It's a load of bollocks. I didn't buy its premise, its protagonist is annoying and it's a TV-friendly idea of "steamy" that avoids showing naughty bits. It's adapted from a 8-volume smutty manga that was still running when this TV drama aired. I won't be buying the manga to confirm my hypothesis, but I'm pretty sure this story would work better in its original medium. Live-action will probably make the logic holes and stupid characterisation seem more problematic, while there's something kind of pointless in tackling a semi-hentai premise while being coy about it. The bonus "Death Game" episode (where no one dies) has naked girls and a yakyuuken strip game, yet manages to be approximately family friendly.

Its premise is that sex is illegal. Japan banned it 15 years ago. You can't start a family except by artificial insemination. (But how would you enforce this?) Similar thinking has also led to bans on pornography, love hotels, swimsuits, Valentine's Day and Christmas. Double beds aren't on sale. A professional singer who'd specialised in love songs committed suicide. Violate these laws and you'll be hunted down by the Sexual Intercourse Control Officers (SICO) and given up to ten years in jail. Yes, obviously it's a parodic exaggeration of moral guardian laws that really exist. It's SF, basically, but in a nearly contemporary setting. (The year 2050.) Even so, though... naaah, come off it. You've got to be kidding me. The world's most pointless and hard-to-enforce law? I'd have been interested if they'd had the guts to portray this in an Islamic theocracy, but in Japan? It's the porn capital of the world and they've been worrying for decades about their declining birth rate. We're also told that sex is still legal everywhere else in the world. America, France, China, all other countries... it's only Japan that went mad.

Besides, we all know it wouldn't work. As has been demonstrated historically with prohibitions of drugs and alcohol, you'd just be giving gangsters a licence to print money. The series portrays that too, admittedly, but still I couldn't buy it. I'd be getting impatient with the police for wasting their time on it, for instance. (It'll reduce their available manpower for investigating real crimes.)

Inuta Hikaru is a noble and stupid teenager who wants to become a SICO officer like his father. He lectures his classmates at school about the dangers of kissing, even though that's still legal. On entering a crowded sex club in episode 1, he gets out his phone to take visual evidence of the orgy and announces that he's calling the police. (Guess what happens to him. No, the fornicators don't take it calmly. This also brings him to the attention of the club's gangster owners.)

Inuta is about to learn what happens when you try to criminalise being a horny teenager... AND HE'LL BE HORRIFIED. Wet dreams. Jizzing his pants when his childhood friend and his teacher walk in. Fellatio in the school art room. Oh, the poor, delicate lamb. My heart bleeds. Inuta's response to imagining his childhood friend naked is to scream and flee. He gets arrested for rape. He encounters all kinds of completely avoidable trouble, for which I never had a shred of sympathy. The boy's an idiot. The story keeps giving him sexual dilemmas (gasp!) and his response is always annoying.

IF HE REFUSES = yes, he's still a twat who thinks sex is evil.

IF HE ACCEPTS = he's going against his (stupid, pathetic) principles and putting his head in yet another noose, because the plot's full of gangsters, police officers and other dodgy people.

When someone sends him a sex video, he doesn't wonder who sent it, or why, or how this footage was supposedly captured, or whether the video's real. Instead, he freaks out and quits school.

The rest of the show's showing a similar level of intelligence. The cops have a counter-productive idea of "taking responsibility" and are capable of finding the most damaging way to break their own sex laws. Similarly, there's a gangster who wants to abolish the sex laws and hasn't have realised that they're letting him make money hand over fist. (In fairness, though, one of his lieutenants explains that to him.)

Female characters fare best. I could believe in their choices and dilemmas. This made them more likeable, even the ones who'd probably be criminals even in the real world (e.g. the sultry teacher whose hobby is seducing schoolboys). Meanwhile, the best and most engaging male character is probably the gangster who runs the sex club. Also, things improve towards the end. Inuta pulls his head out of his backside, although not all the way. He becomes less uncomfortable to watch, although still capable of comedy overreactions to... (gasp) A PORN MAG?!!? "This highly dangerous erotic material used to be sold in bookshops and even convenience stores."

I like some of the character journeys. The story can be quite good when focusing on the girls. I don't dislike everything in this show. .. but you'd still have to look long and hard to find another TV series this stupid and annoying.