Gakuen Handsome

I watched this at 1am and actually cried laughing. The art is terrible, the story is terrible, the characters make no sense, and I love it. This is the best parody of those generic school yaoi/BL dramas that could ever be conceived. Everyone looks like they were drawn by a not-artistically-gifted 6th grader that just got into anime. The main character has no eyes and his 7 year old sister remembers playing with one of the MCs friends from 7 years ago. They blow up like 3 buildings. A guy dies and comes back to life. In ... the ending song the characters distort into oblivion in time to the music. I felt like I was suffering some kind of trauma-induced shock while watching it.

TLDR: Gakuen Handsome needs to be put in the art museum where it belongs.

To be clear: this is yaoi SATIRE. Unless you've been a weeb since the days of newgrounds, you're not going to get this.



ART:
Imagine every thirteen year old's deviant art account when they started watching anime. That is the art of this show. And it was intended. The pointy chins, the yaoi hands- all intended. Literally every possible thing is wrong with the art, shading, proportions, perspective, everything. The characters are exaggerated versions of BL art style and the main character has no face which makes it fairly quirky


SOUND:
Pretty good actually. Goes to show that the animators actually do know what they're doing. And ... that (again) the horrible art is intended.


CHARACTER:
Every trope and stereotype exists in this show. Every line is either super rapey or absolutely stock. It's a perfect parody.


ENJOYMENT:
As someone who grew up on anime, this show brought me into a nostalgic state of when I started started trying to create my own images on MS paint. I laughed to the point of tears while watching this show. I've read quite a few cringeworthy BL manga and I can say that this short animation portrays all the faults you can find there with the perfect satirical touch.


OVERALL:
The type of viewers who will like enjoy this definitely had unironically enjoyed a doujin or something that was probably not much better than this.

I give this Anime a PERFECT 5/7.....here's why.......

STORY
Well the Story is just definitly a 10 after all it is very very original and not just your daily dose of trash harem.

ART
The art is sooo damn beautiful and there are sooo many gorgeous pictures of the characters and the surroundings.Thats why i gave it a 10.

SOUND
The music in this sshow is really something else!!It is kinda relaxing,thought-provoking and full of action at the same time!!So I gave it obviously a 10.
...
CHARACTER
Every character has an other philosophie and motivation. These "Lifestyles" are constantly clashing against each other with the main character as the referee. Because of this process there is really much action going on in this series.My end result is the Characters are a 10/10.

ENJOYMENT
Because of all the aspects that I named in my review so far I can say for sure that the enjoyment-factor in this series is a incredible good 10.

OVERALL-REVIEW
After adding up all the scores that I gave this show and thinking for a while i came to the certainly conclusion that this show, more than ANY OTHER SHOW deserves to be given a PERFECT 5/7!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope that my review was helpfull for all of you. :)

(This review is incomplete and will keep changing throughout the anime. I’m simply writing it now to ensure at least one review is up that somewhat understands this show.)

Story: 3
Art: 2
Sound: 3
Character: 2
Enjoyment: 5
Overall: --

TL;DR
... Ever wonder how lovecraftian creatures find love?

This anime is about (self insert)’s journey in the scary world of hot, long-chinned boys: Baramon High School. Boiled down, it’s a parody anime about commonly used BL tropes. Imagine if someone in the anime industry decided to create an official abridged series, and then proceeded to air it on TV in hopes that someone out there would get the joke. Basically, you’ll be playing a game of ‘spot the trope’ with every episode. If all that sounds fun to you, this might just be worth checking out.

Story:
The school of Baramon High is where all attractive boys are collected and gender is irrelevant, all seemingly shepherded by their principal Jirou Natsume. Your literal no-faced self insert moved in not too long ago to unexpectedly find himself on a quest for a romantic partner, and is put through one scenario after another to showcase their rather generic quirks. This story is less about a plot, and more about how many tropes can fit into a five minute episode without spitting it in your face too hard. Here’s just a few you’ll encounter in the first few episodes: A ‘cast full of pretty boys’, ‘if it’s you, it’s okay’, ‘chins that can split the moon’, ‘long-haired pretty boy’ and ‘only has same sex admirers’. That’s just the ones I can remember off the top of my head, so keep hunting!

Art:
The art, while clearly an intentional move, is hideous. Simply slowly jiggling your characters while having a mouth flap move feels and looks like it’s a tutorial for learning how to change frames in Flash. Furthermore, these simplistic loops are used throughout with short breaks involving scenes that look like scribbles, focused upon for far too long in what is a five minute show. The saving grace of this is that this IS actually how it’s meant to be shown; most jokes stemming from this child-like style, resulting in the score of 3 above. If you don’t believe me, then feel free to look up the tween animation used in the ED that also looks like it was made by a seven year old messing around with features on Scratch. The OP isn’t much better with quick still frames and a running loop that’s used throughout the whole show so far. The saving grace of artistic talent is the end-of-show stills, but even they can’t save what is eternally and intrinsically broken.

Sound:
The music isn’t the worst, but don’t be holding your breath. The OP is the generic visual novel song with little to no creativity being closely followed by an ED that’s both out of place and hellish spawn in need of purging. The sound design of the actual show is surprisingly decent with atmospheric sounds and some character's themes not sounding quite as bad as you would (or should) expect. Chalk it up to trying to keep matching the clear satire this show is going for, I guess.

Characters:
Expect exactly what it says on the tin: Stereotypes and under-developed jokes of a cast. Our MC is Maeda, a character without much personality aside from being consistently confused at any man's advances. He's essentially designed for you to slip into his shoes with as little friction as possible. This is closely followed by one-dimensional, cliché bishounens who are all the boys we’ve seen so far, along with a headmaster to encourage his scandalous love life, as mentioned above.

-- I don’t have enough details to fully flesh out this section yet. --

Enjoyment:
The situations thus far have been parodies of the generic scenarios shown in BL visuals with the intensity turned up to 11. They hit hard when you know the background behind them, but I fear it'll run dry fast. Anyway, while not having a wide range of jokes to fall back on as far, they’re usually held up their job of being funny. The merry band of hot men willing to die for the MC will hopefully hold up the ridiculousness of the non-existent plot long enough to keep this entertainment for a 12 episode season along with the up-and-coming OVA. Overall, in terms of enjoyment, I’ve been having a pleasurable time with a show whose animators are clearly having a blast.

Overall:
-- To be filled. --

*SKIP TO THE BOTTOM TO READ TO SOMETHING YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE WATCHING*

~ Story (9) ~

Each short, three and a half minute, episode explores a new character in this wonder parody harem. There are episodes about a man who can fly using the rotation powers of his spatulas, invitations to go romantically peeing together, fashionable wearing of sumo wrestler underwear (fundoshi), death by cat cafe and many other ridiculous things. Not much else to say but that each episode will leave you thinking both, "wtf did i just watch" and "i need more".

~ Art (10) ~

To me, aspects of an anime like art, music, ... plot, etc. should be scored based on if they help the anime or not. That doesn't necessarily mean it has to be good quality. That's why, once again, I will say I'm not joking or exaggerating when I give this a 10. The art is what makes the show for me. It's on the level of shitty drawings by a 10 year-old on Deviant Art. I'm no artist but I'm sure I could do better. But that's not what I care about. The art makes me laugh so hard, I cry. Every. Damn. Episode. I will never forget the iconic first forty seconds of the show when the main character walks into the classroom and his teacher turn around with a chin so long, it easily hangs to his nipples. I laughed for a good ten minutes, something anime has never done to me. Sure I've had my fair share of comedy in plenty of anime, but this one really takes the cake.

~ Sound (9) ~

The first time I saw the OP, I thought I was watching something pretty weird but then I saw the ED and the OP seemed pretty tame after that. This category kinda speaks for itself. If you google the ED for this, you'll see what I mean (or you could just watching the show lol). A hilarious ending to a hilarious show. They couldn't have picked a more perfect ED.

~ Character (9) ~

This is where the whole "parody" thing is most prominent, in my opinion. They have the uptight class president, the delinquent and team captain, the childhood friend and the serious guy with a soft spot. A lot of the characters represented tropes you'd see in other shounen ai. It's healthy to watch a good parody once in a while and this one is perfect. I know this fits more into the "art" section, but the character designs were also pretty clever. They chose the most common cliche designs for male characters.

~ Enjoyment (10) ~

This is easily the funniest anime I've ever seen. The enjoyment category is what really matters when you are watching a comedy and I give this one a 10. It keeps you entertained and just when it can't get any weirder, it finds a way in the most hilarious way possible.

~ Overall (9) ~

This anime tried something brave and unique I've never seen in comedy/parody anime. I applaud the creators for that. The three and a half minute episodes were appropriate for a show that would certainly get tired out otherwise. They did not stick with the orthodox way of presenting humor and thought outside of the box. You could tell that they were having a lot of fun with this one and it made it feel more genuine and refreshing.

*IMPORTANT: If you didn't already know or didn't read before, this is a PARODY and is not to be taken SERIOUSLY. It parodies common cliches and tropes found in shounen ai, romance and school anime. If you have not seen enough anime, this might not be as funny to you as it is to others. I'm not saying that if you're new to anime, you're going to hate it but I think it is highly likely you will enjoy less*

Therapy is expensive. Gakuen Handsome is free.

My life as a student is stressful. My hair is falling out, I'm gaining weight, and I don't remember the last time I stepped outside and breathed in the air. Needless to say, I'm constantly on the brink of self-destruction and I frequently cry myself to sleep every other night.

HOWEVER, ever since I stumbled upon this holy grail, my life has become 4% better (that's a big improvement imo). Gakuen Handsome is so ridiculous that it's absolutely hilarious and memorable. I found myself choking on my own spit and questioning my own existence while I binged the ... series. I never experienced such joy in life. This show really just took my breath away.

Unfortunately, my laziness caused me to watch the series on youtube where majority of the episodes were subbed in spanish (my six years of learning spanish really pulled through). Nevertheless, I enjoyed every second of it. Even though I couldn't fully understand everything, I really felt the emotions and that's all I needed.

And lastly, the show lives up to its name. The men are indeed VERY handsome.

First of all I'd just like to say, the outro for this show is the greatest masterpiece mankind has gifted this earth. It has beaten out Jujutsu Kaisen as my favorite anime outro.

Now its fair to say spoiler warning from this point forward.

These boys... MEN... are very handsome. The most handsome I have ever seen in real life. and anime. I dream every night that I can go to this prestigious academy. I cry myself to sleep because I know that I will never EVER get the chance to spend time with my favorite most handsome people. My perception of reality has been destroyed ... beyond repair, I can no longer look at real men as now they disgust me... No one can ever EVER EVVVVVERRRR!!!! come close to being this darn fine.

I'm planning on getting plastic surgery in the next coming years to match my chin to those of the characters in this anime.

Overall this anime has been my greatest blessing and my greatest curse. Watch at your own risk. - John Fortnite

Classically acclaimed author Victor Hugo once wrote, "to love an anime is to see the face of God," and I have not only seen the face of God in Gakuen Handsome, but I have strolled together in the gardens of heaven with God and we have shared a warm cup of herbal tea. Never before have I seen an anime of this high caliber, and my expectations for quality anime will never be the same again.

I have laughed, I have cried, but most importantly, my heart has been touched by Gakuen Handsome. Few shows deal with deep, serious issues such as internalized homophobia, the ... fragility of the human body, and how to survive when everyone in your family has eyes except for you. Every episode so far has kept me on the edge of my seat. I want to frame every single screencap and hang them in the National Art Gallery because it truly is a masterpiece in every aspect. I can't wait to learn the ENTIRE ending dance so I can preform it at Otakon 2017!

I believe it's the best show I've ever watched in my life
The plot is incredible and very unpredictable and the art is just amazing and very unique
The characters are diverse, everyone has deep personality and own style, which makes viewer love each of them
And in addition they are so handsome fr I understand why main character has such a difficulty deciding which one he likes the most
And the most important thing - opening and ending
They are just a work of art, I see how much effort was needed to make such amazing art to match the music and to present the full spirit ... of the show
I think I won't find anything like this ever again and I feel devastated that I can't see more of this wonderful story
But still this experience changed me so much and made my life better and took on meaning
I believe it will remain in my heart forever 💗

Gakuen Handsome is one of the best Memes to date,

The Story is shit, the Artwork is shit, The Character designs are unoriginal but you know what? Thats the point! and is what makes this anime so enjoyable

I'm honestly surprised the voice acting is brilliant which I'm still not sure if that makes the meme better or worse?

Honestly for anyone who goes into this anime to take it seriously isn't going to enjoy themselves but if you're into anime that is a parody of everything that makes BL, Highschool, Yaoi either great or terrible then sit back with your favourite snack and enjoy the wild ... ride that is Gakuen Handsome

This show is crap, and I love it! It never fails to make me laugh with how freaken ridiculous it is. The art and animation are so bad it's good. XD

The story is ridiculous and all over the place, the art is laughable and over exaggerated, and the characters are basically Shonen-ai/yaoi stereotypes.

Overall, this is a "quality" anime that I enjoyed very much. The randomness of it all constantly had me laughing. If you like ridiculous, purposely bad, or so bad it's good stuff, you'll like this.





...


This anime is quality. (I wish it would stop telling me to make this longer, I'm done with it. lol)

"They are not even trying"

That's how I would describe this masterpiece, probably the best anime of the year. This show falls into the "So bad it's actually good" trend that other shows have delighted over the years.

But, of course, there's that other kind of people who hate fun and are sucking off of Miyazaki's balls that can't enjoy this type of shows. There are some shows that are liked by everyone, and if you dislike them people will unpolitely write you letters about your point of view (aka they will tell you to kill yourself), but I can honestly say that if you don't ... enjoy this type of show, I assume you hate fun, allow me to explain:

Art in general, specially video-centric mediums, is about your experience with the piece, how you feel about it. The charm of this show relies exclusively on that impact it has on you, which of course would be laughing at basically everything this show has to offer. The people that don't like this, and other shows that follow this trend, are the ones that say that current anime sucks and the best year was 1998 (although that year had like 3 or 4 good shows), that anime was a mistake and that the industry is dying. My response to that something doesn't have to be good in order to be entertaining, while it may sound kind of obvious, unfortunately there are people that can't wrap their heads around this idea.

Needless to say, I think this show is hilarious, and shows how the simplest of things can be amusing...
Either that or they wanted to be the anime community's meme of the year, in that case this whole thing is pointless.

If you're watching this, I recommend doing it with some friends on a Friday night, with pizza and beer.

I'll never understand why this series is so poorly rated ITS SO OBVIOUSLY A JOKE AND I LOVE IT. This show is so garbage but loveable. What more could anyone want in a show?
It's stupidly hilarious, Anyone who disagrees obviously takes life all to seriously. I will add, it's more funny to people who watch a lot of anime, like it's still enjoyable if you aren't mega into anime, but the clichés and shit are just far too hilarious.
The art obviously isn't anything special, but that's only because it's not meant to be, and the animation is pure dog shit. You could finish this show ... in about an hour, which is good! And the music videos add to how funny this garbage is. I totally recommend.

This is pure parody of boys BL and it is great.

Story - 10
It's your stereotypical BL plot but since this is a parody, it doesn't waste any time making fun of it.

Art - 10
The art is, to say the least, not detailed which in itself is poking fun of the usually well drawn out characters in BLs. The wonky animation is very humorous in that regard.

Sound - 10
It's a passing grade.
...
Character - 10
All the characters have their own strong points and behaviors just like typical BLs.

Enjoyment - 10
If you want a lighthearted laugh then you will enjoy this.

Overall - 10
Each episode being only 3 minutes long is perfect for this type of show. The gags are on point and impactful in each episode. I really enjoyed it.

This anime is soo awful... and i absolutely love it.

I'm just giving it a low rating cause i think it's what it wants (and cause i think people giving it a 10 is a bit too much when we already have asobi asobase) , but i enjoyed this shit a lot, mostly cause is a very good parody of yaoi tropes and the little section with fanart and the end is a cute touch.

the opening and ending are so funny and i don't know why, but it always sets the mood, maybe i'll watch it again sometime

What else can i say? you do can make ... an anime just with ms paint skills as long as you have good Voice actors

My story with this show begins as quickly as it ends. It was a warm summer night, I was feeling especially alone. It was at around 12:30 when a light began to shine in my dark room. 5 godly figures whose brightness exceeded that of every star, and spoke thus. "The pain you've been feeling won't compare to the joy that We shall bless you with." they spoke in unison. "Taste and see that the lords are good; blessed is the one that takes refuge in them." Those words that were spoken unto me, gave me the motivation to continue living. One of the ... heavenly bodies reached his smooth hand and touched my laptop. "My child," he said in a voice that made me quiver in ecstasy, "I give unto you my greatest blessing." My CRT began to quake with the power of a thousand suns; it wasn't the VCR this time . Once the shaking had ceased I laid mine eyes upon the now holy VHS. "Inscribed upon thine tablet are the holy words of the gods." Those words read thus, "Gakuen Handsome". I placed the Laserdisk upon the golden phonograph; Benjamin Franklin would be mighty proud. After viewing the series of the gods, my Playstation 2 began to rumble. It burst forth, shattering my ear drums with the combined forces of Gordon Ramsey and Simon Cowell in a cacophonous symphony of critique and lamb sauce. The walls within my house gave way to the oncoming explosion, obliterating everything within a mile radius, just as the two weapons which produced this monstrosity. Two nukes was not enough. There will never be enough.

This is the best anime oMg!1! I love this anime soo much!1!!

1. Hot characters.
If you like hot anime men bing funny this is the anime for you!!!1
The characters look like doritos and doritos is best chip. so hawt!!!
My favorite is the main character SoOO SubMIssIve!1!
2. Music.
Ok, not joking here, the op and ed is actually fire LOL
The OP and ED litterally take up most of the episodes thats how good it is

... 3. Goofy aa satire
Most generic yaoi GRRRRRR
If you are watching this because you think this is legit, you are beta male

"If you flip the 10, it becomes a 01!" -Some Jerk

Let me preface this pre-review by saying this, I am in love with this series, but for all the wrong reasons. Gakuen Handsome, or, Gakuen Handsome as the gringos say, is the sophomore effort of Team YokkyuFuman.

I imagine Team YokkyuFuman's frame of mind when conjuring up the idea for this was one of both pragmatism and...a cheeky disregard for creativity. Gakuen Handsome is one of the most creatively bankrupt series I have ever had the pleasure of watching. I am utterly convinced that Team YokkyuFuman wrote this as a cheeky retaliation/statement against the higher-ups and ... no amount of rationalizing or fanboying can change that perception for me. Gakuen Handsome is terrible, it's like the Yaoi equivalent of The Room except it gets away with convincing people that it's good. The only thing Gakuen Handsome is good at is highlighting how by-the-numbers this style of series can get.

Briefly touching on the technicals of this series, the voice acting is god awful. Maeda's voice actor has one setting and one setting only, although that has been covered ad nauseam. He makes Junko Takeuchi's work as Naruto seem warm and inviting like Morgan Freeman. It is probably the only time watching a series that it actually elicited a physical reaction from me. Although, as a small caveat, if you attempt to watch this series from the perspective of someone knowing what they are signing up for, the subbed version adds an extra layer of grease to this disgustingly satisfying sandwich. I.e. if you want the genuine Gakuen Handsome experience, the voice acting is like icing on that cake.

The animation is in a middling ground of both extremes. It can be bad when it wants to and it can also skimp on its budget when it needs to. I have conflicting feelings on the animation though. Had the material been in more capable hands like Bones or Madhouse, I feel that it could've been leaning more towards "beautiful spectacle" territory as opposed to "beautifully terrible". So despite my compliments to the mediocre animation mostly serves to its benefit.

Now that the technicals are out of the way, I feel I shouldn't even have to harp all that much on the story and characters. If you've watched Junjou Romantica, if you've watched Sekaiichi Hatsukoi, if you have even a basic knowledge of writing propensities when it comes to yaoi and comedy, you've already gotten a taste of Gakuen Handsome. The story is bereft of shallow gimmicks and instead opts to stuff itself full of cliches and archetypes. The overarching storyline and subplots all have parallels to other works and the characters all have doppelgangers floating around in some other manga.

So why the 10? Honestly, I'm not even really sure myself. They say that there are certain series that require you to take a step back or a dumbed-down open mind to enjoy. I don't even really feel either of those things are required to watch and enjoy Gakuen Handsome. I've seen what it looks like when it earnestly feels like Team YokkyuFuman is trying, and they have a lot of genuinely good qualities to the way they draw and write this anime. In fact, I have no doubt that this series has the potential to grow into something greater than the sum of its parts considering that it hasn't been given the axe at this stage. Gakuen Handsome was not a labor of love or a passion project, that is apparent to me. From my perspective, Gakuen Handsome is a frustrated and rebellious statement on the current status of yaoi and the politics that goes into publication. Because honestly, it takes a real genius to write something this stupid. Or perhaps I'm just reading too much into it?

Whatever the case may be, Gakuen Handsome is my ultimate guilty pleasure and I wave that 10 with pride.

(Spoiler-free review, not that there's much to spoil in the first place. . .)

This anime can be successfully summed up by that one picture of Sakuya in the black shirt with nipple holes.

It's revolting to look at, mildly disturbing, super rapey, and flat as a sheet, but will have you crying laughing at 2 AM as you realize it's the most flawless thing you've seen in years.

Simply put, it's beautiful and I will never regret my perfect ten for this series. I love it and there will never be a more flawless meme ever churned out by the anime industry.

hello and greetings from partner watchers meghan and michelle (also known as mochelle and meghanaidtor.)

i am very happy to say that we thoroughly enjoyed watching this after coming home from a long day at school and crying at dog videos. we have never rated an anime a 10/10 but if we could, we would rate this a 12/10.

the story is outstanding. it follows a clear and firm storyline that doesn't branch out at all, unlike all other anime. every episode is SO consistent and definitely doesn't have a new plot every time. we felt like the end was so gratifying and such a tear-jerker. we ... felt salty tears rolling down our entire face and jaws. harry potter does not hold a candle and neither does any show animated or not. who cares about game of thrones.

the art style is immaculate, much better than demon slayer or garden of words, one of the worst animations we've ever seen, shame on those animators. this art style of the boys really felt real and helped me connect emotionally and physically to these men. i was drooling over them the entire time. i love hairy long chins. we also loved the amazing exquisite backgrounds and character design which were wildly original.

the sound itself and the quality had us just crying as it was. the voices fit the characters so well and honestly, i wish i could hear these voices in real life. i want them to sing me a lullaby. please send me the address of all characters and voice actors or you will be in contact with my lawyer.

we absolutely loved the outro and intro. we thought it was the best animation of the entire series, especially the outro. the movements were smooth and natural, i feel like i could also find myself performing a 360-degree circle in the air multiple times and for several minutes. we also loved how long and short at the same time each episode was. three minutes both felt like the length of an entire titanic movie and a quick demo song. it was just good. we definitely cried every episode if not every minute. it was really heartfelt and fulfilling. wishing there was an anime that could shape up.

overall, i feel like this anime tops all others. why is deathnote always at the top when this masterpiece exists? why is mona lisa the best piece of artwork when this exists??!! what software was used for the animation? tell me the address of this man so i can win the lottery for him. why do other animators such as mappa bother putting out their animes when THIS EXISTS?? NOTHING. IS. BETTER.

(p.s we will be buying the manga :) <3 kawaii)