I don't know if this little OVA (3 31-minute episodes) deserves a review, but since I don't write reviews, only reflections, it's ok. The executive summary is: surprisingly enjoyable. It needs to be said very clearly though: Indian Summer is not a surprising delight like Midori Days, suprisingly well directed/acted like Toradora, or offers surprisingly deep story like Manabi. At best, it's surprisingly inoffensive. I just expected so much worse.

Ahead of time, some bloggers[1] scared me with stories of robot girls made to cry by bad masters, and I don't approve (fortunately, it turned out to be tantamount to cartoon violence: not a big deal). At one place, there was some seriously eye-rolling tit oscillation. But the little elephant was even a bit humorous. And overall the trashiness of the show was just a part of the setup, which I may even prefer to straight-faced seriouseness of Chobits. A perfect example of not getting too carried away with SRS BZNS is the scene where Yui detaches her own head (nice use for the uncanny valley). Stuff like that carried the show for me.

Characters helped too. Nobody was terribly annoying in any way. Kuon was an enigma at first. I was sure that she's harboring some secret agenda or other, but it turned out that she's too lazy for that. Lovely kotatsu manuever as well.

Liked: Surprisingly
Rewatch: Not likely, but who knows

[1] After a quick search, I think I was confused by a preview at Chizumatic:

The bad news? From the description, I'm getting "Hand Maid Mei" vibes, which was a vague ripoff of the original HMM (and not very similar). In that one the guy was cruel to the robot girls, and they cry. I haven't seen it and have not the slightest urge to do so.

In that one the bastard guy in the middle uses his robot girls to make porn. In Indian Summer he apparently uses his robot maid to enter cosplay contests, which ain't quite as cruel, but still bothers me. I don't like cruelty.

In reality, entering the maid contest was Kuon's idea, Steven was mistaken.