Every time I attempt to explain Saber Marionette J to somebody, they always look at me like I'm nuts. "How could something that stupid be any good?" they ask. They have a good point... a story about a young man on a planet with no women and his three robotic mistresses sounds like the setup to a strange porno. However, the SMJ series really is a great show.
That said, it is the least empowering of any anime I have ever seen, bar hentai titles. The three "female" Marionettes are completely and totally subservient to their "master" Mamiya Otaru, in accordance with their programming. Don't get me started on the outfits of the quasi-German opposition and their blond-haired, blue-eyed leader Faust. In SMJ, women are inherently objects of possession, though the heroic trio can be more than a little possessive themselves. Note that, despite the not-quite-misogynistic theme, there isn't any sex to speak of in the entire series, with the implication that only a pervert would be attracted to a "machine".
With any other title, that would have turned me off, but here it comes off as funny, mostly because the guys are just so darned helpless. Otaru is a shiftless, poor ex-student with no role in society, and the only other male protagonist is Hanagata, the flagrantly homosexual next-door-neighbor, is pure comic relief. Not to say that this show needs much of that... the interplay between Lime, Cherry, and Bloodberry is very comical in and of itself, and the first two-thirds of the series have a lot of good comic episodes.
Once the characters are firmly established, a few side plots have been launched, and the viewer has been sucked in, SMJ undergoes a dramatic transformation, from a light comedy series to one of the best anime dramas of the last five years. The main characters are put through the mill, ground into fine powder, and spread over cubic miles of desert, and the ending is sad, very sad. I cried a little, which is completely uncharacteristic of me, but this is the kind of show where you do that at the end.
Politically correct? Far from it. Still, though, I have to recommend the series. Funny in the early parts and powerful at the end.