In stark contrast to Haruhi which came out of nowhere and made an excellent first impression, Jyoshi Kousei made a horrible first impression - gratituously emphasized pantsu fanservice, nerfing of various manga gags etc. Even LIME, which had subbed Eps 1 and 2, has suspended it indefinitely. Well, at least Erica and Mangaminx don’t hate it. The third episode was funny enough for me and I hope it will continue to improve. The above scene got my first big laugh of the episode when passers-by thought that the eight were planning some kind of orgy.
The panty flashes were actually quite numerous in the manga but apparently I just mentally blanked them out, thus the shock and queasiness when seeing the first episode. It’s a pity that quite a few potential fans might have been irredeemably put off because I think this series has an interesting premise. The mangaka, Towa Oshima, draws on her own memories of being a high school girl to depict the less than pristine aspects of that stage of life, almost like an anti-MariMite by a woman. Bitchiness, unhygienic practices, menstruation jokes (you’ll never get this from a male mangaka) and high school girls doing stupid stupid things. It has none of the innocence of Azumanga which ignores BGRs while Jyoshi Kousei creates a lot of its humour from the girls’ attempts to get a boyfriend or to get one of the girls (usually Ayano) laid. In the manga, Himeji is having an active sex life - which is not so hard to believe. If you’ve read “I am a Japanese School Teacher” even the middle schoolers are screwing each other.
Admittedly the whole potential date rape scenario involving Ogawa was mucho creepy, even though it did not endorse or go through with it. If you were creeped out too, good for you I say. Those scenes highlighted an unsavoury social problem and reality that most of us prefer not to think about and the way it was done was not in bad taste (even if the gag was that part of Eriko, Yuma and Kouda’s motivation was not to have Ogawa beat them at losing virginity) - if anything, some might criticize it for downplaying the issue.
The Terrible Trio of Eriko, Yuma and Kouda were particularly fun when terrorising Ayano and her hapless boyfriend with the rather long surname as well as their bullying of the nameless trio. Much evil laughter from me. I enjoyed Haruhi’s cruelty to Mikuru much more but the high school girls’ petty vindictiveness just had a ring of everyday authenticity to it.
Yuma. I like. Will like even more if she goes bat shit crazy over Ayano’s relationship with her boyfriend. Again, the ED dances don’t have the dramatic impact of Hare Hare Yukai but I liked the style of the art and how the characters perform little skits amidst a more realistically depicted, if water-colourly, background which certainly evoked memories of Tokyo’s streets in me. The transition screens of the girl’s doing their makeup also reminded me of actual scenes I’ve witnessed on the Yamanote line trains in and out of Shibuya, Shinjuku and Harajuku.
Not the greatest series ever or even of this season but I’ll be watching it because of its unusual (and perhaps even ordinary, slice of silly life) perspective on high school girls.
I think it’s entertainingly stupid. I watch it after I watch Higurashi, so I can sleep at night and dream of pantsu rather than murderous lolis.
Unbelievably, this is exactly the sort of review that really perks my interest. Especially that part about the mangaka. I wasn’t planning on watching this series, but now I might have to give it a looksee.
The first episode really did put me off, and I reasonably enjoyed the manga, although this and Mangaminx’s belief that the show have been improving makes me want to pick it up again just to see how it is going.
It has been improving, it really has. I can only really echo what Zyl has said here. Being quite the fan of the manga I was dissapointed and even put off as much as most people by the opening episode but by episode 3 things feel like they are back and track (the appearence of some of my favourite yuri bits from the manga wouldn’t go amiss though). I feel that the show is perhaps much more “real” than other school based titles. This is because it has the cast pretty much being brutally honest about how they feel as much as they like, no matter how crude it is. Which I happen to find very very funny.
In a way, the first episode succeeded too well in counteracting the “sweet young thing” stereotype. The girls were so raunchy and there was so much not-very-nice pantsu-fanservice, that it got people’s attention in a bad way rather than a good way. I think this show will continue to settle down and build on the success of episode 3, getting closer to the quality of the manga. The voice crew is really good: Nabatame Hitomi, Asano Masumi, Yukino Satsuki, Noto Mamiko, et al.
I just can’t figure out what sort of audience this show is for. It’s like it tries to play to both male and female viewers but gets neither because of mutually exclusive content. When it starts out with lots of pantsu and nudity but no actual humor and then goes into humor but involving things like menstruation, I just get totally confused.
They butchered the source material. That’s enough for it to rot in the 7th level of anime hell next to Ten Ten.
The “yon tai yon ka” gag in front of the love hotel actually made me laugh out loud.
Nobody loves it? Because it sucks? Other than the acceptable ED, nothing is good. I rank it the same with Tactical Roar. If the ED wasn’t there it’ll go down right to the rubbish pile with Suzuka and Ichigo 100%, both anime with great manga but shit anime.