Come Together! to the Seton Academy

Have you ever felt just a little furry? Not full blown furry mind you, but you have a thing for Neko’s, Kitsune and other Kemonomimi. Are you no longer satisfied with your standard cat, dog, bunny and fox girls but full blown monster girls are just a bit to much for you? Have you been desperately searching for panda, koala, sloth and bat girls in your standard harem anime? If you feel a connection to any of these statements. Get out while you still can…... Still there?Then welcome to the Seton Academy! Story – 7 Murenase! Seton Gakuen (Come Together! to the Seton Academy) Is a story about the mixed species school Seton Academy where all manner of Kemonomimi girls and full blown anthropomorphised animal guys study together. Yes, you heard correctly. The girls are Kemonomimi and the guys are animals that walk on two legs and wear clothes, with the obvious exception to this being humans. The main character Jin is a human with encyclopedic knowledge of animals which is constantly put to the test to solve the problems of his animal classmates despite his hatred of them. Along the way we find out more about his past, he collects more h̶a̶r̶e̶m̶ ̶m̶e̶m̶b̶e̶r̶s̶ friends…. And he tries to spend more time with the only other human in the school Hitomi while avoiding the eccentric little wolf Ranka. The initial story is honestly pretty awesome and makes you learn about animals in a surprisingly fun way. Case in point, while doing an animal quiz with my friends I crushed it. Convincing most of them I’m smart while in reality I’m just a degenerate, and before you ask, yes. This is a standard harem plot with panty shots galore so if that’s not your cup of tea you may wish to look elsewhere. As something of a degenerate myself I didn’t mind it and continued on learning interesting animal tidbits and enjoying the spectacle. However, the last few arcs kind of fell flat in my opinion as it felt like Bungo Yamashita was just throwing stuff at the wall and hoping something would stick. Therefore, despite how much I enjoyed the series initially, the score drops for the incoherent lead in to the rushed ending. Art – 9 The art in Murenase! Seton Gakuen is great. The girls are extremely cute and their animal depictions are on point. Furthermore, the other half of the student body who are literally just animals are extremely well done and detailed. I can’t even fathom the amount of effort necessary as Yamashita could have been content with this but also made solid background and action scenes and even had all the teachers be dinosaurs for some reason, all of which was also well drawn. While there were occasional weird attempts at different animals that were a touch jarring the artwork is probably the best part of this series. Characters – 8 Jin Mazama Jin is a man with the knowledge of Steve Irwin and with zero of his love. Jin hates animals, to him they are pests to be avoided if possible and controlled when necessary. He has studied them not because he loves them but because he has to know his enemy. When you find out more about his past, his view although frustrating to watch is also understandable to an extent. However, that’s not all there is to our Jin-dere. His hate of animals regardless of species actually makes him really fair with those who would otherwise be ostracized for their particular quirks and the stigma they might receive from the other animals. This causes a harem of Kemonomimi to form around him while a more secretive group of male students watch longingly from the shadows. Furthermore, he’s not quite as hateful as he lets on as he’s occasionally gone out of his way to help others while also showing genuine concern for his friends. If I have one complaint about Jin it’s that his attitude towards Ranka is awful in the beginning. I mean come on, how can you hate such a cute character. Speaking of which. Ranka Ookami An adorable little pink haired wolf who wants to rule the world. However, she’ll have to start somewhere and that means leading her own pack in Seton Academy first. Ranka would definitely not be considered the most capable, intelligent or powerful leader but she makes up for that with...uh… well she is cute I guess? All joking aside, she’s really determined to cross the divide that animals make with each other to only stick with their own species and willing to do what it takes to help others. She’s honestly an admirable little wolf with a heart almost as big as she is. Although, she does have a habit of letting success go to her head inevitably leading to her downfall. Thankfully, she has the capable Jin to pull her out of trouble and the kind Hitomi to smooth things over. Hitomi Hino Hitomi Hino is the only other human at Seton Academy and the girl Jin is interested in. She’s kind and accepting of others and demonstrates all the qualities of a true female as Iena would put it. She’s the one who comes up with the initial idea of a cooking club for the group and helps calm down Jin when he gets angry. She plays the part of the buffer well and is also aware of Jin’s feeling towards her. Although, she seems to prefer to maintain the status quo rather then allow their group to fall apart to infighting. There are a lot of other awesome characters in the harem as well including the ‘active’ sloth Miyubi. The ‘gourmet’ koala Yukari, The elusive cat Kurumi, the idol panda Meimei and the shy bat Chii. Add King the lion in ‘love’ with an impala, Iena the ‘manly’ spotted hyena, Ranka’s BIG sister Ferrill and the ‘nudist’ student council president Miki and you have a truly interesting and varied cast. Enjoyment – 8 I honestly enjoyed this manga. It’s not often you get a harem manga that is actually kind of educational and the characters are all interesting and fun to watch. The hijinks they get into and the ways they solve their problems rapidly switch from realistic to absurd and back again and I would often be caught in between loving, hating and laughing hysterically about any particular arc in this manga. If you’ve read this far you should have a pretty good idea what to expect from the first 100 or so chapters. Although, the others might surprise you. Overall – 8 While I have some complaints about some of the characters being 1-dimensional, a little too non-committal, rude or even straight up disappearing like the author totally forgot about them. Murenase! Seton Gakuen is honestly pretty good. If it had not been for the haphazard and rushed ending I would have rated it higher. With all that being said it’s a fairly unique, educational and interesting manga and if this review has made you curious then there’s only one thing left for you to do. Come to Seton Academy and Join the Pack!