Can I really give solid advice to other anime fans about whether or not watching "Jinsei", or "Life" in English, is a good decision? Well, only one way to find out!
To start, Jinsei revolves around Yuuki Akamatsu, who is roped by his cousin, Ayaka Nikaidou, into the Second Newspaper Club. In this club, the members - at least, those in charge of the life advice section - read over the problems of the students of their school, discuss potential solutions to those problems, and then publish their answers in the school's newspaper. Through this club, Akamatsu ends up acquainted with three girls: Rino Endou, a smart girl with glasses and a disbelief in the occult, Fumi Kujou, a sweet, big-busted girl from a wealthy family, and Ikumi Suzuki, an energetic girl with sport smarts but not so much brain smarts. Get these four together with a question from a student seeking advice, and hilarity is abound....or maybe not.
Believe me when I say that I'm pretty sure you've seen all of this before; you may not believe me, but it's true. A guy joining a school club and finding himself in many awkward situations with the female members, who, by the way, are the only other members of the club? A plot like that has been recycled time and time again, and some further anime will succumb to that fate with that one thing to distinguish them apart from the others; Jinsei has the whole "life advice" thing, but that's pretty much all. It doesn't really try to do a lot of new things, and I found that aspect of the series rather boring.
The characters aren't much different, either; every last one of them are walking, talking cliches. In all honesty, Akamatsu is the worst of them all; he has his moments, but overall, he's just a generic copy-and-paste protagonist that you can find in many other anime. The girls aren't much better, as they're the kinds of girls you can find in any harem anime; I found Ikumi and Emi rather amusing, but I know that even they aren't particularly unique. However, I will give credit where credit is due; while I never really laughed or even giggled at these points, their chemistry is undeniable in their clashes over the advice to give. Their conflict with the Student Council President wasn't really as interesting, however; in fact, was it really needed?
The art and animation aren't anything too groundbreaking; I've seen better from Feel's other anime, such as Kono Bijutsubu ni wa Mondai ga Aru, which is also a slice-of-life anime. However, it goes to show you that they're capable of a better animation quality than that in Ushinawareta Mirai wo Motomete, which is sad considering the fact that it aired the season after this one and even had a better story! The voice acting isn't terrible, either; the voice actors for the main characters may not have had a lot of voice work at the time that this anime came out, but they did a good job. The opening and ending themes were rather catchy; however, they don't really stand out from other songs, and it's not like I want to listen to them on loops.
Hopefully, the question I asked earlier has been answered; after all, I've given my reasons why Jinsei isn't that great of an anime to the best of my ability. Now, I might as well give my advice to those interested in it; you're probably better off watching something else. I mean, no one's going to kill you for watching it, but if you decide not to take my advice and come out unsatisfied because of all of the cliches, don't say I didn't warn you.
