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In a genre full of stagnant generic anime Nyan Koi (Meow Love) manages to set itself apart from the rest. Nyan Koi is about a guy called Junpei who after breaking a cat god’s statue, he becomes cursed, suddenly being able to understand cats, and has to perform 100 good deeds for cats to remove his curse else he will become a cat himself. For what I think about the first episode check here. While putting itself firmly in the common harem / comedy genre it proves its worth by downplaying the harem for comedy.

While in no way a great anime, it does enough things that it doesn’t overstay its welcome. There is no deap meaning to this show and any character development is extremely shallow. While this does seem like a bad thing at first, this leaves more focus for the comedy which is what this job does well. There’s a large characters which, although they place themselves into character stereotypes, they prove fresh enough that they don’t become boring. While being a harem anime, it’s evident by the end of the first episode that he’s going to end up with his oblivious crush. Most of the comedy plays with this with the other love interests such as the childhood friend, the love interest’s best friend and a pair of twins he meets. The rest plays off the situations he gets into because of his curse and being able to talk with cats. Generally they both go hand-in-hand which should prove stale by the end but each situation is just different enough that it still feels fresh.

While there might not be much development for the characters, none of them prove to be stale. The only problem seems to be the tsundere childhood friend as she overlaps character traits from other characters and feels like un-needed wait. When compared to the rest of the cast this is quite evident such as the tsundere half of the mahou shoujo twins. With the other twin being a stalker with an obsession it further brings out her tsundere personality which, even though she doesn’t have any interests in the hero, does it better than the childhood friend. Infact many scenes can have her written out and there wouldn’t be too much impact on whats going on in the show. On the other hand, the cast of cats are quite over-the-top with many of the good deeds performed for them played with a spice of comedy.

In the end, nothing in this show can be taken quite seriously which isn’t a bad point in itself. It’s a good show for those who enjoy shows where the lead has a large amount of characters going for his affection but he’s too braindead to notice and (considering the absurd number of them) it does it quite well. It’s short and you’ll most likely forget about in 5 minutes after but its enjoyable until them. Personally compared to something like Love Hina, which is debatable whether it’s even similar at all, this is leagues ahead of it. There’s just something appealing about a main character who isn’t a brain dead geek. Maybe because it’s trying to appeal a crowd other than loser otaku (more on that another time.)