Rule of Three: Mother of the Goddess' Dormitory - Moving Pictures

The Rule of Three is when you watch three episodes of a TV show and make a judgement based on that, whether you’ll continue watching. If a show isn’t going to sufficiently entertain after about an hour (not counting ad breaks), then it’s probably not going to.

So after being warned off of the anime Mother of the Goddess' Dormitory, I decided to take a look anyway. Like with any show, I decided to give it three episodes before making my judgement. But anyway, here’s the plot summary:

A 12-year old middle-schooler has been living on the streets after his house burned down. He’s taken in by some university students, and given the job of live-in dormitory “mother”. He cooks, cleans and receives sexual advances, just like any - wait, what?

Yeah, there’s a reason I was warned off of this show. I’m not against fanservice in anime - far from it. Tasteful or trashy, I’m not going to switch off a show that I’m enjoying just because of breasts and panties. But even I have a limit - that limit being age-related.

Main character Koushi Nagumo is a 12-year old. That’s fine, and so is him looking after a house of five university-aged women. But seeing at least one of them openly lust after Koushi is quite distressing. He is openly, vocally, opposed to this attention, and yet two of the women keep thrusting their occasionally clothed bosom into his face. This isn’t the usual case of “whoops, I fell over and now have a faceful of boob”, they grab him, and in at least one case two of them squeeze his head between their bodies in full knowledge of what they were doing.

That’s not to say it is all on purpose. Multiple times each episode, Koushi will trip, stumble or fall into some breasts, but it’s more common for him to smush his face into panties. The ladies don’t experience any thrill from that, however, or indeed any sensation at all, since they will gladly sit on his face until he passes out from lack of oxygen, blissfully unaware that there is a child beneath them.

Let me talk about the characters for a moment. Main character Koushi Nagumo you already know about - a hard worker, happy to be off the streets, and determined to do a good job. Then you have Mineru who conducts scientific experiments in her room whilst wearing only a lab coat and panties. Kiriya likes to read action manga and punch holes in the floor because it’s so romantic. Furei is a cosplayer and likes to make costumes. Serene is lazy and appears to have magical powers. Atena gets nosebleeds whenever near men or boys, which are more powerful if it’s a sexual situation.

Atena is the only member of the dorm who seems aware that it’s not great putting a minor in sexual situations. Don’t give me that “it’s different in Japan”, because one of the characters seems aware that it’s not great putting a minor in sexual situations. In the second episode, Atena gets a pair of sticks with baby faces on and uses them to repeatedly cover Mineru’s nipples. She actually seems to care for Koushi, and asks him to call her “big sister” - though counter to that, she seems to get a sexual thrill when he does it the first few times…

In the third episode, we’re introduced to Sutea, childhood friend of Koushi since preschool. She exhibits classic tsundere traits, beating him up for not contacting her after the fire until he just returned to school after a break. As she’s introduced halfway through the episode, she plays a major part in the rest of it, and we see up her skirt on average once every three minutes. That’s just an estimate, but we do see up this middle-school-aged girl’s skirt often. Towards the end of the episode, Koushi has another one of his falls, and they both end up on a bed in the nurse’s office. Not only is Sutea’s skirt covering absolutely nothing, but her top and bra have been pushed up to reveal an uncomfortable amount.

Mother of the Goddess' Dormitory enjoys starting and ending the episodes oddly. The first episode begins with Koushi walking into the bathroom where three of the residents are already mid-bath. It ends with Mineru throwing her bare breasts at the camera. The third episode ends with Mineru & Furei coming out of the dorm in front of Koushi & Sutea, as seen from behind the tweens, at an angle chosen to fully display Sutea’s panties.

When people say that something is borderline pornographic, it’s usually good in certain other ways. Mother of the Goddess' Dormitory manages to be borderline pornographic while making it more uncomfortable by making the protagonist underaged. Again, the argument of “different cultures” doesn’t mean anything when one of the characters is against it. And even if I ignored Atena - just saying it’s fine culturally doesn’t mean that I have to like the show.

So there we have it. Mother of the Goddess' Dormitory is a thumbs down from me because it makes me uncomfortable to watch it. Make this show with an older protagonist, and I’d enjoy it. It has a few moments which feel genuine and heartfelt - but then someone’s suffocating the protagonist with her crotch and it ruins it. I’ve not even mentioned the opening titles suggesting that Koushi and Atena are going to have a romantic relationship, because the show doesn’t show that - yet. The show could be much better, but instead I fear that it’ll get much worse before episode 10.