Tag: Papakiki

Listen to Me, Girls. I Am Your Father! OVA

Listen to Me, Girls. I Am Your Father! OVA

Papakiki OVA Overview

The OVA for the anime series Listen to Me, Girls. I Am Your Father! (Papa no Iukoto wo Kikinasai! OVA / パパのいうことを聞きなさい!OVA), also known simply as Papakiki, includes two episodes that take place after the main series. If you liked the original series as I did, you should probably watch the OVA for a reason I’ll get to in just a moment.

But first, I need to point out that the cover art for this OVA (which I’m not including in this review) is misleading. It features the three main girls, Sora, Miu, and Hina in their bathing suits. So if you see the cover art, you’re probably going to assume the OVA includes a beach or pool episode.

It does not.

Miu and Shiori watching a scary movie from the Papakiki anime OVA
Miu and Shiori watching a scary movie

Instead, the first of the two episodes is broken into three parts. Each part tells a short story focused on one of the girls. And the second episode follows the girls’ parents as ghosts as they visit their daughters four years after the events of the main series.

This second episode is the main reason I would say that fans of the main series should watch the OVA, and it’s also the main reason the cover art is misleading. Ignoring the fact that the OVA episodes don’t include the girls in bathing suits, what’s more important here is that it gives the impression that these are simply fan-service episodes.

In reality, the second OVA episode is the true ending of the series, much like the specials for Oreimo 2. If you skip out on this OVA, then you aren’t actually seeing how the story ends by finishing the main series.

Sora, Miu, and Hina

I know I just said that the cover art for this OVA gives the impression that these are simply fan-service episodes, but in the case of the first episode, that impression is mostly correct. Two-thirds of this episode is definitely pure, yuri bait fan-service with no other beneficial qualities whatsoever.

The first story is about Sora and Raika getting locked in a dresser together while wearing kigurumi (animal onesies). They start to get hot in the cramped dresser and take off the kigurumi so that they’re then in their underwear. They then take off their underwear in a failed attempt to use it to unlock the dresser.

Basically, this first story is focusing on two, sweaty, naked girls pressed up against each other.

Story number two follows Miu and Shiori. It starts off with some yuri bait involving eating cake off each others’ bodies. Then it progresses to more yuri bait involving the two of them bathing together. And it finishes up with a bit more fan-service with Miu stripping and dressing Shiori in different outfits.

Again, other than ecchi fan-service, there isn’t anything going on in this story. And while I don’t have a problem with that, oddly enough, that’s not what I like about Papakiki.

Hina walking in the rain from the Papakiki anime OVA
Hina walking in the rain

The third and final story includes the drama that I like about this series. This time around we follow Hina as she heads off in the rain to the local amusement park so that she can ride the Ferris wheel.

Not only does Hina’s sudden disappearance worry the rest of her family, but in the end, we learn that the reason she wanted to ride it was to be closer to her dead mother in Heaven. It’s her mother’s birthday, so Hina wanted to show her the picture she drew for her. That kind of emotional, family-driven drama is what I like about Papakiki.

Four Years On

The second OVA episode is much more important than the first because, as I mentioned, it actually concludes the series. This episode is set four years after the events of the main series and shows us how Yuuta and the girls have grown since then through the eyes of the girls’ dead parents.

What I liked about this episode is that it drives home the idea that the girls are alright. Yes, they lost their parents at young ages and had to go through some hardships when they were first taken in by their uncle, Yuuta. But, they have overcome these hardships and are now living healthy and happy lives.

In that regard, I think this episode makes for a very good conclusion. However, there’s another part of the episode that I’m not quite sold on. It’s revealed that Yuuta and Sora are going to get married.

Sora, Yuuta, and the ghosts of Sora's parents from the Papakiki anime OVA
Sora, Yuuta, and the ghosts of Sora’s parents

My review of the original series was over two years ago, but I’m almost certain that I mentioned the fact that Papakiki is considered a romantic comedy. I never really saw it that way, though, because, to me, the main draw was the drama. So while I understand that this conclusion makes sense from Sora’s perspective, it doesn’t from the perspective of the series as a whole.

Sure, we’ve known from the start that Sora had a crush on Yuuta despite the fact that he’s her uncle. But there was never really a focus on their relationship. The focus was on Yuuta, Sora, Miu, and Hina developing as a family unit. It was showing how, despite Yuuta being a college student, he was able to successfully give these girls a healthy home environment.

I’m still not sure how I feel about this development. Yuuta already has Raika, so does he really need to marry his own 18-year-old niece? But at the same time, the scene of Yuuta and Sora taking care of Hina together when she had a fever was good. Though, maybe that same scene still could have been included with Hina replaced by Raika alongside Yuuta.

Conclusion

In the end, the Listen to Me, Girls. I Am Your Father! OVA is a 6/10 from me. It was enjoyable to watch, especially after not watching this series in so long. But there were still some questionable developments at the end of that second episode. I feel like Yuuta and Sora ending up together is basically just fan-service and wasn’t necessary at all.

But, the best part of these OVA episodes was that they both included the OP and ED of the main series.

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Listen to Me, Girls. I Am Your Father!

Listen to Me, Girls. I Am Your Father!

Listen to Me, Girls. I Am Your Father! anime cover art featuring Sora, Miu, and Hina
Listen to Me, Girls. I Am Your Father! Cover Art

Overview

Listen to Me, Girls. I Am Your Father! (or Papakiki as I will be referring to it from here on out) is supposedly a romance, comedy, slice of life anime. I say supposedly because the only one of those categories I think it fully fits into is slice of life. While there are hints of romance and some comedic parts, it didn’t feel like a romantic comedy.

As for the plot, one day Yuuta is asked to babysit his three nieces by his sister and her husband so they can go out. This all goes sort of fine, so they ask him to babysit again while they go on a trip abroad. Unfortunately, their plane crashes and they are both presumed dead (doesn’t sound very rom-com-y to me).

After the deaths of their parents, the three girls were going to be split up to be taken care of by various family members. Yuuta, however, thinks the girls should be raised together rather than be split up and so he decides to raise them himself in his one-room apartment.

Characters

Yuuta is the protagonist. He’s a college student who was raised by his sister after the deaths of their own parents which is why he feels this is the right thing to do for his nieces. Along with his college courses, he also works to pay the rent for his apartment and provide for his nieces.

Sora, 14, is the eldest of the girls and has had a crush on Yuuta since she was a little kid (I think this is why it’s considered a romantic comedy). Like the other two girls, she struggles to cope with the deaths of her parents, but as the eldest sister, she tries to hold herself together and be a role model.

Miu, 10, is kind of like Sora’s wing-woman. She knows how Sora feels about Yuuta and purposefully says or does things to make them interact with each other. Other than that she’s almost a forgotten character as she’s the middle sibling.

Hina, 3, is the youngest sister. She’s generally happy but doesn’t understand why she and her sisters are living with Yuuta or why her parents aren’t coming back. Throughout the anime, the struggle to explain to Hina what happened to her parents is something all the other characters have to deal with, especially Sora.

Hina and Yuuta playing video games (from the anime Listen to Me, Girls. I Am Your Father!)
Hina (left) and Yuuta (right)

Conclusion

If you watch the OP linked below you may see why this anime is considered a romantic comedy, but as I mentioned before, I don’t think it really fits into that genre. While there is some romance and some comedy, the main theme of the show appears to be how kids of various ages cope with the loss of their parents, which isn’t a very romantic or comedic theme.

I do think that the slice of life genre fits, however, because it does a pretty good job of showing the kinds of everyday struggles these characters have to go through. From coping with loss to struggling with managing school and multiple jobs, there are plenty of themes in this anime that many people are probably familiar with within their own lives.

In the end, I gave Papakiki a 7/10 because I thought it did a good job of expressing some of these more realistic, and heavy themes in a way that was still entertaining to watch.

My review of the Papakiki OVA is available here.