The bouncer of the club is Ryoko Okami, a girl who is like a wolf in fights (hence the last name okami). She is flat chested; which is a source for many jokes by the narrator. The narrator is also a character that the Otogi Bank members heckle. Ryoshi is a boy who newly joins the club in the first episode because of his love interest with Okami.
The Otogi Bank club acts as an arm of the Otogi high school’s director. The school is in conflict with a similar delinquent school a short distance away. Fights between the toughs of Onigashima and Okami are regular occurrences.
Okami-san is a cute anime mostly focused on a female audience. Okami puts up a fierce front and has a lot of inner strength, but she has a soft side that she is reluctant to show. Fight scenes involve Okami punching guys with various gloves provided by the Otogi Bank. The gloves are sometimes tasers and sometimes normal boxing gloves. But they always leave kawaii animal face bruises on the cheeks of the receivers.
The Otagi Bank is a odd crew that consists of a cross dressing president, a maid obsessed with repaying kindnesses, a mad scientist, an extremely horny guy who only fights after he is…uh…sated by his girlfriend. Of course, there is also a conniving lolita.
The seemingly goofy and kawaii series has surprising dark undertones that are never completely drawn into the light. The most serious deals with Okami and the class president of Onigashima, the delinquent school. Unfortunately, the anime didn’t develop these dark undertones.
Okami-san and Her Seven Companions is a fun 12 episode romp that will be too cute for many. The characters are fairly interesting. The anime should have focused on the darker elements of each character. There was very little suspense in the series because there wasn’t any real risk to anyone despite the fighting. The light novel series likely gets deeper into this than the anime. I haven’t read the light novel series. Wikipedia describes the series as shonen. I can see this in some regards, but the kawaii factor may be a bit much for many males.
The animation isn’t stellar, but it isn’t terrible either. I’ve seen some anime break down to almost sketch-like quality. Okami-san stays pretty consistent throughout.
In any case, the series held my attention long enough for me to watch all 12 episodes. I enjoyed the characterization. Although Ryoshi was annoying in the first several episodes. If you enjoy strong female characters with a soft side, cuteness, and goofy high school plots, you might enjoy this one.
