Kandagawa Jet Girls

Okay so I think that as an anime fan, you all had at least one show where, on the first look, it seemed fine and you were like "oh that show looks good, I have to try it".
And the more and the more you learn things about it, the more it scares you...
BUT you end up trying anyway.

Yeah, that's me and Kandagawa Jet Girls, I mean come on, who wouldn't enjoy a Jet Ski anime with anime girls?
Because it's a nice idea for a plenty of reasons, like Jet Ski isn't that much of a deal from my knowledge in fictions in general and well... ... ANIME GIRLS.
Pretty much anybody could like that, if it were done good.

Unfortunately Kandagawa Jet Girls that I will abridge as "Jet Girls" did not gave me the "good take" I wanted and I'm gonna try to explain why.
First of all, Jet Girls is an ecchi/sport/moe anime created by the minds behind Senran Kagura ((the games) for those who don't know, it's a game franchise with a lot of fan service that has been adapted in anime) and made by the studio "TNK", well known for Highschool DxD, Sin: Nanatsu no Taizai (not the Nanatsu no Taizai you are searching for, be careful) and... oh well School Days.
So yeah that's not a good start.
It Follows the concept of "cute girls doing cute things" where this time, the "cute thing" in question is Jet Ski.

Without further delay, let's head into the actual review!


Story (5/10):
The plot is pretty simple, Rin Namiki, a young enthusiastic girl leaves her home town to go in a big city where a river named Kandagawa is the central point of a new sporting discipline called "Jet Race".
And you guessed it, it's a sports anime, Rin's goal is gonna be to be the best at it.
Jet Race is basically casual Jet Ski but must be done by peers of two girls, one racer that drives the jet ski and one shooter that shoots the opponents.
But that's not all!
Because there is also some unique specifications to the discipline.
You know, like the possibility of shooting the opponents to make theirs clothes drop, that kind of CASUAL specifications.
You can also shoot the ennemy Jet Ski to make them slow down and the Jets themselves can activate a boost occasionally during the race.
So the goal of Jet Racing to obviously to finish the course at first place, while attacking the opponent team to prevent them from winning.

Yeah, noticed how it is more looking like the concept of a video-game rather than one of an anime?
And rightly, because that's actually a game, the anime is none other than a kind of promo for the incoming "true product".
Do I mean to say that's bad? Well no but actually yes, at least it's not in every case but here it's gonna be a big problem that is gonna explain a few things in the failure of this anime.

But coming back at the story, Rin Namiki will team up with Misa Aoi, a shooting prodigy that f lost her passion for Jet Race and...
Yeah you know how that will go, it's a sports anime.
They will, on their journey, meet up with a bunch of others colorful duos of females characters practicing Jet Race and through trials and hardships eventually become rival/friends with them.
So, that's a lot to remember but, is the story bad? Well yes and no.

Yes because in the execution and development it's absolutely cliche and basic, without any attempt to do something greater than barely passable.
And no because in the ideas that the universe introduces, like Jet Race and only Jet race actually with the things around it are pretty interesting and not too bad overall.

So it's a perfect fifty fifty, not bad, not good, just tolerable and potentially a good support to do cool things with the characters while fan servicing.


Characters (3/10):
Oh well...
Let's forget what I said just a second ago right?

THE CHARACTERS OF THIS ANIME ALL ARE AN ABSOLUTE DUMPSTER FIRE.

Let's say you put all the bad sides of moe and cliche shonen in one damn mixer trying to get them all in.
Somehow you succeed to squeeze everything in and so, you put it to work.
Well let's say you really succeed this cursed experience, at the end, the result will probably be Jet Girls.
There is one and only major flaw that ruins everything when talking about the characters of this anime.
Their caracterisation is complety exaggerated and cliché without any substance or creativity.
And so, all the situations and interactions between them are completely insufferable, cringe and just silly in general.
Take the Misa/Rin relationship for example, first of all, their archetypes are already overused as hell, the cliché lively girl who wants to be the best at something and the dark emo ex-prodigy who lost her passion at something.
Difficult start one must say, but nothing too bad if executed correctly.
However you guessed it, it's not executed correctly.
Because on top of their cliché and overused archetypes, they are made as such, completely ininteresting, acting like robots all the time with a writing that's overall just being lazy and soulless.
And so, if their individual characters are lacking, their relationship is too.
They meet, interact 2-3 times in meaningful ways and suddendly they are best friends who almost want to have sex with each other.
This development does not follow any kind of coherent progression and is devoid of any humanity or soul.
There is never anything endearing about them, it's just so soulless.
It's so impersonal and lazy, it's actually kind of sad.
Rin, Misa, all the characters of this anime are just made to be perfect cute anime girls with no flaws or conflict whatsoever which makes them very boring and unappealing.
I personnaly like when I can feel like this 2D drawing could be a true human being, that's what makes them attractive and likeable, I'd say it's very important in an anime with fanservice.
Sexy bodies and pretty faces aren't enough on their own, the characters themselves needs to be endearing, that's how purely sexual attraction become true love to the character that's supposed to make you feel that way.
But here, everything is just so unbelievably cute and sexy and perfect that they don't even feel like human beings anymore.
All of that makes the characters absolutely not likable and I'm personally literally not attached to anyone in this show.
Oh yeah and how can I forget that to distract you from the obvious flaws of the writing, everyone is pretty much gay is this anime, because... well because.
Again, no logic, no development, no exploration of that at all actually, it's just there, not presented correctly and of course barely shown at all.
I find it cool to have those kinds of relationships represented but it's so poorly made and used that it makes me really sad.
Overall if I can give one good credit to the characters, it is that at least their development is okay, well for those who actually have a development but hey that's already good right???
Again, it's cliche and without any risks but it's pretty solid, thanks for trying I guess.
To finish on the characters, I have nothing against the voice actors themselves but I feel like they were given the worst material and direction to work on so yeah, I did not like them that much either but I feel they could have been really cool.

So yeah, the characters are really bad and of course with a LOOOOOOOT of dumb fan service you can include in the problematic.


Art (4/10):
The art is not good.
I can say this bluntly, the art is really not good at all.
In fact, it's one of the major flaws in this anime.

Firstly, well, all of the races are made in CGI :)
So yeah, talk about an oof moment, but you know what?...
I can personally look beyond that.
Because I think that in terms of camera work and rhythm, the anime makes at the end a pretty good job at making the races pretty exciting and fun to watch (yeah I just pointed out a positive of the anime, don't pay attention).
The backgrounds are also overall pretty good.

No, the gigantic problem with the art actually comes with the characters themselves.
Because, well, they just don't look very good.
The chara-designs are pretty inconsistent with their faces always changing traits from one scene to another due to the lack of animation quality and not a single one of them have any gimmick that represents them and their personalities in the way they move of react.

They almost have no characterization already and this flaw extends himself in the art style and animation, and for an ANIMATED work that wants to be cute and attractive, well I guess you could say that it's a huge letdown.


Sound (4/10):
Honestly, I don't even know what the fuck is going on with the soundtrack.
It sounds like eurobeat mixed with dumbstep 80% of the time and the rest is just some annoying and forgettable ost.

I don't have really much more to say about it, it's just weird and it wasn't my thing.


Enjoyment (6/10):
Finally a score above average and yeah, I pretty much enjoy this anime at the end lmao

Like I laughed a lot, that's for sure, but you could say it's not really for the good reason.
At first I started this anime with some hopes that's for sure, but after the first episode, they were already all left completely crushed.
However there was still a thing that kept me watching it until the end, coming back every week to see each new episode.
And it's the pure sillyness of everything in this anime, it's just dumb and funny.
I was frequently just there, sitting in front of my screen, thinking of what I looked like from an exterior point of view, like I was watching myself from another body.
And honestly picturing myself watching scenes like the one where four girls talk while a train is storming above theirs heads, making theirs boobs shake is just too ridiculous and funny.

So yeah, Jet Girls is really not that good but, I'd say it's so much bad that it kinda grown on me with time and I think I like it for being terrible.
It's just so dumb, it's fun.
I laughed a lot and that's all that matters.


Overall (4/10):
So why am I making this review if I actually enjoyed this anime?

You know, it's not because you enjoy something that you actually can't admit that it is kinda bad?
And I'm doing this long review just for sharing my opinion of a random guy that does loves reasonably enough ecchi or yuri to have a less biased opinion than a lot of people in this review section ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
I think that can be interesting, but anyway let's wrap this once and for all.

To conclude, Jet Girls is honestly a bad anime, and an unused potential to deliver a strong female sport anime that could have had actually GOOD fan service.
It wasn't impossible, far from it.
The story and characters are pretty much terrible up and it's so cliche and soulless that it became barely believable at some point.
Everything comes with extremely low effort and inspiration and it upsets me a lot when I look above my personal enjoyment to see that such a great idea on the paper went to be a catastrophic mess like that, reduced to a stupid promotion for an upcoming eponymous anticipated game.
The history of this anime was already written before it aired, it was meant to sell games, like the Senran Kagura anime does and very much like it again, not being good.
But it's funny so it's okay to laugh and learn from the mistakes of the anime I guess.

Anyway, that was all I had to say on "Kandagawa Jet Girls", thanks to you if you've read all the way down there.
Don't forget, never stop to like what you like and it's time for me to retreat (งツ)ว

The creator of Senran Kagura had a hand in this anime, ohhh it's shows it shows.

Do you know what Kandagawa Jet Girls reminds LA of, it's the time where light music all girls club animes were all the rage but replace that with sports (Jet riding) and a whole lot of fanservice and shoujo ai elements into it and we have Kandagawa Jet Girls. Kandagawa Jet Girls have that air that it was influenced by the K-On!'s and BanG Dream's but to add that fanservice and yuri elements they made the activity to get all the girls into the club being jet riding in which ... two people ride on the jets, one who drives, the other that has a water firearm as it were to slow down the opposing rider.

The characters for the most part have their pairing schtick since the entire jet racing is also in pairings but the major focus and narrative focus are on our main core duo Misa Aoi voiced by Riko Kohara and Rin Namiki voiced by Yuu Sasahara, Misa is the no nonsense stoic one but has a slight dere to her tsun to her "frienemies" while Rin is the ditzy genki girl of the anime and is the liking to ALOT of the girls in the cast. Now most of the rivals that Misa and Rin faces are well frienemies, once they race once they becomes friends rather quickly as a result and this anime's tone becomes an ensemble cast where the cast almost coincidentally do the same things together. The rivals consist of Manatasu Shiraishi voiced by Chika Anzai and Yuzu Midorikawa voiced by Kaori Maeda as the gyaru popular duo, Emily Orange voiced by Ai Fairouz and Jennifer Peach voiced by Lynn as the funny foreigner yet Japanese dup who loves Japanese stuff and Fuuka Tamaki voiced by Ayaka Asai and Ziyu Pan voiced by Rumi Ookubo as the idol duo "Hell's Kitchen" with one having a rather narcissistic competitive streak to them. Misa and Rin does have supportive members to their Jet Racing club, that of the mechanic of the Orcano Jet and the caretaker of Misa and Rin's dorm that helps the both of them out club related. Finally we have Rin and Misa' actual goal of the anime, that of defeating and winning against Manpuku Kuromaru voiced by Aya Suzaki and Kaguya Shishuuin voiced by Azusa Tadokoro the reigning champions. For the most part, it's the development of Rin and Misa's relationship as the start off kinda rocky with their personalities clashing and as a result, both of them needing to learn about teamwork to win through their impromptu races. As for their rivals, they have their base personalities and gimmicks about them and they really don't development outside of that, it's Rin and Misa's story through an through.

And in comes some problems LA have with Kandagawa Jet Girls, the rivals themselves are pretty bland as rivals due to their running gags and gimmicks being their ONLY personality trait about them let alone that they don't develop AT ALL. Next and lastly is that the animation tends to go into the derpy side, on speaking of which...

The animation done by TNK is ehhh ok, Kandagawa Jet Girls does have an uncensored version and even then the animation is just ehhh, the character designs are striking at least but that's the best it's got it for it. The Jet Racers are ok but stilted due to the 3DCGI used but for the most part they are ehhhh ok. TNK's animation is kinda expected from them at this point with the major focus on the fanservice and character designs and it shows.

The voice cast has a mixture of rookie and veterans seiyuus with the rookie's taking on the main character status, that of Riko kohara and Yuu Sasahara as Misa and Rin. Ai Fairouz has gotten herself a niche as a blonde gyaru as Emily Orange while LA didn't even notice that Chika Anzai voiced Manatsu and Aya Suzaki voiced Manpuku. To be honest, the voice cast was decent if not excessively moe, if you can withstand that.

Sure Kandagawa Jet Girls has it's flaws in it's rivals and character development outside of Rin and Misa being bare minimum running gag material, with it's animation by TNK needing some touch ups and it having derps here and there with stilted 3DCGI with the races. Kandagawa Jet Girls is nonetheless, not horrible, unabashedly it KNOWS what it wanted to do, stumbled a couple of times and is mostly on the laxxed side of things for character and plot but LA can't hate this anime, it pretty much gave LA the same feelings LA had to the first season of Senran Kagura as it had it's problems but wasn't horrible but it's fanservice wasn't annoying, it had it's charm and so does Kandagawa Jet Girls and again it shows since the creator of Senran Kagura had a hand in this anime. To this end, this anime having a rather large focus on Rin and Misa's relationship for both good and bad times they go through, all the way through it's an unbashed yuri fanservice anime about their relationship as well as their rivals nudging this notion even more.

This is a fun anime, not amazing, not profound, and there really is a bit ecchi. The anime however is fun, and that has been pretty good to pass the time, the type of anime to watch on the subway or bus.

I like some part of the animation and design of the jet sky. Its futuristic but also traditonal, the emotional drama that unravel is pretty ok.

The art is a 5 and nothing to be amazed specially since the computer driven animation is hard to screw up.

The ecchi was great sometimes, specially since I watch the explicit version without much censorship. I ... like that the are funny excuses to watch nipples and boobs. But never goes beyond that.

That said is not that prevalent and well is also not suggestive at all, just the casual shower scene and battle misshappen.

Kandagawa Jet Girls is not for all viewers, but it was certainly made for me. It was a wonderful adventure that started with Namiki Rin going to Kandagawa to pursue her dream of becoming a jet racer.

Jet Girls had a wonderful cast of characters that made the story a lot more enjoyable than it should have been. The main characters are wonderful and seeing their friendship grow throughout the show was heartwarming and made me tear up at the end of the show. The show also had wonderful 3D animation that was well made and made the racing feel more realistic.

In short, Jet girls was ... worth the watch and I would recommend it to anyone that liked Two Car. I give it a solid 10/10 in my heart. Best anime of 2019.

HI This is shiro, idk what can i say to this anime

the story itself is very simple, you can guess the the flow of story right away.
The design of character is good, but the background characters itself are very simple

if you are looking fanservice without bother the story, i think this is good for you, but to me its below average.

the sport innovation is kind of new, the rules are simple too.

its just my review dont bother it too much with my review.
...
in the end you guys should take the watch and review itself