Based on a manga by Peach-Pit, DearS was available in Japan in the Dengeki Comic Gao magazine on a monthly basis and here in the states we can read the manga thanks to Tokyopop. As with a lot of popular manga, DearS got the conversion into an anime series last year and has finally found its way overseas to the U.S. thanks to Geneon. The thirteen episode anime (much like the manga) features several commonplace standards from large-eyed big-breasted aliens to a guy sexually victimized by an obsessive and attractive girl. DearS has been an interesting show to this point but a "me too" atmosphere clouds the overall premise.

Takeya is your typical teenage boy. He walks around minding his own business, then one day a beautiful and buxom alien girl known as Ren gets dropped in his lap. The only problem is that he doesn't trust her kind, but once she starts walking around in the nude, his tune slowly starts to change. She is a DearS, which is an alien race of gorgeous women that crashed onto Earth a year prior. While there weren't many of them on board, they were quickly assimilated into the culture and have become revered by everyone to be virtual goddesses. It's ironic because their alien/human relationships are that of master and slave.

Up to this point several things have happened to poor Takeya. First and foremost his relationship with Ren has garnered adoration from his fellow males and scorn from the opposite sex. They all think Takeya is a pervert, which he is deep down, but openly he tries to maintain his composure and innocence. After all if you had a naked alien girl living with you and asking about sex then you'd probably have dirty thoughts now and then as well.

To make matters worse Miu (another DearS) has come into Takeya's life and seemingly has fallen in love with him. Well, "love" is probably too strong of a word; I think that having a crush would be a better way to describe it. She had hated him all along, but after events in the third volume we saw some emotion start to bubble to the surface. On top of all this his long-time friend Neneko also showed us that she had feelings for him. With all of this attention it's going to make things interesting for our unwitting friend as the fourth volume and series draws to a close.

Much to my delight Takeya's sisters Natsuki is back in the picture. On the second volume of the series she popped in to get introduced and vanished just as quickly. She was lively with an innocent, yet abrasive personality that the show desperately needed to have in the mix. This time around she plays an unwitting catalyst in the whole Takeya is having an orgy plot started by his perverted teacher. He, a buddy of his, Ren, Miu, and Neneko all go back to his place for a study group so it's natural that teacher would think that an orgy is going on. Ok, not really, but that's the nature of this anyways. This episode was pretty funny and we learned about the different classes of DearS known as Biters and Barkers.

After that one of the Barkers in charge of it all (some lady dressed as a dominatrix) issues the order to have Ren recalled. This unfortunate news has been assigned to Miu, who now has the fun task of informing Takeya. All sorts of stuff happen in this episode that speaks of the Master and Slave's relationship. Mostly it involves Ren saying something to embarrass Takeya or touching him in some fashion. For some reason it sends him over the edge, but then again I'd probably be embarrassed too if it was announced that I had a collection of porn under my sink full of big breasted older women.

I'm not going to spoil the last episode for you, but let's just say that the whole Ren being taken away thing is the main theme. It's really sad to say, but this last episode held so much promise for the series it was almost a disappointment. There are a lot of elements that are touched upon only at the tail end of the show that were actually interesting. Unfortunately we won't get to know what really happened because there are only 13 episodes and this is the last of it. Overall DearS was a mediocre series was sometimes interesting and sometimes not scenarios and characters. If you like dirty-minded harem anime then you may want to check it out.

DearS Volume 4 is presented in its original 1.33:1 full frame ratio and has the clean transfer that each volume has offered. Even though the show wasn't quite my cup of tea I really got into the art direction and style of DearS. There was a great sense of humor most of the time just by the expressions of the characters. Then again you also have to take into consideration the musings of the sexually explicit teacher when you're talking about visual gags.

DearS is presented with English and Japanese 2.0 soundtracks and English subtitles tossed into the mix for the Japanese language. Both tracks featured very good quality and despite the 2.0 aspect of the channels there is some directional sound used, though not much. I found both audio tracks to be competent and worthwhile and neither offended me with any bad voiceovers. Some of the translations for the subtitles seemed a little stiff to me at times, but I didn't really encounter that with the English track.

A few Geneon Previews make the final cut here as well as an Art Gallery. There are six images in total but they aren't that interesting. A few of them are featured on the packaging for the DVD and there are design sketches for the teacher and one of the random students. To say that I was disappointed with DearS offering of bonus content would be an understatement.

DearS is a show that's difficult to hate. There are a lot of bubbly characters, fun situations, and a great sense of irreverence from start to finish. The naughty nature of the anime is another highlight I think because it gives the series a nice fanservice appeal. Unfortunately with the way everything comes together it creates a copycat atmosphere because really, shows like this have been done before. Things started to get interesting towards the end of the 13 episodes, but by that point there were too many concepts tossed into the air and too few explanations. We'd almost need another 13 episodes to really get to know what's going on.

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