Love After World Domination Review

“Allow me to explain! This is the story of a hero of justice and a secret society’s combatant walking the road of forbidden love!”

This spring anime season certainly wasn’t left wanting when it came to comedies, with some of the most anticipated titles falling into that genre. Love After World Domination proved to be among the better examples as its primary joke proved itself impressively adaptable and even when the jokes occasionally flagged, it could fall back on a large cast of eclectic characters. For most viewers, it probably won’t be deemed the best comedy of the season, but that’s more a statement on the scope and quality of the competition. None of the comedies I followed could be described as traditional or safe, and Love After World Domination may well be the most daring of the bunch, and even if that doesn’t necessarily translate to the best jokes or emotional resonance, it’s an enjoyable romp that is well worth visiting.

Love After World Domination could easily lay claim to the “Best Comedy Premise” award for this season. The series follows the romantic trials and tribulations of its lead couple consisting of Fudo, the muscle-headed leader of a gelato-themed, sentai-style hero group, and Desumi, the powerful and occasionally bashful lieutenant of an evil society called Gekko. As a comedic formula, this proves shockingly adaptable, as the show can take any romance trope and push it to extremes. The sentai genre is where limits to suspension of disbelief go to die, so the audience is much more comfortable rolling with the wacky, gelato-themed punches. The series leans into this effectively, mining the tonal dissonance existing between the bombastic superhero action elements and the ostensibly subdued romantic elements. This series features a legitimately hilarious and heartwarming scene where Desumi gets Fudo’s thoughts about whether she should be fused with a gorilla. The stories themselves tend to be somewhat repetitive, but that’s a minor quibble as long as the humor lands, which it often does.

The cast is populated by other members of our leads’ respective organizations. Most of the secondary and tertiary characters are constructed around a single joke, but their diversity keeps the show from leaning on a single joke too heavily for an excessive period of time. It can always switch its focus to a different character. If I were to highlight a problem I had with this show, it’s that it probably won’t be too memorable in the long-term. There are some nice jokes and fun characters, but nothing that will live in my memory the way Saitama’s first fight with Sonic in One-Punch Man or the visual novel binge in Nozaki-kun do. The romance is cute, but the wackiness prevents it from establishing a firm and memorable foundation. This is actually an issue I had with this season’s Shikimori-san as well. It’s fun and pleasant, but it doesn’t truly elevate itself beyond that level, though whether or not it needs to is dependent on what the viewer wants to get out of the show. Love After World Domination is competent and capable when it comes to what it wants to be, but it never cements itself as a standout in its genre and the romance will usually take a backseat to the comedy.

If I was asked to characterize the studio Project No.9 based on the previous works I’ve sampled, I don’t think the term “good” would show up often in that assessment. Despite that, they bring to the table everything necessary for Love After World Domination to work. Primarily, they provide it with colorful, kinetic animation. With a comedy such as this, little else is actually needed. Of the comedies that I watched this season, this was the one with the least visual polish, but it never hampered or distracted me from the experience of viewing it. While Desumi’s character design seems geared towards fanservice more than I generally like, it only occasionally drew attention away from the proceedings, and thankfully she’s an outlier when it comes to character designs. The OP and ED are charming, but nothing exceptional. However, like the show itself, cute and fun is what they’re aiming for, and both hit that target reliably.

Before I wrap up, a few Notes and Nitpicks:

• There is a joke towards the end of the series where it is revealed that one of the characters, who is a nurse, has a fetish for dressing up her patients as babies and brainwashing them into calling her “mommy.” There are some humorous gags tied in with that, but I can’t deny that the entire set up and premise for the joke is disturbing.
• It’s a little odd that we spend so little time with the members of Gelato 5, compared to the various members of Gekko. The blue and yellow rangers only make appearances for brief gags. Maybe the perceived imbalance is due to Gekko having more members overall.
• Project No.9 has another romantic comedy coming out in just over a week. Its title is My Stepmom’s Daughter is My Ex, which isn’t a great title, but I’ve heard at least a little positivity regarding the light novel’s quality, so I may sample it.
• At least half the process of reviewing a good comedy is blankly staring at your screen trying to think of a new way to say, “It’s funny.”