Inu x Boku Secret Service (The Dog and Me Secret Service) seems unlikely to become a great classic but it is still one of the more interesting and unusual shows in a rather weak season. Part of its oddness is due to the fact that though it is a shounen anime (or at least it is based on a shounen manga) it really looks and feels more like a shoujo story.

The mangaka is a woman who goes by the name of “Cocoa Fujiwara,” but that isn’t really the issue. Lots of women write shounen manga and it usually isn’t that different from shounen manga written by men, though perhaps with better-developed female characters and a bit more emphasis on romantic themes. Inu x Boku SS on the other hand, if it had a bit less fan service and the heroine didn’t call herself “boku”, would fit right in if it appeared in a shoujo manga magazine.

The premise is pretty weird even for anime. The heroine Ririchiyo Shirakiin is just starting high school but looks even younger. Due to her strict upbringing as the daughter of an old and wealthy family she acts imperious and self-assured, but actually she is lonely and insecure. She has the self-defeating habit of lashing out with cutting remarks at anyone who irritates her.

Hoping to overcome her problems she insists when she starts high school that she wants to live on her own. This is a problem because the members of the Shirakiin family are part-human part-youkai and if she lived by herself she would be in danger of being attacked by full-blooded youkai. Her family agrees only on condition that she move into the Maison de Ayakashi, a high-security apartment complex that is actually maintained by wealthy part-youkai families as a safe house for their children.

(“Shirakiin” means “House of the White Oni” and that’s the form Ririchiyo assumes if she becomes sufficiently angry. Calling a Japanese woman an “oni” implies that she is self-centered and unable to control her temper, which is harsh criticism indeed.)

Every resident of Maison de Ayakashi is assigned a part-youkai bodyguard called a “Secret Service.” Ririchiyo doesn’t want one but she gets one anyway: Soushi Miketsukami who is very handsome if you don’t mind different-colored eyes. She doesn’t recognize him but he claims that she once saved him and that he is prepared to die to serve her. His obsequious behavior crosses into creepy-stalker territory and Ririchiyo is almost as unnerved as the audience.

(“Miketsukami” means “Noble Fox Spirit.” In fact he’s a nine-tailed fox, which suggests that he may be much older than he looks.)

Other residents of the complex include Ririchiyo’s childhood friend Renshou Sorinozuka, an ittan momen. His Secret Service agent is Nobara Yukinokouji, a yuki onna. She is a lesbian stalker type who immediately sets her sights on Ririchiyo. Another agent is Karuta Roromiya, a soft-spoken girl who sometimes takes the form of a giant skeleton. More characters remain to be introduced.

It is still not clear what direction the story will take. Probably it involves Ririchiyo learning to control her abrasive personality and becoming less isolated. Probably there is some sort of romance with Soushi, but in a shounen manga there is a limit to how far that can go.