First Impressions – Girlfriend Beta
The ultimate harem. …No really, the cast is ridiculously large.
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One of the last shows to premiere this fall season, Girlfriend (Kari) has the distinction of having a gigantic cast. And not much else. How does a anime based on a mobile phone dating simulator (much more than most VN’s are) work out? |
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I’ve seen Boyfriend Kari (because it’s otome, so of course I have), but the Girlfriend version is new to me. …Really, I’m not even sure how they’ll attempt to make an anime story out of a mobile game, so let’s see how they did. |
So… a huge cast. That’s what everyone knew about this show. And not much else. What was it going to be about? What were people going to do? How were they going to work so many VA’s into it? At least the answer to that last question became clear very early on in the show. The main character (at least for this episode), Kokomi Shiina, spends the whole episode walking around talking to characters. For a very short period of time each. And mentioning their names. If you were trying to keep all these characters straight with their names, rotsa ruck. Not gonna happen. In general they’re there just to fill up space and the cast list. In fact, after a fairly short time, I started being reminded of the old song 88 Lines about 44 Women because it seemed like they’d introduce a girl, have a 2 line back and forth, and then go to another girl (although that would have been a much different kind of anime) .
So the way I believe these mobile games work, there’s blank, faceless protagonist type (aka you, the player) and then the dating sim part is just kind of the girls talking to the protagonist. Maybe there’s CGS, but you rarely see what protagonist-kun even looks like. Or at least that’s how some of the type of mobile games I’ve briefly tried out have worked. In the case of Girlfriend Kari, it looks like they’ve taken out the “girlfriend” aspect of it and now it’s just one long showcase of the various girls who you can date if you play the game. Which is probably smart, considering how boring and personality-less protagonist-kun would have been if they had tried to include him in here, but at the same time, take out the dating sim part and you’re not left with a whole lot to build episodes or an overall plot on.
So there wasn’t much in the way of deep thoughts in this one, although they did have a nice bit of story between Kokomi and Chloe Lemaire, the French student who throws in a few French phrases to show that she’s French. The other thing to note is that this is the second anime I’ve watched where a character was a Rhythmic Gymnast (with Photo Kano), and both times they’ve focused on the club apparatus. I’m surprised they don’t do more with the ball, since that would be super easy to animate, and would love to see someone try the Ribbon in anime, which is by far the most elegant.
Yes, they introduced a ton of characters this episode and a lot of them don’t even seem worth mentioning, since they didn’t do much. Kokomi was kind of… nondescript as a character, so maybe she’s not really worth mentioning either (though as Highway points out later, she doesn’t seem to care about club practice very much, which was unintentionally kind of funny). Seeing how there aren’t nearly enough episodes to give every single girl an episode where she runs around talking to others, I assume that they’ll just select a few main ones and focus on them. Chloe had a lot of personality compared to so many of the other characters that turned up. Library girl had an unusual shade of hair colour too (as far as this show is concerned), so maybe they can focus on those characters to try and make things interesting.
It’s good that the point of the show is to introduce as many girls as possible. Because if it was to watch Kokomi do Rhythmic Gymnastics, that didn’t go so well. She got like a minute of practice in before getting interrupted. Maybe she’d have had more time if she hadn’t stopped to talk to every girl she encountered on the way to school, tho. All in all, this is a completely inoffensive show. I hope they do a little bit more in the future, rather than just have it be “I ran into this person, then this person, then this person.” It would be surprising if it goes in some kooky direction, and I hope it does, but I think it’ll probably be more of the same throughout.
Dear lord, that was dull. Watching one girl run around and talk to other girls briefly doesn’t make much for a story. Maybe they can shock us all and build up to some sort of overarching plot as the episodes go on, but as far as first episodes showing plot potential, this had next to none. But hey, I guess it wasn’t all bad. Admittedly, a lot of the girls were cute and Silver Link did some pretty nice looking backgrounds. Really, the cute girls seem like the main reason someone would watch this anime at the moment, so at least Girlfriend Kari has that going for it. …As for me, I’m going to stick to not playing the mobile game, which is probably marginally more exciting since it at least has the romance aspect to it.
About Tag Team
We live, laugh, enjoy and strictly believe on "more the merrier". When together, we usually come up with very chatty, conversation-based episodics and interesting posts.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
So..I guess I can hold on to my hopes for 88 lines about 44 LOLis? Hopefully it will be better than this. I’m with Kara in her final thoughts…
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1692 comments
I’ve watched two episodes of this now. It’s not cute girls doing cute things. It’s cute girls boring you stiff.
Highway, watch the Ranma 1/2 episodes with Kodachi the Black Rose and rhythmic gymnastics martial arts. Sure, the animation back then wasn’t up to today’s standards and it’s played for over-the-top comedic effect, but they were using the ribbon in their battles. In fact, that’s Kodachi’s trademark.
POWUH: iLurker with 12 comments
It’s possible to have a show with a huge cast of girls and still tell a story and still have the girls seem at least a bit real. Case in point: Girls und Panzer. I think it has a speaking cast at least as big as this show. But the director handled it much better — maybe because there was actually a reason for them all to be in the show.
POWUH: Meta Team and PreCure Mastah with 9203 comments
TOO many girls to keep track of! Wooooooow!
This series so far is alright I don’t mind the massive cast, but yeah there are so many I don’t really care for all of them…MC for the first two episodes was ZZZZZZZz besides her cute voice of course.
POWUH: iLurker with 5 comments
So many girls but sooooooooo boring.
It seems each episode is going to share the same formula at this rate. Introduce a handful of girls, find something to relate one of them to the MC, expand on that girl but still somehow come off lacking in development, repeat.
They might squeeze some character songs out of this series given the cast… but it doesn’t seem like it’s going to be worth much else.
POWUH: 600-699 and LN Enthusiast with 623 comments
The only reason I wanted to watch this show is because of the gigantic cast which includes a lot of seiyuus that I’m familiar with(no Nana Mizuki though). And that’s really not enough to keep me interested given the content of the two episodes.
Good luck trying to remember their names as I can’t remember a single one besides Chloe and Kokomi. I’m just gonna identify them by their seiyuus. Like the blue tomboy is Takagaki Ayahi, pink hair is KugiRie , DJ girl is Satou Rina, library girl is Nazuka Kaori and so on. I find it easier that way. Roundabout but it works \o/
That’s about it I guess. Not much to say about the show except it’s CGDCT(cute girls doing cute things). I’ll keep watching but this is probably the first show I’ll drop this season among the huge amount of shows I picked up. The same thing that I said back in FI of Daitoshokan applies here as well. The fact that I enjoyed Twintails more than this says a lot.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Just wanted to say that I’ve thought the 2nd and 3rd episodes of Daitoshokan have been a lot better than the first. The characters are picking up some identity, the mysteriousness of the shepherd is being downplayed, and the show actually has some feeling to it. Kakei is even getting a little bit of personality.
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
Is the kugyu one tsudere?
POWUH: Meta Resident and Werewolf Chaser with 1270 comments
Slice of life anime of the season for me. This is one of those show where just sit back and relax while watching it. It helps that there quite few of girls who match my fetishes with pleasant character design.
Though I guess going from the comments I’d say that most ppl here aren’t really fond of SOL genre? It works to me for some reason. If there any flaws that I would list down, it would be the transfer student seiyuu failed attempt at sounding foreign as it comes off a bit awkward.
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1692 comments
I generally like SOL anime. I don’t like shows that bore me and this is one of those. It’s not even going to last the three episode test.