Cinnamon Ass - Reborn Like a Zombie

Kyou Kara Maou! episode 1- Flushed Away to a Strange World

Opening - Hateshinaku Tooi Sora ni (THE STAND UP) - I wonder why bishounen/shounen-ai shows always get cheesy sort-of rock songs for OPs nowadays instead of frenetic pop songs like they used to? Obviously the Weiss era has moved on. Oh, it's fine, quite a good OP, but the song's very much in the Saiyuki mould (although nothing beats the sheer crap of WILE WILE ROAH!)
Ending - Suteki na Shiawase (same again) - more cheese, and the chibis suggest that Gunter and Wolfram will be chasing after Yuri's affections at some point.

It's Fushigi Yuugi! Without Miaka! And a whole lot more intentional shounen ai!

Right, we've got that out the way. Our central character is Yuri, who in a fit of justice tries to defend a classmate from bullies but ends up being flushed down the toilet into an alternate universe. As you do. Well, first he thinks he's been flushed to the Alps, obviously - this is a comedy, if you couldn't tell.

Yuri is not welcomed kindly by the natives, but is bestowed the gift of understanding their speech by a passing blond man named something like Ardabelt or Adelbert. Yuri is then carried off by flying skeleton to a castle having been rescued again by Conrad (who wears the same pendant that Yuri's dad did in a small prologue at the beginning, and laters enquires "Do your buttocks hurt at all?") where we get the lowdown on what's going on from him and Gunter, who has purple hair and dotes on Yuri's every move. Seems that Yuri is the "Maou", the king of the Mazoku (some sort of demonic race) and they need him to kill all humans. After a brief ride through the capital city is interrupted by a fly stinging Yuri's horse and sending him racing up to the palace, where we meet our last two main characters, Gwendel (who hates him) and Wolfram (obviously a love interest).

It's pretty refreshing to see a bishounen-filled show that leavens the angst with a bit of humour while still managing to have a vaguely interesting plot in there somewhere - sort of Fushigi Yuugi crossed with a very slimmed down version of Twelve Kingdoms, perhaps. The characters are a little cliched, as to be expected, but they're all pleasant enough - Yuri is a little bit of a moron, but a fairly likeable one. Besides, as long as there are nicely animated magic spells I'll probably be happy. This'll probably be my guilty pleasure of the season, like Matantei Loki Ragnarok and DN Angel were this time last year.