Papa to Kiss in the Dark
Reviewer: SOMA [email] [website]Overall Rating: B-
Media Reviewed: Digital fansub
Creator: Namabara Ken, Studio TNK
U.S. Licensed: Yes
Released by: Three Fat Samurai (Japan) / Kitty Media (U.S.)
Run time: 2 26-minute episodes
BL Content: Moderate/hard (incest sexual situations, nudity)
Genre: Romance
Other media:
Japanese novel
Japanese drama CD
As twisted as it may seem, this yaoi take on pedophilia isn't exactly as bad as most would imagine. Because frankly, if Loveless seemed a bit strange, wait until you see Munakata Mira, a fifteen-year-old first-year in senior high, and his 29-year-old father, Munakata Kyousuke, and the naughty things they do when the lights are out (or even on), or rather, those explicit parts are left to one's imagination seeing how all we get to see during the famed scenes you can get jailed for, is Mira's sweaty and blushing features right in your face, and occasionally, some pink nipples.
First and foremost, this anime feels extremely cliche take on those far-fetched Italian soap-operas, although I bet none of you haven't seen anything quite like it.
As usual, we start off with Mira, who is late for his first day of Senior High. He gets up at seven and acting like the world is going to end if he is even a minute late, and like most children would do in desperate situations to get somewhere fast, he tries to wake up his blonde and sexy papa who prefers to sleep in nothing but some cologne that apparently turns Mira way on.
Papa, however, isn't being very helpful as he proceeds to have sex with his son. At first, Mira resists a little, and the viewer will surely get an overall feeling like this is the first time this sort of thing happens between the two, Mira doesn't want it, and Kyou just decided, "oh, this morning, I'm going to molest my teenage son" out of the blue. In reality, as the story goes on, we find out that this wasn't the first time nor Mira disliked it. The only part he disliked about having sex with his own father is, he got late for school, with which there is absolutely nothing wrong.
The boy is also very jealous, by the way, and he has the right to: the man acts like a playboy around women and could be meeting one right now!
The school seems to be guarded like US National Treasury: fences, gates, locks, chicken wire around unreachably-high door knobs... finally giving up, Mira leans on a door that, of course, opens and our unfortunate hero falls back. Finally, he gets guided to his classroom by a Student-Body president, who keeps hitting on him all the way throughout the story.
Afterwards, we meet Kazu, Mira's best friend, and Shun, another friend who doesn't play much of a role excepts brings a rumor to Mira's attention: his beloved papa, a famous actor, will soon be marrying Utsunomiya Mizuki, a famous actress. That depressed the boy, but what depressed him even more was what he got out of the legal papers he needed for school registration. In those papers, he found out that Kyousuke wasn't his biological father... Mira was devastated: he was sleeping with his father for all this time, and that man wasn't really his father? Oh no!
...but the fact that Mira and Kyou aren't really related gives Kazu, the said best childhood friend, a window of opportunity: who would have guessed that he liked Mira? Oh no, that first encounter in first episode when he practically molested his 'friend' at the back of the classroom couldn't mean anything. So they have sex: Kazu, who is now a runner-up to be Mira's boyfriend, and Mira, who was terrified of his father cheating on him.
Later when Kyou and Mira meet, Mira doesn't seem concerned/ashamed/guilty that he cheated at all, yet is still jealous of 'other women playing with Kyou', witch somehow makes sense.
But only by the end do all things fall in their rightful places: the student-body president, Utsunomiya Takayuki that kept hitting on Mira is actresses' Utsunomia Mizuki's son, Mizuki in turn is Kyou's sister, who's actually Mira's mother, and Kyou is in a romance movie with Mizuki because he is her brother. Well, let's just say Mira was pleased that his lover of a step-father is related to Mira by blood -- if my papa isn't my real papa, it's still okay to sleep with him because he is my uncle. If I didn't have his blood in me though, THEN we would have a problem.
In some random flashback, when Mira is around five or six, he, Kazu and Shun are on monkey bars at a playground. The following conversation takes place: Shun "I want to me a musician!" Kazu: "I want to be an actor!" Mira: "I want to be papa's bride!"
Okay, so maybe in Mira's mind it was all the way it should have been, but his way of seeing things is not exactly what the society would find acceptable, let along rational or even sane, but hey, it's as great thing to poke fun at.
It overall was a little too slow, and the scenes seemed compelled to only two environments: Mira's house and Mira's school (and a ten-second shot of a hospital). I found myself wanting to fast-forward: no real attachment was made, although it was very fuzzy and romantic: Mira really does love his father in many ways, and Kyou doesn't seem to mind returning those feelings. I guess, the overall moral (if one is present) would be: "There is absolutely nothing wrong with love." But then again, if that was the moral, it sure was put in one hell of a weird way.
The music variety is just as it's expected from an OVA: there was only one song, "Close to You," which is played with the ending credits, and it's a truly wonderful song. The lyrics touching and the guys singing it have a pretty good sense of music: finally they hired some good people to sing for cheap OVAs. And if there was a background music, I sure didn't notice it. Alright, there was, but it wasn't annoyingly slow nor it was loud and obnoxious, which made it blend in and hardly noticeable, just like it should be. So the music (which pretty much consists of one lonesome song) gets an overall A rating.
The art and animation are great too: bright, focused graphics. Very much remind me of good-old Gravitation: hot men revolving around one tiny, cute little boy. The only flow in graphics is, in mature males (Kyou, Kazu), the eyes are drown so freakishly far apart at times, it makes you wonder just when the good artists will get off from a coffee break.
I would recommend it regardless of a wobbly plot. It's interesting and heartwarming, not even a hint of angst, very well-drawn, voice actors know what they were doing... it's quite funny at times too, too bad it was only two episodes.
I've got only one more thing to say: thank God it wasn't set in parallel universe where little 15-year-old boys could have children.