Gakuen Heaven

5 WORDS OR LESS REVIEW: Not a lot of action

As a yaoi fan girl, nothing pleases me more than a transfer student asking to be corrupted by his new school mates who are into “different extracurricular activities”. Such is not really the premise of Gakuen Heaven, but yaoi fan girls like me should know otherwise, right?

Gakuen Heaven is about Ito Keita, seemingly an ordinary, supposedly straight teenage boy, who is suddenly invited to a prestigious all-boys school named Bell Liberty Academy, or BL academy (How ominous XD). As soon as he gets there, his bishounen school mates start fawning over him because he’s cute. It’s ... almost like the yaoi counterpart of Strawberry Panic, if you ask me.

I like the story, I think it’s cute as a whole, but I thought there wasn’t enough material to work with. Most of the episodes dealt with Keita trying to adjust in his new school, when 3 episodes would have been enough. Also, just when it was about to end was a climax that came out of almost nowhere. I thought it didn’t fit the image of the story. Heck, Ham-ham heaven was better than that climax.

Now for the more important part – the “action”. Yaoi fan girls should know what I’m referring to. Sadly, there wasn’t enough “action” in Gakuen Heaven. Most of the “action” were fake and plain teasing. There was only one kiss throughout the whole thing, and I thought that kiss was kinda awkward and disappointing.

I have to say though, that Gakuen Heaven has a beautiful cast of bishounens. Yes, the cast is heavily dominated by men. There was only one episode with women, and they’re not even that significant, nor attractive. Not that it’s important. My favorite characters are Niwa a.k.a. King. He’s like a dashing prince that reminds me of Conrad from Kyou Kara Maoh. I also like Shunsuke’s playful nature, the impish twins, and the cute Keita.

You’d think I’ll be contented with the bevy of bishounens, but I’m not. I’m a little disappointed because there wasn’t enough differentiation between the characters. They all look almost completely alike, except for Keita, Shunsuke and the twins (probably explains why I like these characters the most). Everyone else had the same facial structure and would look the same if they had the same hairstyle. That’s just a small qualm though. Overall, visuals really look nice. I like the coloring, because a wide variety of colors were used. The illustrations and the backgrounds were all very detailed but not overwhelming to the eye.

As for the voice acting, 2 names immediately caught my attention. The first name is Jun Fukuyama, who was Lelouch Lamperouge in Code Geass, and Watanuki Kimihiro in xxxHOLiC, and is Ito Keita in Gakuen Heaven. What a talented guy – I almost didn’t recognize it was him since Lelouch and Watanuki have such strong voices, while Keita has such a soft, almost girly voice. The second is Takahiro Sakurai, one of my favorite male voice actors. He was Shun in Gatekeepers, and Cloud in Final Fantasy: Advent Children. In Gakuen Heaven, he is Kazuki, who’s actually my least favorite character, but at least he has a talented voice actor to back him up.

I usually wouldn’t like songs similar to the OP “School Boys”, but I really like that song. I think it’s poppy and catchy, and I even dance to it when I hear it sometimes. It’s the same for the ED, “Panorama” – I didn’t expect I would like it at all. However, I still prefer the OP since it’s more upbeat.

In the end, the story seems to be Gakuen Heaven’s weakest point. I know it may seem that yaoi fan girls are more concerned about BL when it comes to yaoi, but the story’s important too. If the story had a different, more suitable climax, I probably would have liked it more, but Gakuen Heaven was still worth watching.

Just saying from the get-go. I failed to remember the names of most of the characters, besides Keita, Kazuki and Naruse, so I’m just going to refer to the rest of them by the nicknames that I ended up calling them with (don’t worry, it’s pretty much obvious who’s who by nicknames too, so there will be no confusion).

Story - 3

The overall story is just what it is/what it seems: light, simple, funny, fanservice-y; nothing more and nothing less than what I already expected when I dived into it: your typical highschool BL reverse harem set in the elite Bell Liberty Academy, which is ... literally shortened up to "BL Academy" and I'm not even kidding you! (I see what you did there, author!) Well, at least for the first half it was entertaining to follow Keita getting in all sorts of questionable and funny situations with the rest of the guys.

Second half was rather unbalanced from all points of view. The main problem was that it tried to add up different genres into the story to develop a kind of drama between the main characters, but seriously, it felt like it turned into a different show entirely. It tried to insert some half-assed assassins that got pawned by 16 years old kids because POWER OF MAIN CHARACTERS!! Then some workplace-family tragedy regarding Kazuki and his "secret" because WHY NOT, WE NEED ANGST. And lastly there was some sort of sci-fi virus situation because YAMI NO MATSUEI RIP-OFF(and for those that know that manga/anime, I can say two things: silver hair and medical experimentation. Hello, Muraki of the Red Moon!). But before you go and cheer expecting a Gakuen Heaven MurakixTsuzuki situation, don't get ahead of yourselves because it definitely doesn't go to that extent, no no, because we must not forget the absolute POWER OF BROMANCE! ... and the power of the main guy motivational speeches. This is a LIGHT show, people! Full of hearts and flowers!

Characters - 3

The characters were overall pretty under-developed, but it's anything but a rare issue when it comes to multiple-endings visual novel adaptations. However, not even Kazuki, the obvious main love interest, had as much development as I would wish and expect. He loved Keita by default, his "secret" was just a way to cause drama and in the end, nothing ever mattered. The other characters? They can't be really called "characters".

They are the most basic of anime archetypes with some "gimmicks" to them, sometimes not even that. Kingu (Yes, Kingu, because I can't help but make fun of Japanese Engrish) was nothing but the baddass student council president who had way too little screentime to even be able to remember him, Emo Painter was just an emo painter who sometimes acted like decoration just to be able to say "See? I'm here!", Queen is a feminine-looking guy and head of the school Treasury/Accounting department whose gimmick was acting like a "Queen", being beautiful and having an issue with it, his love/hate towards Kingu and his soft spot for a sketchy looking hacker/childhood friend (and he's voiced by Kamiya Hiroshi in his early seiyuu days coughs worth mentioning), Genki Guy was the typical genki guy with Kanto (?) accent which made him sound as if he was meowing for the most part so we got ourselves the Neko-guy too, who in the end literally did nothing but being "genki", then "megane"-san sent me creepy shivers in more ways than one, but he also went nowhere, then...well, you get the idea. The rest aren't much different or important either.

Honorable mention goes to Naruse because everytime he appeared on screen I couldn't help but grin widely for his over-the-top flirting sessions and I doubt I'll be able to get "HONEY!" off my mind for awhile. And then there's the twins, which surprisingly had to offer some development and conclusion regarding their feelings towards Keita, which I praise immensely seeing how awful the rest of the cast was treated.

Art&OST - 4,5

Art-wise, it was quite generic, nothing too bad or too awesome-looking. Some backgrounds looked unfinished though and I'm mostly referring to the forest backgrounds. OST is quite generic as well and didn't exactly pop out, however the opening song, if listened to more than once, becomes quite entertaining in the long run.

Enjoyment - 7

Well, I personally enjoyed it for what it was. It was my ray of sunshine in some days and I'm sad that it's over! I recommend it to those that want to shut their brains and have something to laugh or d'aww at or to people that like BL in general. I don't recommend it if you're looking for an involving story with twisted Yami no Matsuei-like BL elements or something similar to Junjou Romantica or Sekaiichi Hatsukoi. Gakuen Heaven is even lighter than those and it should be taken as such, for what it is, without having too many expectations for it.

You can have a standard plot with standard characters but still have a good show. Nevertheless... I may have the unpopular opinion here but i think Gakuen Heaven is completely dull.

Gakuen Heaven follows the typical formula of "the new dude in school who is fawn over by all his classmates" which is a typical cliche in yaoi/yuri, shoujo and every other anime which involves school romances.
But you can have this setting and still make a great story, but in the case of this anime the plot is boring, all twists are hand-fed to the viewers from the start, and the only one ... which isn't (which i won't spoil because it happens in the end) it's completely random and pointless. The characters are dull stereotypes who doesn't add nothing rather than being handsome love interests to the main character. And Ito Keita himself is completely weak as the protagonist.

I know that this series, as it's based on a yaoi videogame, was probably made as some sort of fanservice for it's fans... but i expect to have at least a little bit of substance if i decide to take my time to watch a 13 episode show. I kept waiting for something to surprise me but everything was a disappointment in this one. There has been BL anime/manga with the same exact premise that still manage to be really interesting... but Gakuen Heaven couldn't get me engage in it.

But i understand that some fans may enjoy it. It has cute bishounen and a happy-go-lucky storyline (eventhough it's extremely pointless)... so if that's enough to float your boat it will probably satisfy you.
If you are someone who prefer something more substantial, it's a waste of your precious time.