Kitaku-bu Katsudou Kiroku

Kitakubu Katsudou Kiroku is a comedic manga written by Kuroha and published by Square Enix. Thi year it was adapted into a twelve episode anime by Nomad, a studio that's only headed about a dozen productions, none of which I've seen. Let's take a look and see what this studio can do. The series opens with High school student Andou Natsuki going in for the opening ceremony. Afterwards she checks out some of the club adverts, the strangest of which is someone flailing around in a seal costume. When asked what club she's going to join she responds by saying that she mightjust join the going home club, only to find out that it's a real thing when her classmate, Touno Karin, decides to go with her to check it out. From their it goes into the details of the club activities, which seems to consist of doing strange things for fun. The comedy in this is a strange blend of absurdist elements, breaking the fourth wall and jokes about everyday school life. The closest anime I can compare the humour to is Gokujou Seitokai. The humour is strange, can be very random and mostly works pretty effectively. The series has a lot of great moments, particularly the musical chairs bit and the Schubert episode. One thing I really appreciate about the series is that they actually use pop culture things they reference for actual jokes and parody purposes, which shouldn't be surprising but there are a lot of series that just treat the reference as a joke by itself because “this thing exists, it's funny” and that's not only completely lacking in humour but just lazy, (glaring at you, Lucky Star.) A lot of their humour is also based around making fun of really stupid tropes, their gags about fan-service for example. They do have some jokes that don't really work or just fall flat, but those are in the minority. The characters aren't particularly deep. They're really simple archetypes who don't develop very much with their major defining characteristics played up for comedic effect. I will grant that the characters play off of each other very nicely and the dynamics among them are well handled. They're also used in a very self aware fashion, which helps make them more interesting than they would have been had they been played completely straight. The art is pretty standard. There's nothing particularly wrong with it, but it isn't anything special or eye-catching. Save for a few visual gags. The voice acting in this is well done. Most of the main cast doesn't have a lot of roles outside of this which is a shame since they are quite good. Particularly Senhongi Ayaka, Kobayashi Miharu and Kido Ibuki. The music is fun and they do some really clever things with it. The ho-yay factor is a 6/10. The girls do get really homo-erotic. Karin and Claire are the ones who get the most screen time, but a lot of the dynamics have heavy homo-erotic undertones. That's Kitakubu Katsudou Kiroku. All in all, I rather enjoyed it. There are a lot of funny moments. The characters play off of each other nicely and the voice acting was good. That being said, it wasn't the best comedy I've ever seen and the art was certainly nothing special. Final rating, 7/10. It's a good little anime, check it out if it sounds like your type of humour. That does it for December. The request queue going into the new year is: Battle Athletes Daiundoukai, Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu, Dansai Bunri no Crime Edge, Shinsekai Yori and One Outs. Next week I'll ignore all of that because it's the beginning of a new year and those of you who have been reading my reviews for a while know what that means. Studio Ghibli month. We'll begin with what some claim is the first Studio Ghibli film and others argue isn't on a technicality, Nausicaa of the valley of the wind.

Probably one of the best 4th wall school comedy I've ever watched. This anime was fucking hilariously awesome. There are many references and relatables - star wars, real life scenarios, fist of the north star, etc.. It's so funny how this show breaks the 4th wall so many times I just can't get enough. Watching this show felt like playing/talking with a friend. Doing casual, silly stuffs as time proceeds. Only difference is that this "friend" is surreal. Honestly very underappreciated and underrated. The first three episodes are mediocre, but the rest of the series was a banger. I laughed until the end. It wasan awesome, unforgettable experience. Recommended to those who are bored or those who are depressed and is trying to find a cure.

If you ask me to give an example of an anime that is a slow-paced slice-of-life school comedy with a full main character cast of girls in a group, you have anime like Lucky Star, Azumanga Daiou, Hidamari Sketch, K-On, Yuru Yuri, and so on. These types of anime, after all, are really popular and it's really hard to deny that. Kitaku-bu Katsudou Kiroku, or in English, Chronicles of the Going Home Club is one of these anime, which I believe sadly just didn't get popular like the ones I mentioned above. Like I said earlier, this is a slice-of-life school comedy anime that centersaround the Going Home Club, which is quite ironically named since in Japanese slang, students who are not part of any club usually call themselves members of the "going home club," which just means they go home right after school. But in this anime, the Going Home Club is an actual school club composed of Karin, an ideal Yamato Nadeshiko who everyone loves; Claire, an extremely rich ojou-sama who spends money like water; Botan, a lady who is immersed in humanly impossible martial arts; Sakura, a self-proclaimed normal girl but is president of a clearly not-so-normal club; and of course, Natsuki, our MAIN main character who got dragged into all of this. Among all of these characters, I would like to give the club's president, Doumyouji Sakura, an extremely special mention. She has that energetic personality that you can find in just about many comedy characters throughout, she carries about 90% of the comedic scenes in the anime, she does her job really well despite being, quote on quote, a normal girl. But what I believe is the best thing about her is her voice, and by extension, her voice actress Miharu Kobayashi. Whenever I hear Sakura's voice acting, I describe her voice as… perfectly average. I don't mean that her voice is in the middle of the pack, but instead, it's perfectly articulated to portray someone average, and that deserves a lot of praise. Whenever I listen to her voice, I feel like I'm hearing a Japanese person speak with real-life intonation, even though I am not a Japanese person and I do not know what real-life Japanese intonation really is. That's just the vibe I'm getting. Because of this reason, I find her voice really endearing, I love it, and it's a REALLY BIG SHAME that Miharu Kobayashi only has this one role, and the only news about her if she continued voice acting is a short anime about anthropomorphized ramen girls. You could argue that her voice wasn't that special, that's why she did not get any more roles, but I disagree on that stance fully. I love her voice acting for Sakura, and I will die on this hill. The anime's story portrays the members of the club and their various shenanigans, mostly carried by what I would say well-executed exaggeration, especially when it comes to their fourth wall breaks, and the unrealistic things that happen because of their hijinks. For example, in the very first episode, we get two false credits that happen even before the midpoint of the episode, which caught me off guard, and it left me wondering as to why the anime producers even thought to make the characters do those scenes. Then I remember that there were some scenes where the characters were saying that they did not get enough budget, in which the blatant honesty is very hilarious. I guess being able to reuse scenes even for a few seconds saves some budget, and I'm all for it. Even so, it is balanced by cute, wholesome, and sometimes ridiculous but oddly relatable moments that remind us that despite all of these, they're still a group of friends making the most of their time to socialize and foster their relationships. These make up the identity of this anime as a whole. It sets itself apart from the other anime I mentioned earlier, but at the same time, it fits in the group just fine, Now let's delve into its opening theme, 2 Gakki Debut Daisakusen! by Otome Shinto, the same idol group that performed Good Job Club's opening theme as well. The opening melodic line alone is very attention-grabbing. It is one of the very few themes that I actually listened to the whole song the very first time I heard of it, in fact, just remembering it makes me want to sing it. ichigakki ni wa amanjiteta no (I somewhat underestimated my first semester) CLASS no POSITION nigun no ichi (My position in class was around in the middle) Honto ha watashi yareba dekiru ko (But I'm actually a capable student) sukoshi namaketa dake da mon!! (I was just procrastinating a bit) sorya seiseki mo ALL 3 (san) dashi (But even if my grades are all 3s) gakuen DRAMA mitai na seishun mo (Even if my youth isn't like those school dramas) — Once you start, it's quite difficult to stop. It's very energetic throughout, and I actually like the meaning of the lyrics, so that adds to the punch. Then there's the first ending theme that the first episode was hyping for the entirety of the episode, and boy do I tell you, when it finally ran without being stopped prematurely, the song did not disappoint: Ima shika dekinai koto ga shitai (There's something I want to do that I can only do now) Okay, let's stop before I go overboard. Overall, the anime's comedy is really executed well, and it's such a big waste to let this series go hidden any longer. Sure, the art isn't too much of a spectacle, that's why I opted not to talk about it, but that should not distract you from the notion that everything else is astounding. The anime isn't deep, but I believe that its characteristics as a comedy anime, especially in its tendencies to casually break walls give it the depth that it needs, and I hope that you'll like it as much as I did. After all, this anime is truly a must watch.

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