the accidental groping event is “overdone” and “not-funny.” I agree — Well, at least for half of it. Accidental groping is definitely overdone. The first few seconds of Trinity Seven, right after the opening, is accidental groping. The first few seconds of To Love Ru have accidental groping. The first few seconds of Heaven’s Lost Property is accidental groping. The first few seconds of Highschool DxD is (probably) accidental groping. 

You get the point.

Once you start noticing this type of trend you start watching shows with predictions. The more Ecchi shows you watch, you will find yourself saying “accidental groping scene coming soon” every time you see a hint of it happening. Of course, if it happens you laugh at how much of an expert you are on trash shows like this, and if it doesn’t, you feel relieved you aren’t an ecchi show expert.

I think shows like this are best watched with a friend or drunk. With a friend you will find yourself laughing at how stupid the show is with your friend. Probably talking more than paying attention to the show. And when you are drunk… well… you get to be in the same mental state as what the creators of the show were in!

This is kind of getting kind of repetitive to the general ideas that I had in my Arifureta Review. Essentially, what I’m saying is that I have a weird sense of comedy where I love laughing at horrible made work.

Other than that, overall, the characters in Ecchi shows usually directly appeal to people watching these shows. This, of course, is to sell character goods. You get all these different types of characters from tsunderes to derederes, lolis to adults, student to relative…

Again, you get the point.

So while these shows don’t often have characters that may become your favorite, you probably will find at least a couple characters that you like in the show. 

Maybe I’m just going crazy because I watched too many Ecchi shows. They say humans are animals of adaptation… Maybe I’m just adapting to the world of cheaply made ecchi shows. 

I have finally come full circle.

Oh, right, Trinity Seven is a very good bad Ecchi show.