Ranked #1627

Doujin Work

If you’re looking for a realistic portrayal of the world of doujin manga then this anime is certainly not the one for you. But if you want a few hours of mindless light-hearted entertainment then Doujin Work might be right up your alley.

The story is simple and fairly formulaic. Najimi goes along with her college friend Tsuyuri to a comic market where she is selling her work. She becomes entranced with how much money can be made by a successful artist and dreams of becoming rich herself and after the market is over decides she will draw her own doujin manga. As the story unfolds she meets new friends and rivals and tries to improve her ability and become successful. While the humor and some of the content is perverted at times it is never obscene. If you are coming into this series expecting a lot of echiiness and fan service you’re going to be disappointed because there is none of it.

Najimi carries the show well and is a very likable leading character. She’s not the most original character ever drawn but you can’t help rooting for her. It’s not realistic that someone who is drawing ero-manga would be so embarrassed to do the "research" needed to get ideas for her stories but it’s funny anyway. The rest of the cast is stereotypical as well but like the lead they are all fun in their own way. The character who really steals the show is Tsuyuri, who with her dry and perverted sense of humor drives the majority of the comedy. They all have the depth of tissue paper but they still manage to enjoyable.

The artwork and animation is not amazing but I don’t think it’s supposed to be. I may be wrong but I think the kind of crude and amateurish art was intentional to fit the overall theme of the show. Even if that is not really the case I think it works perfectly. There are lots of references to other anime, manga and H-games, I got a few of them but I’m sure others might notice a lot more. The seiyuu talent had several underused performers amongst the leading characters. Whether intentional or not I felt this was a perfect fit for the theme of the series. They were also quite good and it’s good to hear some new voices too. I felt Momoko Saitou's performance as Tsuyuri was strong and am a bit surprised she’s been in so few shows. The OP/EN theme songs were also cute and very catchy.

Overall I got an enormous amount of entertainment value from Doujin Work. If you’re in the mood for something light and a bit silly then you should check this series out. The episodes are short and its well worth the 2-3 hours it took to watch it.
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Doujin Work is a story about what the title says: A show working on a doujin. With subject matter of that magnitude, some would expect nothing but nudity, perversion, and loads of sex. I can SAFELY tell you that there is no nudity or no sex, BUT there is a lot of perversion going on in this anime. And perversion is all you need for a slice of life comedy about a rookie doujin artist.

If you have viewed any anime about manga artists, namely Comic Party, then the characters will most likely not appear as fresh and different. The cast of characters may not be as deep as Comic Party or Genshiken but of course they keep the key character elements in. The chemistry and banter between all of the characters works out very well, but then again having characters execute hilarious sex jokes is about as easy as making a list on MyAnimeList.net. ^_^ If you find comedy in simple things like that you'll be more than in for just a few laughs. Even though it's so painfully short

Thats one of the many drawbacks this show has. This show DOES have 12 episodes, but its only ten minutes. Well, technically its 15 minutes but the OP and ED lasts 5 minutes which makes no sense at all. So yeah the credits last longer than half the show, take that however you may. What surprised the hell out of me was how high quality the songs were compared to the rest of the show.

Once you watch a handful of episodes, you'll realize how poor the animation quality is. You'll see that most of the time their lips and eyes only move. If they do move their body, it usually consists of less than 5 frames OR cheap animation shortcuts like sliding, resizing, and even flipping characters like paper. Even the background characters are just in one color (pink, green, or blue). Now it could be their art style but i just couldn't get past the thought that the animation is so simplistic and poor looking especially when the show is so short. Thankfully comedy shows usually don't have to rely heavily on art just as long as the jokes and seiyus stay strong. The seiyu feel like they fit their character quite well and never gets old. Even Tsuyuri's monotone voice is refreshingly funny and quick witted whenever she speaks. My personal favorite is Sora. Her voice and how they present her in the show is just pure win.

The overall comedy is very hit or miss, mainly drawing most of its jokes from sexual innuendo and cliche' gags. With all the less than stellar things going for this show, it still brings out a lot of good quick laughs for me in every episode. I personally loved the show and wished it was a full 30 minutes. But what do you expect from a 4panel comic.
But if u want a quick pick me up of a comedy that u can watch all of it in one sitting or if you enjoy a little ecchi in your comedy anime, feel free to pick it up. read more