After watching this, if you had told me this was an Eroge adaptation, I wouldn’t completely believe you. After finishing Scum’s Wish, I needed a palette cleanser and figured this would just be a sweet romantic comedy with some slice of life elements. I bit off more than expected, but it went down smooth and was exactly what I needed. The question is, will it be for you? Welcome to my review.
(Source - HiDIVE official promotional artwork)
All other images sourced from Metanorn - there are spoilers on the site
Episode 1 will either make or break this for you. The cold open felt disjointed from the rest of the episode in terms of presentation, animation quality and overall tone. It began as a spy thriller on what appeared to be a military base but was just an exaggerated take on your typical school gateway. At around the two minute mark, life, chocolate and moe girl face were at stake. There was blood and a possible murder by vehicle. Color me intrigued. As a horror fan, the camera jumpscare was such a nice touch.
Cue the opening and the introduction of the main character, Yuki Ojima, and his two closest female friends: Chisato Sumiyoshi, his pink haired neighbor and childhood best friend; and Mifuyu Kiba, the blonde and emotionally and physically scarred older woman (by only a year) caught between the two. A Romeo and Juliet turned Yuri style public comedy act was not expected. It was immediately shown how comfortable all three of them were with each other; it was charming. They were a small fraction of the whole that was the Food Research Club (FRC from here on), an extracurricular group focused on hanging out, eating snacks and just being generally lovely people screwing with each other in an environment where they could show themselves to the audience without shame. There was a comfiness in that room, which a large amount of the show’s runtime would take place in. Just ignore the alcohol and the well endowed, constantly wasted club advisor, Hazuki (which the show constantly poked fun at but did not make annoying for me). This teacher was one of these kids at heart and often was the butt of some “I feel seen” kind of jokes.
I found all of the weirdos of the FRC to be endearing, and they mostly were not there to chase after Yuki’s White Chocolate stick, much to my surprise with how much this could have been a wish fulfilly harem style affair. There was even a full on panty gag with a Type Moon direct reference looking for something she lost and having no shame about mooning the camera and audience (pun intended). This does have quite a bit of fan service in places but I felt most of it was pretty tame; it was never the core focus and didn’t seem to be there for our enjoyment like it often is. There’s a later callback to that initial panty gag that added some weight to the story in a creative way that surprised me.
I want to end this section by briefly bringing up the introduction of Satsuki Shinonome, the current head of the student body Financial Department. I love how she was introduced as a possible antagonist and was the driving force behind Yuki’s political aspirations from Episode 2 on. Her constant name calling of Yuki in a playful way while also being a decent human being with values that drove her political campaign in a realistic and seemingly well researched manner made her one of my favorite characters in this work. Hazuki, the teacher, would surprisingly take the top spot several episodes later with a vulnerability that rarely was shown otherwise.
Onto other topics, I can see the rapid fire delivery of multiple back to back non sequitur gags throughout all 12 episodes becoming whiplash for some audiences (the most of which occurred in the first half), but I felt the political and interpersonal drama between characters made it worth it. This may not be billed as a comedy at the forefront, but comedy it was for quite a large amount of it. Comedy is subjective. What made me laugh here and excited for the next joke and later payoffs for those jokes could be a major detriment for you. Both halves kept me engaged which is often all I ask for, and there was a late season episode that brought a few tears along with the laughs.
For a 2012 series, the character designs and overall animation were good enough for what was needed for each scene but not great by today’s standards. The characters were distinct from each but were not unique for the time this was released and some of their archetypes are still very common today. There was a feeling of making everything look and feel competent enough without putting enough time or skill into cleaning up the rough edges. There were multiple scenes that were repeated with only the backgrounds changed and character models and faces were very inconsistent to the point of sometimes being somewhat distracting. I did find amusement in the breast size and shape changes for certain characters from episode to episode. The high energy pace and solid directing more than made up for it, though. I could tell the creators were having fun making this.
Now let me gush over the soundtrack a bit. It is very good. Every single track from the opening to the ending to the simple slice of life bits, they all felt fresh and fairly unique. One of my favorites was surprisingly the “Careless Whisper” style spoof track every time Oboro, the only other guy in the FRC, was on the screen lewding Yuki. It’s never made clear if his flirting was serious or just a part of the gag (similar to the Yuri act I brought up a few paragraphs ago), but this may be offensive for some viewers that are tired of seeing sexuality played for laughs. According to every source I’ve found, the core soundtrack was composed by Elements Garden. Unlike several solo composers, I don’t actively seek this particular group but every track I’ve heard from them that I recognize have been very pleasant listening, especially the Remake Our Life and B Gata H Kei soundtracks (from that list).
I would typically share links to the opening and ending here, but this is one of the few times I would recommend listening to both while doing other tasks or watching with your brain completely off. The opening showed off several of the more unique gags and some of the later dramatic reveals if you pay enough attention, which I felt was a bit of a detriment in this instance. The tracks themselves both fit the general tone very well and were actively listened to by me. With the ending, there’s not much to say about it in terms of visuals due to it being mostly stills of all of the main girls. I wouldn’t be surprised if these were a callback to the original visual novel and were direct recreations of such.
For those of you that need an English dub, this Anime doesn’t have one as far as I can tell. On the bright side, the voice actors all delivered their lines exceptionally well for each scene. The characters that were both comedic foils and dramatic stars of their own interpersonal relationships with their school, each other and the background cast members, they all delivered emotional weight and felt very real when they typically wouldn’t get much characterization otherwise. The stand out voice for me was Kaori Mizuhashi’s Mifuyu for how her vocal range didn’t change much throughout yet every line delivery was impactful. Her character was going through some stuff yet she never stopped being mostly cool headed and grounded to the benefit of her comrades and the audience. There was a bit of a breakdown later on where she mostly went silent and acted out her feelings in a pretty safe and healthy way that had almost no dialogue yet so much was said between her and the character she was fighting with (won’t spoil that part).
There were three scenes shown that might be triggering for several viewers that I’ll bring up here. One was a scene of one of Yuki’s love interests being bullied by a group of her fellow classmates with implied possible off screen rape. Another involved the reveal of the villain and how purely evil and deranged they actually were once you realized how far they would go to stop Yuki from winning the election. Both were handled as well as a series like this could be expected to handle them but could both turn away audiences that don’t do well with sexual assault and child murder ideation being displayed on screen. Finally, there was a bit of Shouta (older woman being sexually and romantically attracted to a minor) but I personally had no issues with it due to it being established that it wasn’t exploitative and both characters were mutually aware of and set boundaries for their relationship in a very healthy, realistic way. Anyone that reads my work in the future or has been reading my content for the past two or three months will hopefully know that context is everything for me in these kinds of situations.
I have one final question: did I enjoy the ending? With an astounding yes. Every question I had, every plot element that mattered to me, and every major character, all of these were resolved in a satisfying way that made me want to rewatch with new eyes. I also might finally learn the harmonica after seeing that subplot play out.
My Closing Thoughts
I had a great time with this series and found myself laughing and crying to many of its charms. Comedy is subjective; trash is relevant; this wasn’t trash and will most likely have been skipped by you when it came out. I would recommend this. If you’ve seen it or have interest in it, feel free to comment below. If you enjoyed this review, feel free to reblog, vote and share with others. Thank you for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful night.
Important Info
- Adapted from an Eroge of the same name released by Sprite/Fairys
- Studio: AIC Build
- Genres: Romantic Comedy, High School Club, Ecchi, Political Drama, Seinen
- Seasons/Episodes: Summer 2012; 12 Episodes + 1 OVA
- Similar Related Content: In Search of Our Lost Future (for a similar vibe and story with some sci-fi elements thrown in); Tokyo ESP (for the comedy factor and amount of background references used for gags)
- Streaming on HiDIVE