I started watching
Papa to Kiss in the Dark expecting it to be bad shota, with the recommendation from
liyang that if you took all the incest out it’d be perfectly good light yaoi. I really wasn’t expecting much but as it turns out, shota incest aside, it’s actually quite funny simply because it’s absolutely over the top in the sense that it’s not meant to be taken seriously at all. It’s pretty much aping the genera and is actually quite similar to H-game setups where you meet the protagonist establish that he’s reasonably helpless, followed by
a Foster-san substitute an attractive paternal figure, then the student council president, the childhood friend and the additional ‘cool’ mate.
The actual incest is very comically done and it’s at all meant to be an actual, serious treatment of the issue.
The protagonist is very much a hodgepodge of stereotypes though he was a lovely comedy moment where he decides that he can’t use ‘Ore’ in front of the student council president and uses ‘Boku’ instead, though for a minute there I was certain he was going to actually go for a ‘Watashi’. The ‘papa’ figure is also a walking stereotype and is comically done. He may be related to Yuki Eiri in the same way that two of the chaps from
Enzai appear to be the bastard half-siblings of Beruze and Gerald, respectively.
So far, from the first OVA the yaoi is really softcore and is more of the fade to black type than anything else. It’s also very, very silly and the cliff-hanger ending is hilarious. Granted, I’ve watched the ending of the second OVA already so I know what the plot twist is but it’s silly highly entertaining.
I’d recommend
Papa to Kiss in the Dark to anyone who likes a bit of slightly wrong parody every now and again really. Or anyone who’s just looking for the next best Wrong Thing that still makes people laugh.
You’ve all heard that Thalidomide Arms joke, right?