Kitakubu Katsudou Kiroku

Deconstruction of the comedy, school genre.

It never takes itself seriously, too many comedies ruin themselves by adding unnecessary drama. The art is quite a bit better than the manga. Sound is appropriate, they manage new OPs and EDs despite their budget.

Very nice and refreshing gag and parody anime. It has nothing to do with "cute girls & cute things" as some people think for unknown reason. The show heavily relays on breaking 4-th wall and abstract humor and it seems most of the anime watchers are not used for this and miss entire point of the series. The show is full of self-irony and mocks anime-industry quite a bit, and it feel kinda honest which I like.

People bash this show due to inability to understand content outside of typical school comedy/drama tropes. So, while I can't guarantee that you will like it, there are no reason to trust the current score and skip it without trying on your own, especially if you have sense of humor of more intelligence than banana peel.

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Kitakubu Katsudou Kiroku is a comedic manga written by Kuroha and published by Square Enix. Thi year it was adapted into a twelve episode anime by Nomad, a studio that's only headed about a dozen productions, none of which I've seen. Let's take a look and see what this studio can do.

The series opens with High school student Andou Natsuki going in for the opening ceremony. Afterwards she checks out some of the club adverts, the strangest of which is someone flailing around in a seal costume. When asked what club she's going to join she responds by saying that she might just join the going home club, only to find out that it's a real thing when her classmate, Touno Karin, decides to go with her to check it out. From their it goes into the details of the club activities, which seems to consist of doing strange things for fun. The comedy in this is a strange blend of absurdist elements, breaking the fourth wall and jokes about everyday school life. The closest anime I can compare the humour to is Gokujou Seitokai. The humour is strange, can be very random and mostly works pretty effectively. The series has a lot of great moments, particularly the musical chairs bit and the Schubert episode. One thing I really appreciate about the series is that they actually use pop culture things they reference for actual jokes and parody purposes, which shouldn't be surprising but there are a lot of series that just treat the reference as a joke by itself because “this thing exists, it's funny” and that's not only completely lacking in humour but just lazy, (glaring at you, Lucky Star.) A lot of their humour is also based around making fun of really stupid tropes, their gags about fan-service for example. They do have some jokes that don't really work or just fall flat, but those are in the minority.

The characters aren't particularly deep. They're really simple archetypes who don't develop very much with their major defining characteristics played up for comedic effect. I will grant that the characters play off of each other very nicely and the dynamics among them are well handled. They're also used in a very self aware fashion, which helps make them more interesting than they would have been had they been played completely straight.

The art is pretty standard. There's nothing particularly wrong with it, but it isn't anything special or eye-catching. Save for a few visual gags.

The voice acting in this is well done. Most of the main cast doesn't have a lot of roles outside of this which is a shame since they are quite good. Particularly Senhongi Ayaka, Kobayashi Miharu and Kido Ibuki. The music is fun and they do some really clever things with it.

The ho-yay factor is a 6/10. The girls do get really homo-erotic. Karin and Claire are the ones who get the most screen time, but a lot of the dynamics have heavy homo-erotic undertones.

That's Kitakubu Katsudou Kiroku. All in all, I rather enjoyed it. There are a lot of funny moments. The characters play off of each other nicely and the voice acting was good. That being said, it wasn't the best comedy I've ever seen and the art was certainly nothing special. Final rating, 7/10. It's a good little anime, check it out if it sounds like your type of humour. That does it for December. The request queue going into the new year is: Battle Athletes Daiundoukai, Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu, Dansai Bunri no Crime Edge, Shinsekai Yori and One Outs. Next week I'll ignore all of that because it's the beginning of a new year and those of you who have been reading my reviews for a while know what that means. Studio Ghibli month. We'll begin with what some claim is the first Studio Ghibli film and others argue isn't on a technicality, Nausicaa of the valley of the wind.

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Chronicles of the Going Home Club; yet another school comedy?

Everyday, literally millions of school comedy anime are brought forth into existence. No joke. It’s a somewhat... saturated market where the term “sink or swim” springs to mind.

And to start this review, I’ll admit. Going Home Club went the way of the majestic rock. Rocks have, infact, never been very good swimmers, but perhaps I’m getting slightly off topic.

Of course, just because one rock… I mean anime, gets dragged under the clambering of other more popular shows doesn’t mean it’s bad. If anything, Going Home Club is misunderstood.

For instance, those seeking a show with “character development” will be thoroughly disappointed. There is none. In place of the more common multidimensional characters, we have factory-grade shells with satirically stereotypical personalities bolted on. In short we have the enthusiastic to the point of crazy leader, the tried and tested moe cute one, the ultra-rich oblivious one, the athletic fighting one, and the sane one that shouts at the rest.

These characters exist simply to provide a facade through which Going Home Club serves comedy. And not just any comedy. Comedy which refreshingly strays into territories most atypical of the school comedy genre. Two distinct shades of humor color Going Home Club.The outrageous shade includes nonsensical situations, and 4th wall smashing. And then there’s the subtle shade, which often pokes fun at itself, rather, by proxy, anime cliches in general.

The contrast between the highly rational Natsuki and the situational absurdities the other characters enact invites an audience to draw their own observations, which is ultimately rather rewarding. This style of comedy often rears its head in British comedies, which revolve around the observational limits and awareness of their audiences.

If you’re up to speed on popular culture, there are a ton of references throughout this series to keep you busy, checking countless “I do slash know about that thing” off your list.

So, if you find yourself looking for something a little bit different, something laid back, and something that doesn’t take itself seriously, I urge you to consider giving Going Home Club a try. To use an analogy, if school comedy anime are like skimming flat stones across the water of their own beach episode, Going Home Club is like throwing a majestic rock into a puddle.

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