Reviews

Sep 28, 2018
Let this open the floodgates to more college and drinking oriented anime.

Grand Blue is an adaptation of the critically acclaimed manga of the same name serialized in the good! Afternoon magazine. It tells a tale about a young "20-year old" college student looking forward to a fresh start after enduring three years at an all boys high school. Little does he know that everything that can go wrong in his college life, will go wrong.

Since I'm writing this review as a manga enthusiast, the jokes didn't hit me as hard as it could have since I'm technically experiencing them for a second time. But even so, many of the scenes were still hilarious and wonderfully directed to emphasize the humor captured in the manga. I didn't expect any less from Shinji Takamatsu, an experienced director that has done Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou and Gintama. Many pages that I've re-read over and over again still got me laughing because of how well done the comedy was. I'm sure that, if I didn't read the manga beforehand, I would've rated this show a 10/10 like I did with the manga.

Before reading Grand Blue, my experiences with anime comedies were mainly derived from romantic comedy shenanigans that heavily abuse the typical anime tropes you pick up quickly when you first get into this medium. Not to say that I don't love this type of humor because I do, but there were very few comedies that I've experienced that tries to deviate from your typical fanservicey romantic comedy type jokes such as Nichijou and Hataraku Maou-sama!

Grand Blue is the type of comedy that takes another step forwards towards expanding the boundaries to what could be considered a successful comedy. It was very risky creating a comedy targeted towards young adult men that was focused towards heavy drinking and positive college experiences, a characteristic that tends to be less popular among the otaku community. But even so, Kenji Inoue decided to say "Fuck it, I'm going to write a manga that parodies frat culture and I don't care if it's not going to be popular among the magazine's audience". And boy did that pay off.

However, the courage to take these such risks itself isn't what makes comedy good. No, the setting only attracts viewers that don't have previous knowledge of the franchise. The reason why Grand Blue is phenomenal is how easy it is to develop emotional attachments to the characters even though it's not supposed to be taken seriously.

The characters are by far, the best part of Grand Blue. There is not a single character that I don't like in the show. Every character feels like it has a purpose, and nothing feels like it's left out. If comedy could be critiqued with plot holes, then you'll never find a single plot hole in Grand Blue.

The gags are wonderfully well relatable settings that exaggerate the possibility of things going wrong. Every terrible experience, every hard lesson that you may have learned in college will make you laugh it all off once you view these characters' experiences. Everything in the show goes so wrong that you'll start to understand "Hey, maybe getting the short end of the stick is what makes so life exciting and the climb more worthwhile". It's the heartwarming down-to-earth comedy that makes it so relatable.

Every gag in the story is never wasted. Every misunderstanding in the story always carries over. Characters are all so easily recognizable by their personalities that you know what is going to happen. A lot of people say that if the comedy is predictable, then it's mediocre. But I feel like if the characters are so distinguishable enough that you can predict what will happen based on they previous experiences and personalities, then it becomes the best kind of predictable.

I can understand why not everybody will enjoy the humor in this show, however. Comedy is subjective, and in my experience, comedy isn't funny if I cannot relate to the events and experiences portrayed in the show. If you genuinely don't like it because you detest the vibes that the events give you, then by all means don't continue to watch it. If Grand Blue doesn't capture your heart in the first few episodes, then please just drop it because you won't enjoy the rest of it. You will know if you love this show right from the get-go.

The only reason why I can't give this show a perfect score is because Zero-G has room for improvement and although it looks solid, I believe Grand Blue is a comedy that deserves production values on the scale that studios like Kyoto Animation have. But for now, I can settle with just having an anime alone as again, Takamastu still did an incredible job with bringing a manga comedy to life.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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