Recap: Kazuya discovers that his new friends are not what they seem. Actually hes an idiot, but this is the truth of what he believes.
Kazuya, natural chick magnet that he is, attracts all the babes. They love him so much that Haruka, idol of the school, begs the protagonist to take her for a private photo shoot. After he is done with Haruka he takes photos of the class rep climbing over the school wall in an attempt to hide the fact that she was running late. Before long all the girls will be under Kazuya’s uh… camera. Will he be able to resist the dark side of photography? Or will his new hobby run away with his morals?
Personal use only.
Lifesong’s Thoughts: Cute girls beg to have their photos taken by the protagonist. This show hangs in the balance somewhere between soft-porn and slice of life. I am not sure which it wants to be and frankly, neither is it. On the positive side there is some impressive voice talent, but is quickly beginning to feel wasted on this anime. There might actually be some decent room for drama with this setup, but the setup itself is just so, uh… creepy? The character motivation is so implausible it becomes painful. Everyone wants to bone the protagonist’s “camera” and have his chil… er, photos! This whole thing is just so hard to take seriously.
These are not the photos you are looking for.
Zigg’s Thoughts: I wish to apologize. Last episode I may have given the impression that there was some so-bad-its-good fun to be had with this, that it was a ripe target for MST3K style parody. However, the appallingly creepy nature of this second episode, barely more than an excuse for a series of inappropriate slideshows, has made me reconsider my position. As such I wish to tender my immediate resignation from my position covering this show, after which I will run screaming out of my house, douse myself in petrol and mercifully end it all.
It’s a bad show guys. Real, REAL bad.
Marlin’s Thoughts: Man, this show was quick to abandon anything that even made it remotely enjoyable from a bad perspective. It’s just nothing but creepers and bad pacing now. There was barely even any fanservice shots outside that appalling swimsuit shoot, so I don’t even get what’s in it for the creepers anymore. The animation did not get any better either, and inappropriate sister times are apparently still the norm. It did make me wonder why this show is called Photo Kano… when Kano is the name of his sister.
Iro’s Thoughts:
This show is sketchy as fuck.
The Glorio Blog 
If there is any redeeming value from this show, it’s from the amount of chuckles generated from reading this post.
I was hoping we might get something like Amagami SS out of this anime. I can put up with a lot of things if the stuff I want to see is buried somewhere inside, but Photo Kano isn’t just creepy, it sux on a much more fundamental level.
Amagami SS was rather charming. Photo Kano seems to have a protagonist who doesn’t understand what “consent first” means joining a group who similarly bases their hobby on the “take first, get permission later” philosophy.
The rape culture on display really rubs me the wrong way. But again, I should clarify, this satisfies some group out there and it’s targeted at them. Just not me.
The way I see it this protagonist goes beyond needing to understand consent. He doesn’t need to ask for consent because he already has it, the heroines want him to take their photos and he knows it, they know it, and everyone else also knows it. The idea is that he isn’t actually doing anything wrong yet and if we take this anime at face value, well… he hasn’t.
The problem I have with this isn’t it’s devious ethics, but it’s poor character motivation and dense protagonist. The girls in this anime exist to have their photo’s taken by the protagonist’s camera. So far they have little else going on and he has little else going on. Instead of feeling sickened, I am simply disappointed at how piss poor this story is.
You have a point there about the protagonist. I didn’t notice he was getting explicit requests to photograph them. It’s probably because of the way the creeper-shots club introduced their modus operandi and the guy choosing to join them after what was personally to me at least, the most disturbing introduction of a school club ever.
Even if he understands consent first, surely choosing to join a club that makes consent a post-photography addendum says something about the guy?
I am in agreement that the story itself is piss poor; though there is clearly an audience out there who are appeased by the setting.
Marlin: The Kano in the title is mostly probably taken from the first kanji of kanojo, girl(friend).
Just as the whole of glorio group, I was close to disgusted. I thought the first episode was a lot better than was to be expected, but now I think I’ll be dropping it too…
That makes sense, doesn’t stop me from goin’ there though >_>