Girls Bravo: First Season

This one of the most under-rated animes i've seen. Some people might not notice the charm in this anime,thus why i will tell you. And this is a review of the series as a whole(seasons 1&2).

Story:
I wont give a synopsis because you have probably already read it.
I think it's a really charming story. I cant stop feeling bad for Yukinari(the protonagist). He lives all alone at home. He barely have any friends and is bullied by both boys and girls. Also is he small for a boy, which leads to having even more complexes. But the most noticable is his symptom. He has had bad ... experiences with girls. Ever since he was a child he has been bullied. This seem to be the origin of his sympton. Every time a girl touches him he breakes out in hives.
When he meets Miharu things change. Not only is she the only girls he isn't allergic to. He meets someone that cares for him. And not his she only cute, she has some amazing talents. Shes an amazing cook and a caring person. Also a bit of a loli. It makes you really happy that he meets someone like her. Because Yukinari really deserves it. Miharu tend to unconciosly get Yukinari in trouble and make him worried. Which often leads to funny situations. Since she's not used to earth she's very lost.
The love between Yukinari and Miharu progress slowly. It is obvious that he care a lot about her. If it had progressed any faster I don't think the harem story had worked.

Serien(the planet Miharu is from) is a dream harem. A beautiful planet filled with beutiful women that crave for men, which is kind of ironic when you compare Seiren to earth. ^^


Art:
The character animations has a really distinct style, i dont think i've seen anything like it. If we're talking about skill it's average. But i really like the use of colors and the female characters are drawn very well.

Sound:
The OP and ED are both great. Especially the OP called "Going My Way". The lyrics are great and charming. The artist's voice is beautiful. The sound consist of many different instruments blended with digital sounds. The BGM is also really good. It's really difficult to explain why. You have to hear it yourself.
The series has some really great voice actors from various animes as Kanon(2006), Clannad, Nodame Cantabile and Baccano!

Character:
The characteres are really great. Instead of using a typcial male protoganist(A normal guy with brown hair and average height) we get something different for change. And Fukuyama is simply amazing, he does the job of being an idiot exellently. He's a filthy rich perv with dreams of having his dream harem(and the girls of Girls Bravo is a part of that). He treats women as sexobjects. Kirie always make sure to punish him. Fukuyama tend to show at any time, simply showing he has too much free time. lol

Enjoyment:
The show is really hilarious. The humor is really crazy, some people may find it just odd, well they're boring people then. There's a lot of exageration which is hilarious. There a few lolis more than most shows. Lolis are always funny and cute.

Well, Girls Bravo started out as a really good manga for me. When I started to watch the anime, it was almost the same as I expected it to be. Unlike the manga, this anime is loaded with lots of nude action. For a minute I was thinking I was watching a Hentai or something, but I wasn't. This anime is that pervertedly funny.

Basically the anime is one of your boy meets girl story lines. In this story the girl is from another world (like I haven't herd of that before), while the boy is completely allergic to women.

Yukinari Sasaki is a suffered young man ... that went through his puberty like swiming in a pool of needles (ow..). He was bullied not by guys but rather women. Now even when he gets close to a girl, he brakes out into a horrible rash, which is very funny (yet not funny at the same time). As Yukinari went on his daily life of being tourmented by women, he finally gets home to relize that a childhood friend Kirie was in his bath tub. She punches the hell out of him and he falls into the bath tub where he is then magically transported to another world called Seiren.

In Seiren, Yukinari meets a girl named Miharu. What's strange about her is that when she gets close to him, he doesn't break out into a rash. He quickly becomes friends with her and learns that Seiren is a world that is populated by women. Yukinari then tries to escape the thousand of women that are try to steal him form Miharu and eventually returns home with Miharu at hand.

After that Miharu becomes Yukinari's new girlfriend, and Yukinari faces challenges that he thought would never happen in his life. Crazy women, Strange Creatures, and the completely perverted Kazuhara Fukuyama.

In the end, my thoughts on this anime were okay. It's not the best but it was popular in Japan for a while. I guess it was because of the well drawn women with large busts (Like many animes). But if you want to have a good laugh then watch this one, just be sure no little ones watch it (rated 17+).

Story: The main premise is that the protagonist (that's the one who gets the least screen time out of all of the characters) has a phobia of women and he breaks out in hives when he's touched by one. This premise is pretty much ignored throughout the anime. Yes, when he is touched by another girl, he breaks out in hives, but apart from that, nobody really pays much attention to him or his condition.
Art: This was fine overall. The only thing I didn't like was that for some reason (could just be the version I watched, not sure) the blood (as in nosebleeds) was ... brown.
Sound: Again, this was fine.
Characters: Two words - obnoxious and irritating. The protagonist was rarely seen/heard, the only other male character was a persistant pervert (persistant to the point of annoying) and the myriad of attractive bishoujo that flocked around him had severe personality problems, such as: defining anything and everything as "edible"; requiring anger management for overly violent tendancies; being the most selfish/spoilt brat ever invented. The most endearing character was the...thing (don't really know what it was) that they called Shrimpy.
Overall Enjoyment: If you like bishoujo and don't really care about anything else, you'll like this. If you want something with more depth (bishoujo and depth can go together, ie Maburaho and others) then look elsewhere.

In the 2000s, many harem anime shows came out that many of the older fans might recognize. Titles that you could argue have become classics, even if they don't bring much to the table other than a variety of hot and/or cute girls. People like to call the harem genre trash, but also have at least one harem show that they secretly like. Zero no Tsukaima, To LOVE-Ru, Rosario to Vampire, Ichigo 100%, Hayate no Gotoku... School Days?

Then there's Girls Bravo, a show that makes you reconsider whether the other harem shows from the 2000s are actually masterpieces. A show so utterly devoid of anything ... enjoyable, you just might want to tear your hair out by the end of the first season.

SPOILERS MAY FOLLOW, if you care.

Story: 1/10
Read the synopsis. Done? Good, because that's literally all of the plot progression of the entire first season. Apart from two more girls coming from Seiren and living with the MC, the rest of the runtime consists of the MC's crew and their run-ins with the dynamic Fukuyama sibling duo, who are the primary source of problems for them. Apart from the very first episode, that's the recipe for every. Single. Episode. Crew is out and about. Fukuyama does something to crew! Crew eventually "outsmarts" and/or defeats them in the most boring ways. Happy ending! The sheer repitition of the same formula is even more predictable than most slice of life shows that I'm just left here wondering why they didn't just call it a slice of life anime. Unfortunately, this lack of plot progression is also compensated for with a bunch of sexual jokes and innuendos that are so over the top that you can't help but feel either repulsed or massively disappointed by, even when you aren't taking the show seriously.

Art: 4/10
The production that went into this show was at the very least not that bad, which is noticeable with the art. While it isn't necessarily good, it isn't bad either. It's a run of the mill-artstyle, with ordinary animation quality, that in a sense lacks any sort of originality. However, while it's of decent quality, the lack of anything that makes it distinguishable from other shows from the same time other than how ordinary it is makes it pretty boring. You tire out from the artstyle pretty fast, especially with how detailed they make the nipples (the few times they actually show up) as well as the glossiness of the bodies. Remember, this is an ecchi harem show after all. What better way to show that than just flashing tits and panties all the time, am I right?

Sound: 4/10
Since the first season came out in 2004, you might be surprised by the names behind the voices of the three main characters, namely by Mamiko Noto (Fujino Asagami from Kara no Kyoukai), Ayako Kawasumi (Saber from the Fate/stay night entries) and Chiwa Saito (Senjougahara from the Monogatari series), who all went on to become established names in the voice acting industry. While they fit their characters pretty well, their performances aren't anything special or memorable, which follows the fairly typical production style of the anime. Neither are the soundtracks anything special, as they sound like they came from the most half-assed studio sessions that attempted to make the soundtrack as bland as the artstyle, so that they could complement each other.

Character: 1/10
This is where Girls Bravo truly falters in comparison to similar shows from its time. The main guy, Yukinari, is allergic to girls due to how poorly he has been treated by them over the course of his life, which makes him get rashes everytime a girl touches him. EXCEPT for the main girl, Miharu, who comes from Seiren, and who just happens to be the most dense, oblivious and gullible girl in existence. Everything about her screams fanservice. The literal fellatios she performs on bananas in episode 2 because that's how she thinks they're supposed to be eaten. The way she gets into dumb, lewd situations because she "just doesn't know better", with no actual effort from any of the other characters to help prevent those situations from happening again. Then, the incredibly violent childhood friend, Kirie, who, surprise, is actually crushing on him! Her running jokes? Big tits. Something something to Hell. Koyomi, who is incredibly scared of guys. Fortunately for her, the only two guys she ever encounters (somehow?) is Yukinari and the Fukuyama brother. Koyomi's sidekick Tomoka, who is and acts like a child in every way, because that's her running joke. Funny, right? Or is it? So far, I'm not laughing. Then, at last, the two Fukuyama siblings who are apparently the cause of everything evil in this world. Older brother Kazuharu, who should've gone to jail at least twenty times for all of the sexual assaults and harassing he's done to all of the girls except his younger sister Risa, who in turn deludes herself into thinking that Yukinari is her destined soulmate because of one fortune telling on a random day. The other characters aren't relevant enough to be brought up here, but they aren't much better.

Enjoyment: 1/10
Even when I'm not trying to take the show seriously, because clearly that wasn't what they were going for, the level of comedy is that of a horny 6th grader. They showed tits, and because it's inappropriate normally, it's funny! Haha! Look look, she's performing fellatio on a banana! Haha! (Seriously, I can't get over that scene. Two or more minutes of banana blowjobs while the store owner just rabbles on about his banana travels. Who approved of that?) Aw shucks, Fukuyama did something again! L O L, which stands for Laughing Out Loud! With most shows, even though they don't take themselves seriously, they try to progress the relationships between the characters or the plot somewhat to spice things up, but the show doesn't even do that! It's like seeing a really unfunny comedian tell the same joke 11 times and expect people to laugh harder every single time. Where other harem shows flourish in relationship progression, Girls Bravo has NONE of that. The relationships, at least in this first season, stay as the exact same almost the entire time, which irks me an incredible amount. Beating a dead horse isn't fun, was never fun and will never be fun.

Overall: 2/10
This show is what people who hate harem shows imagine a harem show to be like. Any form of enjoyment from this show will only be derived from the countless nip slips, lewd moments and frankly cringy moments. What does this show do better than other shows of its type? Nothing. At this point, you can just watch other shows that do the same thing, but much, much better. Because at this point, an average show is miles better than this ever could be.

Avoid this show like the plague. I didn't, and I regret not doing so very strongly.

Girls Bravo is a prime example of what not to do while making an ecchi anime. It starts off with a very stupid premise that a boy who's allergic to girls falls into a bath and is teleported to a world with only girls. This is never explained and is hardly ever brought up. At one point, they don't even bother coming up with situations for each episode. All the characters are extremely annoying. Kirie is only there to beat up the wimpy main character Yukinari when one of the brainless generic girls, usually Miharu, finds any nonsensical way possible to "accidentally" get naked in ... front of him. if something embarrassing happens between Yukinari and Miharu, expect Kimie to walk in on them every single god damn time. Mind you, these are childhood friends and at one point, Kirie actually kicks Yukinari's head, making his head slam into the edge of the bathtub so hard, he starts bleeding profusely. What does it take for him to say "get the hell out of my house, and never return"? And that was just the first episode. Later episodes presented us with such wonderful paragons of humanity, like Fukuyama Kazuharu -- a mix between Kuno Tatewaki and Nanbara Kotaro with all the charm and fun removed, and also the only person who deserves all the violence directed at him -- and Fukuyama Risa -- because every romantic comedy needs a psychotic suitor that decides the main loser should be her boyfriend through completely insane reasons. The animation and soundtrack are both mediocre. Girls Bravo doesn't attempt to be anything but really cringey masturbation material.

This anime, in my opinion, was simply amazing, and I loved watching every minute of it. Sure it's just about the same as every other romantic comedy out there, but the mechanics that brought it all together were entirely different and set the anime apart for me, at least.

Story - (9/10)
The story revolves around a young, short, unfortunate boy named Yukinari, whom has been unpopular with girls ever since the beginning of his high school years. Yukinari suffers from a condition that makes him break out in hives whenever he touches someone of the opposite sex. This, on top of being bullied by just about ... every girl he knows, creates a thick air of depression, which kick-starts the anime and eventually makes it tumble into a plot and character development. It doesn't help that the poor boy is also named "Chibinari" (chibi means "small", or "little") due to his height.

While accidentally peeping in on his childhood friend after she takes a shower, he is pummeled into his bathtub, which transports him to a planet that is connected to Earth through a bridge that exists in water (y'know, they never DID clarify how that system works, or even gave it a name), Seren.

On Seren, less than 10% of the population is male, and so Yukinari is chased almost immediately after meeting his friend Miharu, whom, wouldn't you know it, doesn't give him hives!

After a great chase scene, Yukinari winds up in a bathroom with Miharu, only to transport, with her, back into his own bathub.

Art - (8/10)
The artwork was pretty amazing, although at times it had its downpoints. The realism sets this anime apart, but it keeps a somewhat childish, chibi-like substance to it that I came to appreciate while watching the series.

Sound - (10/10)
I really couldn't complain about the sounds/bgm or their quality. It was one of those "eh, I'll put a 10 here because I can't really say anything about it". The voice acting was superb I must mention, though.

Character - (10/10)
What I loved especially about this series was the difference in characters. While the emphasis wasn't necessarily anybody but Yukinari growing, it had every sort of character you could think of. The snobby perv, the hidden affectionate, yet outrageously noisy girl, the clueless gem, the scared and yet brave soul, etc. etc.

It was like opening a pulp-fiction book and extracting characters and inserting them in a way where they all clicked, in an almost scary kind of way (I was in love with the lesbian bodyguard, myself =3).

Enjoyment - (9/10)
The anime kept my attention and it never lost track of its plot and kept my interested in each episode following after (although I couldn't help but think they could have given the white-gloved perv Fujiyama more air-time =( ).

Overall, I gave this anime a 9/10 and suggest that everyone and their brother watch it.

Okay first lets get the description down.

-Wimpy boy meet awesome girl.

-Awesome girl (who's totally out of his league) likes him back and moves in.

-Then two other chicks fall in love with him as well.

-Then we find out each chick has special abilities.

... -Then two more chicks join in and live with the wimpy boy.

-And last...The story turns into several different short stories which eventually lead to some giant problem including the separation of the wimpy boy and awesome girl.

Now for the review. From a normal standpoint, this story is really funny, but with not much to offer in the suspense department. So it's a 7/10

BUT, from an ecchi point of view, two words: FREAKING SWEET. 9/10

It all depends on you preference.

Girls, naked breasts, and panty shots. Is this what Anime has become? Well, it’s not as bad as Eiken. The artwork is actually mostly tasteful (Ok… it’s not really but at least the girls don’t have breasts the size of body pillows on their chests) and the storyline is actually rather well done. It’s almost like a Romeo and Juliet storyline in parts because the two always seem to be ripped apart by some things.

Let’s start with the characters. Miharu is a little cutesy and a sweetie. Sometimes though, a little too much of the sweet, naive character. She has the traits of an alien ... character in that she has supernatural powers that sometimes can’t be controlled and the fact that she didn’t know much of Earth. She has a black hole of a stomach since she is always hungry but oddly, some of the things she eats, she does it way to odd. For example, the second episode, she eats a banana rather suggestively. She has no concept of not changing in front of people, mostly in front of Yukinari though.

Koyomi is pretty cute as well and again, is way to naïve. Her background story is actually quite sad. She Has a fear of men but not surprisingly actually is alright with Yukinari after quite a while. She works with the space management office on the planet Seiren where the two are from. Her special agent friend, Tomoka, is actually rather childish and way different then the shy Koyomi.

Kirie is a rather kick ass sporty type, who has a thing for Yukinari (You can see where this is all going). She is the childhood friend of him and sometimes ends up just walking into his house without a care in the world, many times leaving a rather big misunderstanding that ends up hurting Yukinari. Whenever she fights a ‘pervert’ she screams out something ‘in hell’ as she beats the crap out of them. It was fun for a little while, and then got rather old.

Yukinari is… well like every other fucken main character in a Harem! He’s clumsy, small, and not really able to stand out in a crowd. He has an allergy to women though Miharu doesn’t make him brake out at all. Other then that, he is rather sweet and kind, with a wonderful heart.

On the other side of the spectrum is Kazuharu who flirts with every girl around him. He is a pervert who always grabs the girls’ breasts and panties. He is allergic to men though, hence the white gloves that he wears. His sister, Risa, is really into black magic and has a crush on Yukinari. She has a really pushy and throws her servants around to get him to come to her. Now for her servants, Kosame is into Kirie actually. This is actually a new concept I never really saw in another show, especially because it’s a Yuri relationship.

They crammed so much into this show that it’s really jammed with a lot of stuff into it. We got the enter-dimensional transportation, black magic, love triangles, aliens from another world, magical girls, special ops characters, and perverts. We even have a little cute side kick animal named Ebi. Ebi and Miharu have an interesting little relationship much like Excel and her dog.

The artwork is pretty much standard. It’s clean and bright but It just doesn’t stand out much from all the other anime done around this time. It makes it really hard to figure out just what to say every time I review a show that is pretty standard in this area.

The English voices are pretty good, though I feel a bit odd about Miharu’s voice. It’s Michelle Ruff who also played the voice of Ai Sakuraba from Ai Yori Aoshi. Kasuharu Fukuyama is actually played perfectly by Liam O’Brien who did Taishi Kuhonbutsu from Comic Party. Yes, the overactive Otaku is playing the overactive pervert. Not a large difference but it works perfectly for this show.

I haven't written a review in ages. The last one I wrote about half a year ago so I'm not warmed up, forgive occasional typos.

I decided to pick up Girls Bravo because it was apparently similar to another show, which is a personal favourite of mine, namely "Nagasarete Airantou". Within the first 3 episodes I realised that actually those two animes have nothing in common whatsoever, except perhaps that the protagonist in both these animes is a shy, introvert boy.

The "story", if you want to call it that, is fairly simple. A young boy named Yukinari who suffers from gynophobia (fear of women) ... and who's bullied by women on a daily basis, is one day transported to another world called "Seiren" by a pink haired girl, Miharu. While it may not look any different from our world there is one big fundamental difference and it's that men only make up one tenth of the overall population on Seiren. In other words, women outnumber men by 9:1. As Miharu tells our protagonist, "wars" frequently break out because the ladies on Seiren fight for every man to the bitter end.

You can imagine what happens to the poor boy when he's thrown into such an environment, bear in mind that apart from his unfortunate illness he's also a shy introvert who never had any (pleasant) contact with women. Now this is a pretty good scenario and it would have worked for me (it did partly) but the makers of Girls Bravo have screwed up an anime with such a good potential with over-the-top wackiness.

To illustrate it for you, I'll attempt to accuratly describe one of the scenes that stuck to my head the most: "Yukinari and his female companion Miharu, are surrounded by what seems to be hundreds of women who chased them when they realised that Yukinari was a male. Out of fear for the safety of the male protagonist, Miharu causes what can only be described as a nuclear explosion. Yukinari is then launched hudreds of feet into the air, smashes into a house, which then procceeds to hit him with its shutters. Yukinari flies accross a bridge and into a river, the current of the river is so strong that poor Yukinari smashes his head againts everything on his way, bleeds like an elephant, is milled in a water wheel, stuffed into a pipe which then transports him to a bath in some house... and we hear sad, touching music. The kind you'd expect to hear at the ending of Elfen Lied."

What the fu... that's way too whacky, even for an anime. I like comedy a lot, especially the kind of comedy you find in anime but for god's sake, Girls Bravo just doesn't know how to compile a proper scene. Comedic scene with sad music and way too much blood spouting everywhere just doesn't appeal to me. And Girls Bravo does this all the time. Weird scene + unfitting music = sheer awkwardness.

The good thing is that they ease off a little bit near the end of this season and try to get things right but again, the last episode is just downright ridiculous. You feel as if you're watching a Hentai. By the way, that's another thing about Girls Bravo, constant sexual jokes and lots and I mean lots of nudity. Expect to see bare breasts and panty shots in-between gunfights and awkward conversations.

Apart from that, art was pretty good. Some of the animation effects suprised me, like the translucent water effect. When you consider that Girls Bravo came out in 2004, it's absolutely astounding that they bothered to put such high-end effects in it.

With all this in mind why am I giving it a good score? Because the idea was good, partly because I haven't seen anime in a very long time and I don't want to start by giving out bad scores and partly because I actually like the male lead in this series. Hence, the score is 7.

This is similar to Maburaho in the sense that the protagonist is a helpless and defenseless person who gets picked on easily by people. Yukinari is the protagonist who is allergic to women because of being frequently bullied by them. Err... I just cannot say how dumb it was. It wasn't possible for a male to be allergic to a female.

I find that I cannot relate to the cast well because the cast consists of an aggressive woman like Kirie, timid woman, etc... The character development is almost non-existent. Arggh... I can't say anymore.

The worst part of the show is Kazuhara Fukuyama. He is ... obnoxious, pervert and all around jerk. He always comes up with the most dirty antics to allure women. Even goes to the extent of glueing the girls and expose their underwear. He also likes to grabs boobs which is fun for him. He also tries to make use of Yukinari to do such antics. The good thing is when he acts up, he pays for it. He actually ruined the show for me.

Poor Yukinari, he is defenseless towards Kazuha's perverted antics. The art and music are ok which each deserves a 5. It feels sad that I should give this anime a 3. If there is no character development nor any character which I can relate to, you cannot expect me to enjoy this anime.

The one word that I could use to best sum this up is forgettable. If you want to add one more, say very forgettable.

I think that the only thing that truly saves this are all of the boob shots, but it's the only thing I honestly can think of. When I went to add this to my list, that I found out that there is a second season. I think that's a real travesty. No thanks, I'll skip that.

In the long and short,the male MC is a real wuss, he's stupid, weak and a perfected dumbass with no personality. Very typical. It sucks that they ... took him and made him the punching bag. A complete waste of an MC. The initial female MC was brought on in the second episode and was used as a plot device, especially when it comes to soothing the male MCs inadequacies.. There was no development of her character after that. Kiryia, the next door neighbor and friend, is a tseundre of epic proportions. He is a love interest for her and there's no sign that he is it all involved with anybody, specifically himself because he refuses to do anything to try to fix his problems. She can be an enforcer,but she is an overly aggressive and unattractive personality. I do like her, but not completely like this. An aggressive woman that likes a particular pathetic boy is cliche but also way exaggerated.

I'll slap a mixed feelings on this because maybe cartoon boobs will be enough for somebody, but I can't really say that I personally advocate it.

Please do not watch this show with your kids. First of all, it's disgusting and violent. O.K., I liked this show, it had humor and some crazy stuff going on and a lot of cliffhangers. But the show is very eccentric for kids. I'm not even going to give out spoilers but just don't watch it until you're a little older, maybe 17 is a good age.

Yukinari Sasaki is a lonely young boy. He’s small for his age, called puny and teased by most people he knows, and t make matters worse, he lives alone in a large, empty house. He’s always been considered something of a joke to the opposite sex, as girls are the ones who’ve done most of the teasing, and the only woman who’s ever kind of liked him is the girl next door, the tall, busty brunette beauty who’s built their bond on busting his balls for bumbling in on her bathing in the buff, Kirie Kojima. If that wasn’t bad enough, his ... regrettable rapport with the fairer sex has resulted in him developing a previously unknown medical condition... Whenever he’s touched by a girl, whether it’s a violent punch or a tender embrace or anything inbetween, he breaks out in hives. He is, quite literally, allergic to girls, and there’s nothing he can do about it. Rather than transfer to an all boys school or hole himself up in his house and n ever come out, he’s instead elected to go through life without complaint, dragging his feet though his own little world of depression and dejection.

That is, until he’s quite literally beaten out of that world. One day, when he’s unfortunate enough to come home and catch Kirie naked in the process of preparing to take a shower, his naughty neighbor turns nasty, delivering a powerful blow that propels him through a magical portal in the bathtub, which connects him to a strange world that I guess is supposed to be the beyond portion of Bed Bath and Beyond. He winds up in the tub of a pink-haired air-head who, through some miracle, doesn’t trigger his allergies. It turns out they’re on a planet in another dimension called Seyren, where women outnumber men at a whopping 9-1 ratio. After escaping the threat of rape from the general community, Yukinari is helped back through the portal by this strange girl, who magically goes through with him! As it turns out, dimensional travel is going to be the least of his problems when his liaison with this looney love-interest is going to turn his world upside down, one unpredictable mishap at a time.

AIC Spirits is a production company I’ve somehow never mentioned before, even though they did some of the work on Petite Princess Yucie in collaboration with Studio Gainax. They’re extremely hit-or-miss, and while I have seen quite a few impressive projects from them, the overwhelming majority of it is cheap, badly managed, and with excuses of “It’s dated” dwindling through the years. They did almost the entire Tenchi line-up, if that gives you some idea of what we’re working with. If I had to put a pin in what kind of company they are, or some kind of defining thread throughout their work... And keep in mind, this is an extreme generalization based on what little of their work I’ve seen... They tend to put more money into a project if it’s not something that’s going to be a guaranteed success. Popular name-brand shows and shows with excessive fanservice and nudity often get the shaft, while more out-of-left-field titles like Bamboo Blade, Now and Then Here and There, and Humanity has Declined get much more attention paid to them. Which side of the scale does Girls Bravo fall on? Go ahead and guess.

I wouldn’t necessarily call Girls Bravo an ugly show, but if it had a good personality to speak of, I’d try distracting you towards that. It doesn’t always look bad, but it never really looks good, either. The characters seem to be drawn to type, with the same basic characteristics you’ve come to expect from the harem genre, only exaggerated and over-the-top, almost like parodied caricatures of the classic tropes. There’s an obvious lean towards moe, with almost all the female characters sporting giant boobs and even bigger eyes, which take up more than half of their round, cartoony faces. There’s something distinctly unattractive about the way everyone’s drawn, and while I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I haven’t come had this problem so badly since Ookami-san. There isn’t a hint of inspiration in anyone’s design, and the similarities that Miharu bears to certain other magical girlfriend characters is way too distracting. Even the loli character’s little mascot alien pet, which would normally serve as a mascot in other shows, looks generic as hell here.

There are some moments that I guess were animated okay, as short bursts of inspiration are really the best thing about this title, but we’ll get to that later. I also really can’t say it’s poorly directed, as outside of certain fanservice scenes, it at least knows basic things like what to focus on and how to frame a shot. When it’s doing something weird, and dare I say at times even interesting, it’s not too bad looking. It’s almost like... No, I’ll save that for later. The fluidity of movement isn’t terrible, but it hits jarring low points whenever there’s something else happening in the episode to compensate for, like CG water or a fast paced action comedy scene or what-have-you. The nudity isn’t always forced, as it often happens when characters are bathing or changing, but it’s still very clearly designed to be sexually appealing to the viewer, which it fails at to a stunning degree. Not only does the sheer amount of it cause a dulling effect, creeping farther and farther into sensory overload, but it looks like crap, with the female characters’ breasts often looking sloppily drawn with poorly placed nipples. As far as ecchi titles go, it’s pretty pathetic in it’s delivery.

The music is, surprisingly enough, really really good. A lot of it is your standard upbeat background fare that loops while fading into the background, but even those tunes are inexplicably pleasant to listen to, upbeat and ear=wormy but with a touch of class that you won’t find anywhere else in this series. Some of the cringiest moments in the series have beautiful, inspired tracks to accompany them, such as the Tito Puente-esque romantic struggle ballad that plays when Miharu is fellating an entire shop’s worth of bananas. You wouldn’t believe how many of these tunes I wound up dancing to when I heard them out of context for the sake of this review. They range from funky South-American style orchestrations to more relaxing Japanese style tracks, to fucking classy shit with violins. It’s a shame to hear such great music being wasted on such a trite series, but if that bothers you, don’t worry, the opening actually kind of sucks. It’s generic as all hell, both in terms of visuals and sound, and it doesn’t even remotely compare to the rest of Noriyasu Agematsu’s work on the project, including the cute, bubbly head-bopper of an ending theme.

The english dub isn’t quite as good as the music, but it’s still better than it really needed to be. Michelle Ruff takes her role as Miharu a lot farther, and here’s another example of why I consider her to be the greatest female voice actor of all time... She actually succeeds in making Miharu likeable. This is not an easy thing to do, as Miharu is only a few steps above being classified as a child with big boobs, one of the most unfortunate tropes in anime history, but Ruff just makes her sound so damn charming with her air-headed but well meaning approach. The only other stand-out is the legendary Liam O’Brien in the role of series antagonist and gropey blonde fop Fukuyama, quite possibly one of the ickiest and least likeable characters in anime history, but lordy, does he just go to town with it. He plays the character like he’s James from Pokemon, but with his libido cranked up to eleven and his sense of boundaries and moral decency cranked down to negative one, and it’s not hard to tell he’s having the time of his life with it.

It’s hard to make a sad sack like Yukinari likeable, but at the very least, Yuri Lowenthal keeps him from becoming annoying or whiny-sounding, which is the direction he could have very easily been taken. He plays him appropriately meek and depressive, but is still able to light a fragile little fire in the character’s heart when needed. Carrie Savage is cast to type in the role of Koyomi, Hunter Mackenzie Austin is okay but largely unremarkable in the role of Lisa, and then we have the two sour notes in the cast... The mysterious J Ray plays loli anklebiter Tomoka, and while I’m glad they didn’t give her a squeaky or highpitched voice, that doesn’t make the voice they DID give her any more listenable. I hate to sound mean, but I don’t really mind the fact that this reclusive actor only ever did three roles. Stephanie Sheh plays Kirie under the false name of Lulu Chiang, and good God is she awful in it. I almost don’t want to believe such a great actor could have turned in such a badly acted role. Well, I’ve said before that every great voice actor has at least one terrible role, and I guess this is hers. It’s still an okay dub over-all, though.

So... Here we are again. Here we are, talking about another harem anime. I’d really like to think that I’d be done with this genre eventually, because they’re starting to blur together in my mind at this point. And yeah, I know, I choose the anime I review, but this time not so much... I did a poll on Facebook, listing five romantic comedy anime I could review next, with Girls Bravo in there for shits and giggles, but lo an behold, it won by a landslide. I guess this is how the Republican Party must have felt with Trump, so like them, here I am committing whole-heartedly to the joke candidate. I should mention that my last poll-winner was spice and Wolf, so in a way, I trusted this group of idiots. They could have voted for Mysterious Girlfriend X, which I’ve been waiting for years to give a February slot to, and it was in fact the second place entry, but no, I had three freaking people writing in their own options instead. Stupid Facebook polling system. Well, I can’t very well jump to an alternate timeline, so we might as well get this over with.

Once you get past the terrible animation, which I have to admit is my main problem with this title, the product itself, from a writing perspective, is just kind of dull. That’s probably a weird thing to say about such a universally disliked title, but what else can I say? It’s biggest crime is that it’s generic. It borrows conventions and design aesthetics from other iconic anime, as well as from the legions of other anime like it. Right from the first episode, it’s hard to not recognize it as a half-hearted rip-off of Ah My Goddess, and that goes beyond the design of Miharu. The premise directly involves a down-trodden, spineless male character who can’t catch a break getting the perfectly loyal female companion from another world, where her sister as well as several other ladies soon also come tumbling out to visit. The difference is obviously that we actually get to see this other world, and that the relationship between them isn’t strong enough or ever seriously tested enough to be considered the main plot.

Other than that, this series is painfully generic. The magical girlfriend genre is ubiquitous enough to be called a genre in the first place, but very few titles follow in the footsteps of Chobits by actually doing anything new with it. Like I pointed out in my old Love Interests post, if the main character is male, the main girl is often the first girl, as long as the first girl isn’t a childhood friend, who has as much a chance of winning the protagonist as the Buffalo Bills do of winning the superbowl. See? Not even in contention. On top of that you have overused ideas like the precocious loli girl, the prim and proper shy girl, the sex obsessed other dude, the fists as forethought girl, and of course, the probably blonde and probably rich girl who somehow mistakenly believes through sheer coincidence that she and the main character are engaged to be married. Oh yeah, and of course, there’s a cuddly little animal/alien mascot. I guess I’m not being entirely fair here, because only three of these girls are actually interested in Yukinari, but hey, I’m only reviewing the first season. Who knows what happens after that.

There are two ways that this series manages to stand out. First of all, two of it’s characters actually manage to leave enough of an impression to defy convention and be more or less memorable. Unfortunately, you’ll remember them for all the wrong reasons. The first one is Kirie, the chick with the fists who we meet properly first. Actually, her first introduction tells you all you need to know about her character; Yukinari goes home, walks into his own damn bathroom, and catches her about to step into the shower, so she beats the shit out of him. Yeah, it’s totally his house, and it’s never explained why she has a key to it, but these things never cross her mind, because she’s too busy executing wrestling moves on people while telling them what they can do in hell. Even Naru in Love Hina had more personality than this. In terms of her character, she’s not so much a person, as she is warthog that suddenly gained the powers of human speech and limited complex thought. She is one of the two characters in this show that make me hate my life(Tomoka is a close third), and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but she’s actually the better of the two.

On the other side of the fence, we have Fukuyama, the terror of Yukinari’s school and the antithesis of his character, as he’s so perverted and girl crazy that he breaks out into hives when MEN touch him. If Kirie’s a warthog, then I guess you’d call Fukuyama the Japanese version of a squid... And yes, I mean the tentacle hentai version as well as the culinary version that tries to brainlessly wiggle down your throat. There are a lot of perverted playboys in anime, it’s kind of a thing nowadays, as every male main character must have at least one hopelessly girl-crazy friend to make them seem cool and approachable by comparison, but Fukuyama isn’t like most of these characters. The first thing we ever see him do is directly lift up Kirie’s shirt and grope her boobs right in the middle of school. He uses his wealth to create erotic opportunities for himself, constantly gets back up for more after being pummeled for his rapiness, and oh yeah, he’s a pedophile. I know he kind of redeems himself by helping Tomoka out at one point, but later when her animal companion is turned into a little girl, he abducts her and makes innuendo-laden remarks about having sex with her.

These two characters are painful enough to watch alone, but they’re even worse when they’re together. You might imagine it would be cathartic to see the punchy girl get constantly groped, or the gropey dude get constantly punched, but all together all their interactions just feel icky and uncomfortable. It feels kind of like they deserve each other, but at the same time, it also feels like the series itself deserves to not have either of them in it. The only thing I kind of liked about Fukuyama was his relationship with his sister Lisa, who’s probably the only character I liked in the whole cast. She got cast as the rich blonde girl with the marriage complex, but she actually has an interesting gimmick and backstory, and she almost makes Fukuyama likeable in the way their dynamic works. They actually feel like a pair of siblings, with neither one pining or obsessing over the other (THANK FUCKING CHRIST) and generally ignoring each other’s quirks and proclivities unless they find they have a reason to work together towards a common goal. If I didn’t hate Fukuyama himself so much, I’d probably have put them on my favorite siblings list.

And speaking of Lisa, she actually brings me to the second thing about this series that stands out, and it actually helps it to do so in a good way... This show is really freaking weird. And I’m not saying it’s weird like most shows are weird, with a bizarre premise and string of gags and ante-upping reveals that eventually get dull, like in Hare + Guu. No, this weirdness is weird even by weirdness standards, and it actually kind of feels like genuine, non-manufactured randomness on the part of the writers. There are moments throughout the series where it feels like they just got bored with what they were writing or animating and just did random things to keep themselves entertained. None of it has any purpose, most of it is largely self contained and inconsequential, and it almost has me convinced that someone involved with this project... Or, hell, maybe everybody... were aware of the fact that the series they were making was going to be shit, so they channeled that dude who put a dick on the Little Mermaid VHS cover and just went the extra mile to make their creative child as weird as fuck.

I’ve gotta be honest, these were the moments that kept me going. These made the series interesting. I’ve seen a ton of anime hot springs episodes, but for no reason at all, the first hot spring this cast visits was dried up and full of alligators and bananas. The pathway to Fukuyama’s house is a hedge maze full of booby traps and military drones. An entire episode revolves around Miharu drinking an unlabelled liquid during science class(because she is a well endowed toddler, after all) and getting drunk off of it, which makes her spawn thousands of shadow clones that go on a hunger fueled rampage throughout the town, in a genuinely good episode that I like to call “The Nomming Dead.” It’s episodes like these that makes girls Bravo feel like some care actually went into it on some level. It’s ironic to think, but it’s like it’s mastered the art of giving a fuck by not giving a fuck, and keep in mind, this is the kind of impression you’ll get when one of the main characters is fellating a bunch of bananas. And yeah, it actually manages to be funny from time to time, which is a welcome distraction from generic it all is.

Girls Bravo was originally available stateside from Geneon entertainment, but copies of it from that company are completely out of print, although you can find them fairly cheap on Ebay. Thankfully, it was rescued by Funimation, and is available in a much more affordable slim pack. All releases also contain the second season, which I barely remember, but I’m pretty sure it’s more of the same fare. The original manga is available stateside from Tokyopop, which of course means it’s also out of print. A visual novel for the PS2 entitled Romance 15’s is, surprise, not available stateside.

I remember watching this series when it came out ten years ago, and thinking it was one of the worst things ever. Now that I watch it again after all these years, however, it’s honestly not that bad. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s really bad, but it’s not unwatchable. I’d even go as far as to say that it’s better than a lot of later entries in the genre, like Haganai and Maken Ki. It’s not an overall enjoyable show, but as long as the two characters we discussed earlier aren’t making my life miserable, it’s just a generic, badly animated harem anime, and I’ve become kind of numb to those. Yukinari and Miharu are almost even a likeable couple, at least once in a while. There really isn’t much here to justify a recommendation, especially since it’s more like a bunch of random things that happen than anything even remotely resembling a plot... I mean, come on, even Lucky Star had more of a story than this... But it kind of is worth checking out just for the random, bizarre spots that feel almost, dare I say, inspired. At the very least I can recommend you seek out the soundtrack, even if you wind up understandably giving the series a pass. I give Girls Bravo a 3/10.

Girls Bravo was a...well, it was a gratuitous ecchi series with a very minor sci-fi under pinning. The story was not really interesting and the characters were collectively annoying.

Throughout the entire first season it was clear the artists had an extreme breast fetish. But it was more than that. The series was laden with several subtle and not-so-subtle sexual innuendos that even made me blush (Miharu's first taste of a banana comes to mind... >.> ).

Another thing that bothered me, as I stated before, was the lack of character depth and how annoying they all generally seemed to appear. Kirie was so viciously violent most ... of the time, it was easy to forget she had a kinder, gentler side and secret affections for Yukinari. While I couldn't really avoid Yukinari's dialog, I frequently found myself turning down the volume when characters like Tomoka and Koyomi had speaking lines.

Girls Bravo wasn't without some redeeming qualities though. While characters like the Fukuyamas were pretty obnoxious, they were also pretty humorous "frienemies." You also have to keep in mind what this series seemed to be about - fan service and ecchi. And that's fine which is why it gets a grade of "fine" in my book.

Girls Bravo is an okay series, but it just is not up to my standards. When i fist saw this series today, I remembered that i watched it a few years ago and liked it but that was before I watched a lot of anime.
It does have a somewhat original idea for the story, the art is okay but my enjoyment of it was really quite low. The reason for that is that despite having a lot of nudity, it just was not very entertaining. It was almost like they made the series just ... so that they could draw a lot of naked chicks. But they couldn't just have girls so they had a short cowardly kid and a crazy pervert.
All in all i give the anime a 7. I would have giving it a 6 but because i was able to watch the whole thing without dropping it i gave it some slack.

Well, what can I say... its FANTASTIC. It's quirky, it's spunky, it's fun, and it's funny! The characters are lovable, and in no time whatsoever you find yourself screaming at the television, and rooting for one character or another. There's a lot of adult content (and doesn't that make it all the better ;) he he) so be sure not to try watching this around children. However do give it a chance and you'll be spouting catch phrases and just generally enjoying yourself.

My review will be as short as i can put it. Mainly the main character is elergic to girls and thus he comes out in spots when touched by a female, he then falls into his bath and goes to another world where he is met by Miharu. Apart from the start after that there is not much story involved, although the random parts of Miharu is the only good thing out of this series, she makes it not as boring as it would of been so for characters she a great one, so to sum it up not much Story all this series is ... for is to get used to the character ready for the next season.

I know some will say, hey he's only watched two episodes but believe me with this one you don't need a lot to get the jist of what it's about.. not a lot!

I'm not going to bable on about the show everyone else has done that, all I wanted to say was if this wasn't in english, I wouldn't bothered watching past ep1, as I hate the violence in it, everytime there is a bit of ecchi where you see knickers or a slight nude shot its a kick in the face and blood running from he's nose.

This portrays girls being violent towards randy or ... perv boys at school age, I can deal with the nudity as you might expect but not the constant kick in the face.

Don't be fooled by the DVD cover, I was!!

A harem anime who's lead male character is allergic to women? Well thats original!But did they have to make him a loli character( Ok he is puny but i think he is too much of a loli). That and his allergy would hardly make him first pick for a lead character.

The PLOT starts with Miharu a girl from the planet of seiren (Hmmm..maybe they were hinting at seinen)accidentally being teleported to yukinari's bathtub while she was taking a bath her own home. yukinari and his friend Kirie find her and the rest is the actual main story.

A planet where 90% of the population are ... female?Boy I'd sure love to visit that place..
Actually the it would have made the series a whole lot more sexier and Echhi fan servicing would have gone through the roof if they had decided to do the story the other way around where it is yukinari who got transported to seiren.

As for CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT , I would give it 6 for a decent set of characters.
But some were just pointless and annoying( Tomo I'm Talkin to YOU).

STORY PROGRESSION ..Pretty good at first but then it just dragged into a whole bunch of pointless episodes that neither moved the story forward nor gave the fans anything to cheer about...

ANimation and artwork were good and decent considering this is a pretty old anime (2000s).

Comedy was the only thing going for this anime If this series didnt have fukuyama it would plain hav sucked.The pervert is the only one who makes this anime even watchable. Well there isnt much love scenes or rather intimate scenes either owing to the aforemnentioned allergies of the lead.

What i Liked about this anime was that the Yukinaris voice actor was YURI LOWENTHAL.
Who doesnt want to hear Sasuke / Prince of Persia in a loli voice?

Would i like to watch it again Not really coz it doesnt have much rewatch potential..

But still a fun anime to watch for a good time!

Great plot,9, i liked the gist of it.but not really the ending i bealive he should of gotten the other girl (forgot her name) but thats me. I like romatic action funny and echi and had it all
i gave the art an 8 because i liked the animation but ive seen bedder like H.O.T.D. and whold have gotten a 9 but personaly i dont like how the peoples eyes cover there hair kinda annoying but gave an 8

liked the sound no prob with any thing.10

i gave the charactors a 6 because that girl from the other world develops nothing while she is there and ... has almost no emotions other than happy sad or hungery while the other charactor developes alot in her fellings for him and yet chooses the other girl he talks about getting over the rash yet tells that girl to get over it.

enjoyment.7, because it was funny and echi and i like that but made me depresed to find out the girl he acually ends up with and who the other girl ends up likeing