Tongue-in-cheek or not, people keep trying to come up with asinine reasons for why the birth rate is declining. In this show, babies aren’t being made because aliens from outer space are stealing our libido. As a result, no one wants to have sex and thus have babies. But I mean, that’s not actually true, huh? People’s libidos haven’t really disappeared; we’re still as horny as ever. A lot of folks, however, simply feel that sex isn’t worth all of the complication that it entails. There are just so many ways to get an orgasm these days — ways that don’t require putting yourself out there and engaging in one-on-one relations with another living, breathing person. In fact, I think it would be interesting to see a show that tries to persuade us that an orgasm from sex is superior to the one you can get from masturbation… but I digress. After all, this is not what this show is about, so let’s just pretend that… yes, aliens are stealing our libido.

So in this destined-to-be-generic harem anime, our hero Ret has a childhood friend who matured a bit earlier than him. Kirara wanted to do all sorts of lewd things like hold hands! Ugh, what a whore! The two kids, however, were soon attacked by one of those libido-stealing aliens. The girl valiantly tried to defend her friend, and as a result, we are led to assume that her… um, “H energy” was stolen. Since then, Ret’s childhood friend has completely changed. She hates boys so much that she won’t touch anything they’ve touched. Kirara literally wears gloves because, like, boys are just so gross. Nevertheless, Ret endures. Despite her treating him with complete disdain, he sticks around in hopes that the old Kirara might return one day. And even if she doesn’t, he assures her that he won’t treat her any differently.

You know how Batman was forever shaped by seeing his parents killed before his very eyes? Well, Ret has also been shaped by his childhood friend turning frigid. Thanks to that fateful day, he’s become superhero who battles aliens. But whereas Batman has a suit, our hero completely loses his clothes whenever he has to fight evil. Ah well… them’s the breaks. This is the sort of occupational hazard that comes with starring in an ecchi comedy. Unfortunately, the alien he thought he defeated quickly comes back even stronger than ever. And this time, he’s all out of energy. It’s been a whole day, though. If a young man needs more time to get it up, maybe he should see a doctor. To make matters even worse, Kirara is with him this time. Unable to fight back, Ret grabs Kirara’s hand and leads her to a hiding place. They thus end up in the exact same playground from their past, ’cause y’know, a good story is like poetry; it rhymes.

Now that Kirara is forced to hold Ret’s hand, her frigid heart starts to melt again. In fact, it’s being engulfed by H energy. All those repressed feelings and memories are roaring back with a vengeance. Just from holding hands. Hands, man. Hands. And even though the alien has now grown to gargantuan sizes from absorbing other people’s H energy, Kirara’s energy rejuvenates Ret so much that the couple proceeds to completely destroy their energy in one shot. We soon learn that Kirara’s enormous libido was never completely stolen. In fact, the twist is that it couldn’t be stolen. The alien from their past kept trying to steal all of her H energy, but she had too much of it. This made the girl self-conscious, and that’s why she changed. Oh ho ho ho… the girl is truly the horn…y one… which we already knew from the opening? I dunno, it’s kind of a flaccid twist if you ask me. I can’t help but think of that awkward scene in Lost in Translation where a woman pretended as though she was being ravaged against her will. That’s just how it is in some places, though. Women can’t want sex; sex has to conquer them.

And with the episode coming to an end, here comes the rest of the harem… even though it’s honestly kind of pointless, ’cause Ret comes out and admits right off the bat that he’s in love with Kirara. But whatever, let’s go through this old song-and-dance routine for the kids, ’cause having one girl is never enough for some reason. Naturally, Ret and the girls all have to live together, ’cause… I dunno, harem anime has to do harem things. In any case, Kirara will undoubtedly join Ret in his quest to rid the world of these dastardly aliens, but she’ll probably have to take a backseat for now. After all, we’ve got other girls to get to know. Gotta stick to the formula. And that’s our premise. Kinda boring, isn’t it? I mean, it’s nothing we haven’t seen before. It’s the same ol’ ecchi gags, the same ol’ bouncy boobs that spin in circles way longer than they should, the same ol’ childhood friend story.

I’m trying to imagine what I’d rather watch. Maybe a comedy built on cringe humor. Maybe an earnest show about an awkward 20 or 30-year-old virgin who has only known the touch of his right hand, but he’s now trying to break out of his shell and become intimate with actual people. And along the way, we get to see his various mishaps. Like a Michael Scott trying desperately to get laid in modern Japan. Well, that wouldn’t work. That’s too adult. After all, this show is adapted from a manga that originated in Jump Square; it’s literally for kids.