Ah, girls pretending to be boys so they can be butlers. Is that ever not funny? Luckily, we won't have to find out in this anime, as it features Subaru, a girl who has to hide her gender so that she can act as her sadistic mistress Kanade's butler, and it is hilarious.
Kinjiro is another high school protagonist, who has an impressively violent mother and sister. (They hold competitive titles in various martial arts, and tend to use him as a practice dummy.) This traumatic childhood has resulted in crippling gynophobia, such that the simplest physical contact with a girl causes embarassing nosebleeds.
Which doesn't help when he discovers Subaru's secret, and is given the demanding task of ensuring it stays unknown, or risk her being demoted from her butler position. (It's one of those "only child in a traditionally opposite sex job" roles, and she doesn't want to let down her family by not being capable of performing the usually male job.)
And since this is a comedy (nearly) harem anime, Subaru more or less immediately falls in love with Kinjiro, and every other girl in his life tries to help him overcome his fear of girls. They work on the aversion therapy method, which in this case means exposing him to unnecessarily sexy circumstances and pointing and laughing when he starts bleeding everywhere. It's honestly more heartwarming than that makes it sound.
Since it's pseudo-harem, everyone tends to be a bit into Kinjiro, but it's unexpectedly deeper than that, with no small amount of character development being given to the various people in his life. It is still frequently sexy-funny, but there's rather more to it.
Animation style is typical, with nothing particularly interesting to distinguish it. Where it does do well however is in the various music cues given to certain types of action. There are romance or suspense moments, and there is really quite a good selection of classical music dropped in to enhance the mood. Better match up than you often see in anime.
Bit silly, bit of a guilty pleasure, but a nice one to while away the time with and one I would actually watch a second series of. (They'll likely never make it.)
Recommended.
Tagged: Anime Comedy Schooldays Maids and butlers Romance Hulu Dubbed