The main shortcoming of the series is the awful character department. The main character, You Serufu (Yes, it is a dumb pun), is the typical careless girl who lives in her dreamlike universe. Cool, that character works, as most CGDCT uses a character that is either dense or clueless for a comedy effect. No biggie. However, You Serufu's actions lack any wonder or anticipation around them, her character is just an unstoppable wrecking ball of fluff, she is Yui Hirasawa after a bad trip of ayahuasca. She will obviously keep messing up and getting injured as a formulaic comedy act, while the rest of the cast will evidently start to mesh because of her outgoing and careless personality. The issue is that the remainder cast plainly lacks the necessary presence or tools to make her character shine and interact. Like, You Serufu didn't even stutter when her childhood friend said that her club activities were a waste of time and outdated, dude? How emotionally stunted one has to be to not show emotion after that? How can the series throw that and go business as usual after that?
The series desperately needs a character that brings her to earth or transforms her fantasies into something funnier or more reflective. We don’t have Rin Shima personally growing while teaching her, nor Konata to mess with her and create ingenious punchlines, nor Ritsu to be her partner in crime and create a memorable duo. The characters are just as artificial and cartoony-independent as her, so their chemistry is painfully absent. As the chemistry is lacking, the dialogue transforms into a muddy debate between low-quality representations of CGDCT tropes. The interactions are comically bland. Like, please, just give You Serufu a chainsaw and give me some high-quality injuries to get more of that nurse and stop the nonsense conversations.
The ultimate consequence of the generic characters is the absurd predictability of the series. When you watch the second episode you suddenly realize that this anime is ridiculously telegraphed. You can copium about the first episode and state that it was a bad start, maybe they copied the literal structure of any run-of-the-mill club CGDCT beginning because it is a reference to the medium or because they lost the original script. Sadly, the second and third episodes are the same. The second episode presents Takumin as a shy character that looks towards a group of friends with melancholy. Meanwhile, You Serufu and Rei Ayanami need people for their club since that is the plot of every club anime ever (Not a spoiler). If you do two-plus-two then you know exactly how the episode will progress frame-by-frame. Why? Because Takumin is not a girl that happens to be shy. No, she is an archetypal introverted girl that happens to exist to expand on the value of friendship (And because shyness is moe). Her character is predictable and dull, Queen Elizabeth (This is a real character, don't inhale glue kids) too.
Takumin representation of the value of being with others is not an isolated case either. Do It Yourself tries to naively attach themes to each character, and it massively fails. The anime is simply not creative in developing the topics, to the point that even integrating them is counterproductive. Example. When you witness a pseudo-futuristic setting in a DIY anime, the first thing that should cross your mind, just five seconds in after watching the third drone.obj, is:
They will clearly do a Handmade v/s Computer-made argument, right?
The flaw is not that it unmistakably does that. The shortcoming comes from the ridiculous soulless discourse of Miku to explain the topic to the people who didn't notice the theme after watching her practicing 3D printing in high school (So jealous, fuck 3rd world). The problem with this anime is that it thinks it is doing enough by mentioning stuff. The presence of a commentary doesn't replace the need for clever blending. The anime pretends that delivering these themes and designing quirky characters (Such as a girl that says meow? Sorry, I can't still wrap my head around her) is enough to capture the viewer.
The show doesn't develop out-of-the-box comedy, the dialogues are just inherently skeletal and dry, and the progression is traced from "CGDCT for Dummies: How To Make Your Own K-On". This anime is a pass. No, it is not unsalvageable, the animation is frankly alluring to watch, but that would be it. The development will not be deeper than doing some handcrafts, guided by rudimentary and uninspired motifs that will spoil the entire episode and leave no relevant impact. It is not charming, it is not humorous, it is not endearing. It is not a good CGDCT.
