I didn’t expect to like Cute High Earth Defense Club Love! (Binan Koukou Chikyuu Boueibu Love!) (Crunchyroll.) The idea of a parody of a magical girl show seemed uninspired. It’s hard to do a good parody of a genre that never took itself very seriously in the first place. In any case the traditional magical girl story has been parodied and deconstructed many times. And the idea of making it about magical boys didn’t seem very inspired either. (Most shoujo magical girl teams typically have at least one male member anyway.)

But I’ll go along with just about anything if it’s funny enough, and this is very funny indeed. At least it has stayed funny for three episodes. We’ll have to see how it holds up over the entire season.

Let’s call this guy Wombat. He’s not actually a wombat. He’s an [unpronounceable] from [unpronounceable], but he looks like a pink wombat so that will have to do. Wombat has just arrived on Earth and is very impressed with its culture, but he is distressed to see that it is threatened by the forces of Lovelessness. He decides to recruit some Earth people to form a team of “Battle Lovers” and fight to defend the planet.


Two potential recruits are relaxing in a public bathhouse. High school senior En Yufuin (R) is laid-back and indolent. He likes to start long meandering “choco cornet”-type discussions which somehow seem to foreshadow the monster of the week. His childhood friend Atsushi Kinugawa (L) is very serious and hardworking.

Wombat materializes in the middle of the bath to the discomfiture of the occupants.

He is spotted by Yumoto Hakone, a high school freshman who is the son of the bathhouse owner. He is somewhat effeminate and obsessed with cute things. He particularly loves wombats.

He tries to give Wombat a big hug.

Wombat wants none of this so he runs out of the bathhouse with Yumoto in hot pursuit.

Attempting to evade his pursuer he ducks into the nearby high school and runs up the stairs.

Unfortunately he collides with Mr. Tawarayama, a beloved elderly teacher, with disastrous results.

Overcome with guilt, Wombat reanimates the corpse and makes it carry him around. (He vows to fully revive him at some later point.)

En and Atsushi have been goofing off after school in an unused clubroom with an old sign that says “Earth Defense Club.” Two second-year students, Io Naruko and Ryuu Zaou have been hanging out with them. Both seem pretty shallow: Io is obsessed with money and Ryuu boasts constantly about his romantic success with girls.

Just then Mr. Tawarayama and Wombat burst in, hotly pursued by Yumoto.

Wombat harangues them about the need to form a team to fight for Love against the forces of Lovelessness. They are unconvinced, even when he causes magic bracelets to appear on their wrists.

Suddenly a horrible monster appears, threatening the school.

With no time to lose, Wombat orders them to kiss their bracelets. This transforms them into magical boys with embarrassing costumes.

And magic wands.

Wombat continues to harangue them, finally convincing them to attack the monster.


Once they all pile in they manage to defeat it without too much trouble.

The guys are not at all thrilled with the idea of a club that requires them to wear embarrassing costumes, strike effeminate poses and shout embarrassing slogans–not to mention the magic wands. But given that their school is threatened by monsters, they don’t really have much choice, do they?

That doesn’t mean they can’t be sarcastic about it though.

But where do the monsters come from. For that we must look to the Earth Conquest Club, a.k.a. the Student Council. (L-R) Akoya Gero, Student Body President Kinshirou Kusatsu and Vice President Ibushi Arima.

They are refined young men who dream of taking over the world and eliminating all the slovenly inferior people. Of course that can’t be done all at once so they plan to start with the school.

They work for this guy, who looks like a green hedgehog. Actually he is Lord Zundar from Planet Evil. (Hint: when it comes time to name your planet you would probably do better to pick something unpronounceable.)

With his help they can turn into magical boys, and I have to admit that their costumes look much better.

Their approach is to identify the most angst-ridden student or teacher and turn him into a giant angst-monster.

But now that they have the Battle Lovers to contend with they will probably need to come up with something more sophisticated.