Koko wa Green Wood

I felt inclined to write this review after reading another user's review. This is not to dismiss their review but to give another perspective. I actually agree with a lot of the points they made.

I fell in love with this show when I was a teenager. It holds a dear place in my heart. So my review is incredibly biased but then again aren't all reviews?

The best thing about Greenwood to me with how fun it was to watch. Even though there are only six episodes I felt they did a great job with theme selection per episode. ... Each episode minus 5 and 6 have their own unique story. Because the characters are likable, they work very well regardless of theme or story. I know my review is a bit vague but I don't believe delving into the details matter. This is a comedic, light hearted, slice of life Anime. It's not for everyone but if that's your thing then I would suggest giving it a go.

I really don’t get why all the boys seem to tease Kazuya right away, including telling him that his roommate, Shun Kisaragi, was a girl. It does play a lot into the yaoi feeling of this show. All the characters from his brother to anyone else in the school are really out of control. All of them seems a bit too stereotypical, Kazuya is pathetic, Mitsuru is cruel, Shun to cutesy, and yet, we sympathize with the characters when they tell us their sad stories. The worse characters for that craziness seems to be Mitsuru Ikeda and Shinobu Tezuka. All four of them seem to ... have a love hate relationship the whole time. My little fan girl was squealing the whole time for the little hints of Yaoi.

The episodes feel really rushed, making things confusing. It’s like we are reading Kazuya’s journal and he’s not too good at writing it. A lot of the time, they seem to be saying ‘go read the manga’ which of course is something I hate about these animes. I really don’t get the episode that they have a ghost in it. It just seems like a bit of a stretch to do that.

Other then the episodes and the odd characters, one thing it has is pretty much a lot of is understanding of feelings. All the characters have problems with something in their lives. The way they show off these issues helps make them understandable. Sadly, we don’t get the whole story as again, this is only 6 episodes and they skip so much that’s in the manga.

The animation is pretty much on the low side, I think partly because of being vintage and partly because of the low budget. It’s pretty boring animation and nothing really stands out.

The English voices are really off for the women and the men feel a little un-emotional most of the time. I can’t stand Sumire’s voice. It’s really high pitched and annoying. I also don’t understand why she keeps saying Ya as well. Is she supposed to be Chinese or something? There really was no music that stood out to me at all. Normally its way to quiet to get any music or it’s just so standard that there was no change in it.

The show is basically just bland and doesn’t stand out but it is still worth a watch.

I was super excited to watch Here Is Greenwood after reading about it. The general concept sounded like fun, and I had heard good things about it. I even purchased the old DVD of it to watch it properly. The DVD version has a different english dub than the original english dub on VHS and LaserDisc, though. I've heard mixed opinions on both, so I wasn't sure which one to watch. I settled on the DVD version, anyway. The other night I put it in and watched all six episodes in one sitting. Yes, there's only six episodes. They're relatively short and easy to sit ... through. By the time I was done with the series, I felt extremely disappointed. It definitely wasn't for me. Each episode involves the cast going through a random situation. The situations don't have the most entertaining plot lines in the world, either. I found a lot of the material to be quite boring. It certainly lacked clever writing and humor. The last two episodes do go together, however. They were also a bit of a letdown for me, though. The series didn't feel like it got a true ending like it deserved. It's all over the place, and anything but captivating. As for the positives, I did like the main character, Kazuya. A lot of the characters didn't do much for me, though. The animation also looks really nice. I'm a fan of the old-school look, so I liked it. It's nothing too crazy, but it did embody the standard look of the time period. Overall, I found this anime to be lacking in almost all fields. The story did nothing for me, and I don't think I laughed once. I wasn't moved by it in any way. Maybe I'll have to give this one another try someday. If you want to watch something that's lighthearted and sort of fun, then give Here Is Greenwood a try. It's short, and it's watchable. It's the kind of show that I can imagine some people loving for its simplicity and nostalgic features. Sadly, as much as I wanted to feel that way about it, it just didn't affect me like it does with others.

This anime is an odd beast, many of these OVAs start out lackluster and then get better as they go along. With this one I felt like it was the other way around, it charmed me from the first episode but then started to fall apart as the show went on.
The art is nice looking and the style is nice, the animation is a bit choppy but ok for an OVA like this, the music and sound is ok, but nothing really stands out.
Where the show really falls apart though is the character development, or lack of it. This anime was obviously made for fans ... of the manga and absolutely no one else, and as such they expect you know EVERYTHING about these characters already. This isn't about there being no real overarching story, I know what a slice of life anime is, and I appreciate them. But there are huge gaps, things that should be filled in and it just leaves the viewer confused and frustrated. Over all this anime is a huge disappointment but I feel like an anime based on this manga could work and be wonderful, maybe it will be revisited by more competent hands one day
If you are a fan of the comics I might recommend it, but otherwise I'd say give this a pass. You will just end up confused and frustrated like I was.

I like the comedic timing, absurdness and simplicity of this. its charming, funny, and leaves a lot unsaid which tbh adds to the vibe. it feels very real but also bizarre.

I really hate the transphobia of ep 1, and the pedophile bodyguard of ep 3. i think that that should not be accepted into the industry, its unfortunately quite normalized tho. Also the incesty vibes involving the brothers, similar to OHSHC. I feel like we accept that in popular shows and thats not ok, but that also means im not going to say the whole show is bad for it, especially given its decades old ... now and im not paying the creators anything to watch it. Doesn't mean we cant criticize it, in fact we should, but it definitely has good things going for it also. both can be true simultaneously.

Ep 4 is my favourite. You could honestly just dip in there and be able to enjoy it.

This came as a surprise. I often mention "folding" in my anime and film reviews, it's a term coined by some cognitive scientists who study the film industry, it can be roughly defined as the dynamics of how we create stories on different levels of abstraction, especially using a visual vocabulary, sometimes it's too obvious it verges on the ironic, but it's to my utmost interest when it's done very subtly the normal viewer wouldn't notice it usually. Anime and manga is semi-primitive compared to cinema in this.

Here's a classic example though, the folding is explicitly ironic, we have in the 3rd episode a show ... within a show, filmed as a play inside the dorm of the students, it's clever fan service and narrative twists and turns for girls who love to see pretty boys around each other, it's worth observing compared to other examples, and there's a spark of innovation with the role of a mangaka who actually caused all of the narrative around this specific fold, that's something. Midori, Evangelion and Millennium Actress tried to explore that more creatively. There's also another folding device with a sensitive girl ghost who enters the fantasy of one of the boys, possibly mirrored by a soap opera show one of the characters is watching. I also liked how the characters developed and grew within each other.

It's lite and fun stuff, but I'd recommend it only if you're interested in the making of the thing than the final result itself.