When you look at the comedy industry of anime, it is always topping-off the reviews, charts and everything. Why? Because either it has a good story with ton of great jokes, or the show is just very riduculous and have great humour. If you notice it, comedic anime are mostly in the school genre (specifically High School) which make sense because teenagers often goof up on school unlike adults who focuses on their life more. Then here we have Grand Blue, that is not a high school anime but college instead. Grand Blue is one of many comedy anime out there this Summer 2018 that offers us laughter that can relate to college students out there. And for some reason this anime offers diving (I guess) which I don't see pretty much often on anime (except swimming anime).
Story:
Grand Blue's story is not really chronological and like I said on my other reviews on other comedy anime, it doesn't matter whether it is chronological or not as long as it stays on point to the humor and characters. We have here Kitahara, Iori who will move to his uncle's diving shop as his home in college. Seems normal isn't it? Thats where you are wrong. The diving shop have tons of ridiculous, weird and extreme practices including naked Rock-Paper-Scissors and drinking alcohol while your naked is COMPLETELY normal on this shop (Heck, even the owner which is Iori's uncle likes to get naked and used to it.).Then there's the university where he attends to which have variety of characters ranging from an otaku, crazy upperclassmen, charismatic boys from the tennis club and those typical friends you get who are all virgins. Grand Blue is a show where the MC is not really treated as an MC. Each character have unique comedic traits that can contribute to the story in whole. Whether the character is an otaku or not, they can make the story humorous alot.
Characters:
The characters of Grand Blue is what makes Grand Blue one of the best comedy shows this season. If not maybe the best comedy this year as well. We have the main protagonists Kotegawa Chisa, who is a bit of a tsundere-type of girl and have so much love on diving. There's Kitahara Iori, who is the main attraction of all and probably a failure of a kind of college student. He is those characters that can adapt into any environment whether it is an environment full of titan-like men drinking alcohol or the under the sea environment. There's Imamura Kouhei who is the otaku of the diving club and the "rival" of Iori (There rivalry is actually very funny. Not those types of rivalry like Naruto and Sasuke.) and Yoshiwara Aina, who for some reason has the same attitude of Iori when he first entered the shop and she is probably the most normal one out of all the characters. This four for some reason are considered the main characters on MAL but in the anime, the other characters are almost treated as main ones as well. I say this because on every humour, its not only this four characters are contributing to it. The supporting ones holds the joke as well and thats what makes Grand Blue an anime that treats all the characters equally for the comedy and story.
For example, the two naked titans Kotobuki Ryuujirou and Tokita Shinji are the two characters that have weird but funny sense of ways of drinking alcohol with friends. Hamaoka Azusa, who is the only girl character in the anime that likes getting along with the guys (and Mr. Alcohol) and sometimes she even gets to the enthusiasm of being naked (not completely). Also she loves both yaoi and yuri and this trait makes Iori and Azusa's relation to one another funny as well as Iori have to bear with it since he is not a fan of any of those two. Then, the sister of Chisa which is Kotegawa Nanaka, who have a big secret towards Chisa and possessiveness towards her. Not to mention the other characters like the friends of Iori and Kouhei at the university each gave way for more comedic scenes to the anime. That is why Grand Blue was funny as hell because their traits as well as some misunderstanding towards one another make it even more funny. They are all perfectly synchronize even though they are different characters.
Art:
I can't stress out how the art and visuals of Grand Blue is stunning, funny and amazing at the same time. From the looks of their faces due to some scenes either shockness or anger, to the normal visual scenes and the underwater sea, Grand Blue tells you that this is not just a comedy show full of great humourous scenes but it also have eye-appealing scenes as well visuals of the characters and environment.
Sound:
If you take a look of the openings of the anime that aired this Summer season, Grand Blue is the only comedy show plus not a sports anime that has such a good opening that reflects on summer (correct me if Im wrong here.) this season and seeing the opening with all the diving and the hidden wonders of the sea is just so pleasant and beautiful. Plus it is actually a click bait of an opening as the opening just reflected the diving parts of the anime but not the humors and drinking of it. The ending of the anime however reflects how absurd, weird and funny the anime is (opposite to the ending) where we saw Iori seeing into some Karaoke and after he finished the song the other 3 males and him gets naked. Pretty absurd right? I have no problems of the background music or anything that is related to the sound system throughout the episodes as well.
Overall thoughts and Enjoyment:
As you can see with my rating of this show, I totally enjoyed it. It is one of those anime this season that when you have a bad day or in a bad mood, just watch this show and you will be dying of laughter and releases your stress of anything. That's what makes comedy shows great in the anime industry and Grand Blue is one of it.
