The hero of our anime is Yuuji, a new addition to a high school with only five students before his arrival. He’s got some sort of special ops training and sniping ability but it’s never exactly explained what he’s doing at Mihama Academy.
He meets five girls, all of whom carry the personalities you’d expect of this sort of thing. There’s a giant tit sex hound, a loli, a maid, a tsundere. He screws around with them for the first three or so episodes, nothing particularly exciting.
But then Michiru’s story comes along. Michiru is a blond tsundere and my favorite character of the show because her story was the only one I felt was any bit decent. Her best friend committed suicide in front of her after they both met in similar, suicidal circumstances. Her heart gave out so she had a transplant in which she gained her best friend’s heart. As a coping mechanism (though of course, the anime goes out of its way to make this supernatural and weird) she has adopted the personality of that friend while having another personality (her own). To hide her feelings she either depends on the friend’s personality or pretends to be a silly tsundere.
More depressing shit happens to her and the show does a pretty decent job of creating a likeable, interesting character with dual personality and tons of mental baggage. This was the point in the show where I was nearly bawling my eyes out, mostly because I can relate in a lot of ways.
And the big surprise is how the anime starts as such a perverted show. You don’t see this coming at all and that shock value pulls you in. It’s a shame it didn’t happen sooner though. If the anime had taken itself more seriously from the beginning, I feel that this entire series would have worked a hell of a lot better.
Anyway, after this bit of depressing storytelling it goes into a Clannad style “go to each girl, learn her baggage, solve her problem” set up that seems to rush too fast through some of the girl’s story while giving too much time for others.
We learn about Yumiko, the girl who is not Senjougahara. Seriously? This girl is Senjougahara. From the hair to the use of a box cutter to being a total bitch.
But I digress.
Her baggage is about her family wishing she’d been born a boy and how she was treated like crap by her business mogul father. It’s decent but very rushed, leading to a final stand finale that is seriously fucked up.
We then follow Sachi, the maid girl who makes bombs! After being asked to get rid of tests, she takes it a bit too far and decides to blow up the school. Her baggage is about her parents dying in front of her when she was ten. Beautiful.
Then we have Makina, the obligatory loli. She’s the daughter of a political entity who has another daughter who gets hurt badly in a car bombing. Makina has a hit put on her by her own mother, leading to a situation of running and hiding from the police and assorted assassins.
And as if this doesn’t sound bad enough, steel yourself for the four episode finale. Three episodes talk about Amane’s past. Amane has big boobs and is totally in love with Yuuji. But when she was younger her bus flew off a cliff and herself, her classmates, and a teacher were forced to survive in the wild. Which leads to suicide, sickness, cannibalism, getting fucked by your teacher; you know, happy things! The bus also contained Yuuji’s sister by complete coincidence (and stupid plot device).
Then the end is a giant hostage situation that has one of the most awkward boner shots in any anime ever, as well as the greatest “Pissing everywhere after being shot” scene in any anime.
And did I mention Yuuji works for an assassination group headed by a hot blond who probably wants to fuck him?
What’s this all boil down to? One huge clusterfuck. And I don’t think it’s a bad clusterfuck per se, but it’s a very surreal one. Even the soft orange and yellow lighting adds a dream-like quality to this show that makes it compelling despite how screwed it is.
And that’s what will most likely be the reason people watch it and remember it. It’s different, definitely. It’s like the writers wondered what it’d be like to make a harem where everyone is so mentally screwed it makes your boner as confused as it was watching Elfen Lied.
“Damn, that girls masturbating! Oh boy, panty shot! I’m sure enjoying fapping to…what the fuck is this?”
And the hardest pill to swallow is how uncaring the show is for its cast. I can understand being very ecchi at the beginning as an attempt at commentary on the genre or to juxtapose the later episodes, but why keep being ecchi during really fucked up sections? It’s like the show is trying to appeal to people who shouldn’t be allowed access to a computer, nor the outdoors. Oh boy, gotta screencap the dying girl’s piss soaked panties! Oh goodie, here’s an apparent stream of diarrhea down her leg!
Like, what’s the point to the average viewer? Clannad and Angel Beats tackled these sort of subjects (albeit, not quite as screwed up) without humiliating the cast and trying to be remembered as fapbait. This show could probably stand on its own and be remembered as something different if it weren’t for the Elfen Lied style of the ecchi.
What is Japan’s infatuation with torturing young girls and sexualizing the tortured girls? What is so great about suffering? And what the fuck is the point of having a show that is nothing but being sad?
But that’s one side of me. The other appreciated how different this anime was and how, despite the depressing attitude, it gave us a set of decent characters and some unique situations. The main character is surprisingly funny sometimes because he says things guys in a harem would never say. Calling one of the girls a whore and a prostitute, telling her she’s ugly, literally burying one of the girls. It’s a much more blunt approach not only to the harem idea but also the fixing of the girl’s problems.
And then the girl’s themselves fall into every convention possible and most fail to impress even with the sad stories. I’m still trying to figure out why the hell Sachi was even around.
The music was unimpressive, all standard fare. And I didn’t think the animation was particularly good either. It has a sort of oversaturation of color a la No Game No Life while the characters look standard and borrowed from other anime. I couldn’t help but look at Michiru and be reminded somewhat of Karen from the Monogatari series.
At the end of the night, the dream is over and I have to get out of my sticky pajamas then wipe all that cold sweat from my forehead. Then I have to follow that with a score, which I find really hard to do. This is another example of me being conflicted over an anime and not really knowing where I stand. I can see both side’s arguments about it and I genuinely think this is an anime that is for a very specific crowd. Neither side of me enjoyed the ecchi at all but both sides could agree that it handled some characters decently and did have a welcome edgy bluntness to the comedy. But all the same, it’s still broken.
There’s an old review I did, one of my first in fact, for Elfen Lied that encapsulates a ton of the same thoughts that I’m having with this show. In that review I said that it is a love it or hate it show, which Fruit of Grisaia most definitely is. I mentioned relating to the alienation of the characters and I can’t say I relate with anyone in this show but for Michiru (whose story I felt was realistic, interesting, and good psychological drama while all the others were extreme as hell). And then I wrote a little something I feel applies here:
“The more boobies and panties, the more men care about characters. No man wants to really like an anime character and see her go through hell, so let’s do just that, make them cry, which in turn means they’ll like the series!”
-Lead Writer
And that right there perfectly summarizes this anime. I enjoyed what it offered, flawed as it was, and look forward to the two more seasons already confirmed (and I hope for a lot of explanation and less suffering). It was a very edgy, very emotionally draining show that is unique in what it does, but that unique style will definitely turn away a majority of viewers. If you can get past the initial hurtle you’ll be reminded a lot of Angel Beats and Higurashi. If you liked those shows or Elfen Lied or generally anything really fucked up, you’ll probably find some entertainment value here.
To conclude, Fruit of Grisaia is not for everyone. After reading this review, if you’re mildly interested you should watch it and form your own opinion because the vast majority of people won’t agree with me on this score. But for my money, I think it’s good, it’s going to stick with me for a long time I’m sure, and I can’t wait for more.
