Yajikita Gakuen Douchuuki

“Yajikita Gakuen Douchuuki” (which I would loosely translate as “Record of Yaji and Kita’s School Journeys”) is a 2-episode Shoujo OVA with decent character designs and a solid voice cast, but plot-wise it’s a confusing mess, and every other aspect about this title is mediocre.

The gist of the overall story is that Yaji and Kita, two high school girls proficient in a variety of combat techniques and who belong to some sort of martial arts-centered organization at their home school, act as martial artist mystery solvers for hire of sorts, transferring into schools upon request to solve their ninja-related problems. Each episode presents a self-contained ... story about a different school.

Even if you can accept the premise that this these stories are built on — that it’s relatively common for high schools in modern Japan to have secret ninja group infestation problems, and that two high schoolers can solve them — the plots’ execution leaves a lot to be desired. The first episode is the more coherent of the two, but even in that one, a lot of the developments just don’t make sense. I was left wondering why Yaji and Kita were even hired to do the job in the first place, seeing as they don’t put up much of a fight when attacked, and conduct very little of the intelligence-gathering themselves. That is left to the plot device—er, ninja named Kotetsu, who is also a part of their organization and keeps popping in out of nowhere at the most convenient times to do most of the heavy lifting.

The second episode is incredibly confusing. To start off with, one would be forgiven if they thought that the girl at the beginning, who cuts her hair in a revenge request offering, and the antagonist are one and the same, because they look similar. But no, the unnamed female student is a different character, apparently voiced by Kotono Mitsuishi, no less.

The synopsis of episode 2’s story makes you jump through a bunch of logical hoops for it to even marginally make sense. A girl’s boyfriend has been expelled from her school because of actions that his brother did as the leader of the school’s martial arts club. In order to enable his return (which he didn’t ask for, by the way), she decides to head up the club herself, turning it into a “shadow military organization” of trained ninjas. Her group attempts to murder the school’s chairman, who has been trying to stop them, which gets Yaji and Kita involved. And there’s a mysterious entity known as “the Punisher” at that school, who will, in exchange for the requester’s student ID books and their departure from the school, exact punishment on (beat up) whomever the requester asks. This entity has been targeting the ninja organization’s members lately, so they are trying to uncover the entity’s identity and fight them. Episode 2 is filled with blatant exposition dumps (characters approach Yaji and Kita at just the right time, explain everything, and then leave), undeveloped or even just-introduced characters who appear to be important but we aren’t really told who they are, some sexist dialogue, and a nonsensical ending which involves flowers, prostrating oneself in the direction of a prefecture, and crying.

Regarding technical aspects, the animation gets the job done and is not noticeably subpar, although it is limited during action scenes, where stills are often used. The character designs are nice, but some characters look too similar to one another (as touched on above). The opening and two ending themes, as well as the background music, are all mediocre. The voice acting is solid — there are a lot of major voice actors in this, including in minor roles.

As for objectionable content, there’s some violence, but little blood, and no one dies except in flashbacks. There’s also a bit of sexist dialogue here and there that is played off as being funny.

Overall, while this show does have a nice aesthetic to it, the incoherent plot, poor story structure and underdeveloped characters make it a difficult OVA to sit through, particularly when it comes to the second episode. Thus, I would not recommend this OVA to anyone unless they have read the manga, which may give a fuller understanding of the plot and characters.