Wednesday, 15 April 2015

Girl FRIENDS (Girl Friend (Beta) review)

Opening Songs
OP 1 - Neuron Cream Soft (Tanoshiki Tokimeki)

Ending Songs
ED 1 - Hareru Ka Na (Satomi Satou)

Genre: Slice Of Life

Episodes: 12

"Girl Friend (Beta)" was something I just had to watch, simply because I'm a massive seiyuu nut. For a seiyuu fan like myself, "Girl Friend" looks highly appealing just from its massive voice cast alone, but however, when you finally do watch it, that's where the problems start to arise. From a show with only 12 episodes, its very difficult to juggle such an insane amount of characters in AND make them matter at the same time. By the end of the series, other than the main character and a select few characters, you will no longer know who's who, simply because there are TOO MANY characters. "Girl Friend" is your standard high school girls slice of life anime that tries to accomplish too much with its characters, and it overall suffers from the identity crisis within its massive character cast. It's a problem when you don't remember over 70% of the character's names that appear on screen, and that's why "Girl Friend" isn't recommended unless you're bored as heck. Or, you love female seiyuus, either way works.

Weeee, girl power!

With an anime like this, you can expect the kind of opening themes to follow. The opening theme is "Neuron Cream Soft" by Tanoshiki Tokimeki, which I suspect is just some of the characters' seiyuus in the anime, because there's a fictional band that goes by that exact same name IN the show. Either way, its an alright, energetic happy-go-lucky song that attempts to bring life to the show. The ending theme, "Hareru Ka Na" by Satomi Satou is your typical "cute-sy/catchy" ending theme to an all girls anime. Not really much to say here.

Rating: 6.5/10

As much as I'd like to preach the awesomeness of the beloved female seiyuus of the anime industry, there are better shows in which they'd showcase their talent a lot more. A lot more than "Girl Friend", at least. Other than your typical slice of life "girls talk", generic scenarios, there's nothing more to the anime that high schools don't do better in other shows. Diets, group studies, eating crepes, doing part time work, everything's here, though in "Girl Friend", everything is blown WAY out of proportion with the addition of a MASSIVE amount of characters. There are TOO many, so much to the point where you won't memorize most of their names because they appear so sparingly and act so similarly. Hell, some of them even LOOK similarly. How many blondes are in this anime? I didn't count, moreover, I think I just lost count. There's not a lot of comedy, and while there are moments of friendship and camaraderie between the girls, its not anything special. I swear, you can only remember maybe the names of 5-6 characters, the rest are just TOO minor to care.

Wow, so many blondes...who's who again?

Kokomi is the school's athlete/acrobatic star that aims to win the national tournament to uphold her school's name. She practices daily, trying to master her routine to impress her judges. She is cheered on by her friends in school. Chloe, an international exchange student that thrives to learn about Japanese culture, constantly observes Kokomi. Erena, the school's top photographer, snoops around, taking pictures of anything she finds intriguing. Fumio, the school librarian, known and loved by all for her caring personality. Akane, the school broadcast system's emcee, who brings life to the school PA system. AND MANY MORE. They all root for Kokomi and each other, while their personalities and interests are different, they help one another in times of need. Most importantly, they have fun and do girl stuff all day.

"Girl Friend (Beta)" isn't for everyone, I'll say it right off the bat. I didn't have a horrible time, but for others, it may not be the most advisable thing ever. If you want a slice of life anime, there are plenty of amazing ones out there, "Girl Friend (Beta)" should not be on your priority list.