Koufuku Graffiti

Thank you Shaft for sharting out this forgettable pile of "meh." You know you've stepped waist deep in low-tier storytelling territory when the only highlight of a show is girls eating food. This review will be relatively short, not because I don't want to write more about the title, but because the show itself lacks any kind of content to warrant any form of discussion or analysis. It should go without saying that the "cute girls doing cute things" trend has become something of its own entity in the past decade. Due to the overwhelming success of titles like K-On, Hidamari Sketch, Lucky☆Star, Azumanga Daioh andmuch more, this trend has spawned a quasi-subgenre within the quarters it would usually reside in, regardless of the material being covered. The popularity of the "moe" craze only grows each year, with no sign of slowing down in the foreseeable future, thanks in large part to the increasing demand for more self-indulgent works. With so many infatuated with this niche appeal, it was only a matter of time before opposing viewpoints fought against it. With some even going as far as labeling it as "the cancer of the community." And while I think that proclamation is a bit overstated, I think my score speaks for itself regarding what side of this feud I stand on. Now, this isn't to say "cute girls" anime can't work, I myself have seen a few that I personally enjoyed. It's just that the problem with Koufuku Graffiti, and by extension, any other show guilty of this, is that it has nothing outside of one gimmick to support it. Being genre specific or serving a niche audience isn't an excuse to lack subject matter. Case in point, the Gundam franchise. Had it only been about displaying mecha, the franchise wouldn't have lasted for so many decades. It serves its niche market with mecha porn to fawn over but still provide content with its themes of political warfare and human ethics to keep it anchored. Even genres with divisive reception, such as ecchi, abide by this common unspoken rule. With titles such as Queen's Blade and High school DxD understanding that serving "plot" with a plot would allow it a longer shelf-life in the competitive viewer market. Hell, we don't even have to travel out that far, within this very moe playing field, one of the patriarchs responsible for creating the trend, K-On, even understands this; a show that balances school activities, the girls' hobbies, and friendships simultaneously to maintain viewer interest. And where other genres and niche appeals flourish, Koufuku Graffiti falls short of the mark. With nothing else to offer content-wise besides its hyper-sexualized foodgasm shtick, the novelty of this show wanes considerably after just one episode. The setup for bottom-rung content like this usually follows a cast of girls centered around a particular subject or activity and does nothing else. And when I say nothing else, I mean that quite literally, as nothing of significance ever happens throughout Koufuku Graffiti's run-time. Each episode follows the same monotonous setup: Cute girls converse--> some tension-less conflict arises (mostly involving a moeblob being lonely)--> girls make food and have a foodgasm--> rinse and repeat. With such a simplistic and predictable setup, you can basically just watch the 1st episode and get the same general picture as someone who bothered to sit through all 12. That's the epitome of lazy writing. This show takes pandering to a whole new level; it doesn't even try to mask it. It's mundanity that aims to do nothing. Watching paint dry would be a far more productive activity. Seeing that everything revolves around girls eating and having foodgasms, you'd at least expect high-quality animation for those scenes, but what we got instead was poorly rendered CGI food that looks plastic, slow motion with above average frame-rate and sparkles... again, THIS is supposed to be the show's highlight. Everything else fell below normal standards with stiff, often inconsistent animation and very bare-bones presentation. If animated foodgasms are all you want, just watch Food Wars instead. It's a show that far exceeds Graffiti regarding quality and general entertainment value. Everything about Graffiti just feels flat by comparison to everything else in its playing field. From the cookie cutter characters to the nonexistent storyline, Graffiti is just a lifeless husk masquerading as a show that cares. Koufuku Graffiti was not made with the general populace in mind. This was an anime made for those still fascinated with the "moe" craze. And you know what? That's fine. If there's an audience out there for this, despite what little value I could find in it, so be it. But if after watching the 1st episode you're not impressed, then skip this one because that's about as good as the show gets.

Well, I like to see the anime tags to make a review/critic. Koufuku Graffiti (who difficult and kawaii name, don't you think ?) has the following tags: "Comedy, Slice of Life and Seinen". Right away, I see one problem. Where is the "Food" in the tags ? Every anime have one thing that is the base of the history, character development, the base of the conflicts and the light of the solutions. On Kokufu this "thing" is the food. Yeah, you will see a anime talking about a life of a student, but on this life the food will create the friendship, will reveal memories and thepast of the characters, will solve the problems and the most important, will make you feel hungry. And to accompany this main plate (the food), Kofuku brings kawaii characters, a good art, very shining characters, shining ambient, good lights, good traces without contrast between the character traces and the ambient traces (everything in harmony). Kawaii opening and ending, everything with lyrics and scenes that fits very well with the anime. The final point that I like to say here is: the fan service is very different here, instead of boobs, paints and asses, you will see a "sensual" way of the eating, who ? Simples, with focuses on the mouth (taking advantage of the brightness of the traces, and the excessive light), on the tasting face of the characters and the discription of all the delicous of the food. So, I recommend Kofuku if you want to see a slice of life, a good drawing and a good traces, kawaii girls. If you like food this anime is very good to you and for the people who are tired of the classic fan service.

SHAFT! Koufuku Graffiti is a show about girls eating. It's produced by SHAFT. SHAFT SHINBOU! Directed by Akiyuki Shinbou, SHAFT's unofficially official director in residence, it contains all the visual quirks, art direction, fourth wall breaking, self-aware fanservice & everything else we've become all too accustomed to expect from SHAFTs output since he directed Zetsubou Sensei way back in 2007. SHAFT SUGGESTIVE EATING! The story, so much as there is one, focuses on Ryou Machiko, a 16 year old girl living alone after the death of her grandmother. She has a talent for cooking, but her dreams extend no further than being a housewife at this point in her life.Saddened by the loneliness of living alone, she finds sudden comfort in the arrival of Kirino, her younger cousin who, as it were, brings the spark back into Ryou's life through her enthusiasm for Ryou's cooking & her companionship filling the void in Ryou's otherwise lonely soul. Ryou also has other friends, most notably Shiina who for the most part plays the role of foil to the antics of Ryou & Kirin. That Ryou has other friends kind of makes you wonder why she didn't do anything with them before Kirin showed up, but lets not sweat the small stuff. As the show progresses, we follow Ryou & her friends as they eat their way through life, discovering how the right meal in the right company can bring back memories, help create new ones, & make life that little bit more worth living. SHAFT CONTORTED BODY POSE! If there is one thing Koufuku Graffiti does well, it is presenting the simple act of eating at its most pleasurable without, for the most part, resorting to crude sexual innuendo. It is the food itself, the act of eating it & the people they're with while eating that makes them react in the exaggerated, almost orgasmic way they do; not that what they're eating looks like a penis. Each episode generally has two of these choreographed meals, & it is the shows credit that all of them manage to be entertaining pieces of animation. The one exception to there being no real sexual innuendo is the genre mandated bath scene, where Ryou & Kirin indulge in sharing a bath while eating fast melting ice lolis. In the hands of another director, I'd have expected this to just be a straight up fan service scene. Shinbou, however, has a way of framing such scenes that make it clear the show is acutely aware of the viewers gaze to the point you can't help but feel like you're the deviant for viewing it as something titillating. Cooking is hardly an unusual topic in anime or other media, but I can't think of any shows that really capture the feeling of taking the first bite out of something delicious quite as well as Koufuku Graffiti does. Perhaps the best illustration of Koufuku Graffiti at its best are the opening & end credits. These both emphasize the shows more whimsical & fantasy elements. The openinghas an Alice in Wonderland quality to it, where Ryou & Kirin skip their way through a fairytale kingdom of food. The music adds to the whimsy, with a dance track by Swedish producer Rasmus Faber combining a thumping 4/4 beat with a more ethereal arrangement of synths, well complimented by Maaya Sakamoto's singing. The only problem is that, like the best parts of the show, the OP & ED are all too short. SHAFT BATH SCENE! In a way it's kind of like Sakura Trick, except they're eating food instead of each other. SHAFT HEAD TILT! However, once you get past what Shinbou & SHAFT bring to the table, you start to realise that there really isn't much to Koufuku Graffiti beyond watching girls eat food. Ryou likes to cook. Kirin likes to eat. Shiina likes to watch? That's really it. Yes we learn a bit about the backgrounds of the three main characters & meet a few others, but really such information only serve to depict eating food outside of Ryou's apartment or how different foods mean different things to different people. There's nothing wrong with this, per se, but it is noticeable that when the cast aren't eating, they're not doing much else. Speaking of Ryou, it has to be said that for me she is the weakest part of the series. To be frank, she is one of the most vapid main character I think I've yet come across, even making Sakano's intentionally "boring" Megumi Kato seem like an exciting presence by comparison. It's not unusual for nominally main characters to seem uninteresting compared to their companions (Akari syndrome is a thing for a reason), but when the series focuses on Ryou alone, it feels more like watching a cloud than a person. There's also a slightly unpleasant undertone to the whole thing - that Ryou is being held up to the audience as an ideal housewife. She cooks. She cleans. She's eager to please & keeps quiet when not spoken to. Before Kirin arrives, Ryou imagines herself as waiting to be a housewife & when she does, Ryou at first wants to think of her as a husband/daughter, to Kirin's slight annoyance. There is also an adult neighbor of Ryou's who we aren't actually introduced to for ten episodes, but she shows up in the background, usually to contrast her apparent loneliness with Ryou's new happiness with Kirin in a "there but for the grace of god" kind of way. Fortunately, it's never really made an explicit part of the show, but the implication is there none the less. SHAFT FORTH WALL! All things said, I enjoyed Koufuku Graffiti. The Shinbou effect does wear off as the series progresses, & it's hard not to notice that all the clever directing in the world can't hide how inane some of the dialogue & events are. But it never fails to nail what ultimately Koufuku Graffiti is about, a group of girls finding friendship & living life through the magic of a good meal. & hey, watching cartoon Japanese girls eat together is a lot better than watching South Koreans eat on a webcam alone.

Koufuku Graffiti (Happy Cooking Graffiti) is one of those shows that you’ll have to get used by heart to know it well. By this, I mean the usual ‘cute girls doing cute things’. Add that with the slice of life style and some food gimmicks and you get this show about cute girls eating cute food. Or is that what you would like to think? Adapted from a four-panel comic manga of the same name, the series is exactly what it sounds like. It’s about happy girls cooking in style. Make no mistake, each episode offers something new or delicious tasteful to the mouth. And whileyou’re watching, there’s a lot to also notice besides just the food set in front of you. It’s more about than just about cooking the food and tasting it. In fact, you could say that there’s a connection between the food and the characters. Constructed by a simple premise and built on the foundation of a slice of life, this show takes the concept of culinary arts into an unusual level. For starters, the series consists of a core of three main female characters – Ryo Machiko, Kirin Morino, and Shiina. Machiko is the main protagonist as we learn that she lives by herself as a second year middle school student. She is also enlisted in art cram school in the beginning but at the same time gets accustomed with cooking. It’s easy to see that she has an interest in both skills as her work reflects on effort. And by that, we see some of the delicious food she cooks throughout the series. Then, there’s Kirin, the big eater. As Machiko’s cousin, she is enlisted in the same art school as Machiko. However Kirin’s cooking skills are just average. On the other hand, we do see that she has an athletic talent at school when it comes to sports. Needless to say, she makes up a sort of the ‘sports gal’ trope of the show. Finally, there’s Shiina who has a talent in cooking as well. Unlike Machiko or Kirin, we don’t know a whole lot about her. The presence she has in the series is rather mysterious to be honest and we only see some of her true personality when she is around with her friends. So in retrospect, what does this trio of adorable girls all have in common? An interest in cooking of course. This show takes their personalities, interests, and abilities to formulate a show about food. Every episode brings a new type of dish into the series. A few prominent examples includes omelet rice, udon, and even the classic Japanese bento. Even junk food from the supermarket is featured in one episode when the show decided to go lazy. It shouldn’t take long for the audience to realize the show doesn’t really develop any complicated plot besides of cooking gags. Taking at a slightly closer glance though, it’s also easy to realize that there’s an unusual sensation about the way our characters takes in the food. Whether it’s the face expressions, dialogues, or even sound, the series seems to hype up a sensation when the girls digest their meals. However at the same time, this sensation can make some people uncomfortable by the way it’s expressed. In these selective scenes, the show seems to advertise the girls rather than its product. What I mean is that the girls enjoy their food in an almost obscene way with their sensational expressions. Each episode also shows that they enjoy the food almost instantly. And to be honest, who can blame them? The show has a very colorful style of decorating its food. The texture and details are so focused that you’ll forget for a moment that the characters are even there. Well, that is until you see the characters eating it. Not only does the show relies prominently on its food variety but also by its ‘food porn’ expressive style. Shaft takes this avant-garde style and animate it with a bizarre degree of ways. If you’re not familiar or comfortable with it, then it’s a good idea to drop the series before it’s too late. For the girls, they enjoy almost every aspect of their life whether it’s the food or just the happiness of being together. Some of the suggestive yuri undertones are also there although it can be interpreted differently depending on your outlook. So for a show like this, other characters mainly play a side role while our main trio takes the spotlight. As the series does occasionally focus on characterization and background story insight, there’s little to appreciate about them. They are too simple as characters and hard to take seriously. Unfortunately, the series has a mission to try and shove down the characters’ presence down our throats. Don’t blame me? Watch them eating and you’ll see the whole picture. Each episode’s highlight isn’t the story or character but rather when they eat their food. Luckily though, we also do see how they craft their product. To say the least, it actually has realism despite all the shenanigans. If you genuinely care about culinary arts, then this series could turn out to be a surprise. For anime viewers like me, it’s more about understanding what the series is about. Shaft tries their usual head tilts, decorative colors, and stylistic approach to adapt this series. It surprisingly works effectively well. In fact, it’s hard to ignore the food no matter what you think of it at first. It looks delicious, has a glamorous appeal, and when eaten sets off a pleasurable response from the characters. I have to admit too that almost all the food retains their realism but with a clear purpose to make them more delicious on screen. Like I mentioned before as well, this series is more like a cooking show as girls’ homes serves as their base of operations for a good majority of the run. Even when the food isn’t cooked at their homes, it still shows that the setting has its artistic ways. And speaking of art, I can also honestly say that the food products are exactly as such. On a lesser scale, the show’s character designs are childish. The girls just seems too young to take seriously and their expressions objectify a near inappropriate way of presenting culinary arts. Then, there’s also fan service and one episode will surely sound off an imaginative bulb. “It’s not what it looks like?” is something you may question yourself… With a decent soundtrack, the show crafts a surprisingly good OP and ED song. The Alice in Wonderland allusions has a good pacing and choreography with catchy tones. Similarly, the ED illustrates the creative style of this series based off of the food gimmicks. Despite the OST being only moderate, it does specialize and find its place when certain scenes requires it. Finally, perhaps one of the most memorable things you’ll witness is the character voice mannerisms. In general terms, it strikes as silly and childish. Yes, the characters are young and it’s about cute girls. However, it also shows how desperate this series is when it tries to advertise itself with their voice. A show about cute girls doing cute and lewd things with their food will get mixed reactions. Regardless though, the series may not be original but is also not entirely worthless. Moving away from the orgasmic sounds, the series actually does offer food in a genuine fashion. Anyone with a slight interest in culinary arts will appreciate it just by the way the food is crafted. And if you’re a fan of Shaft's other works, then this one may be a delicious treat for you as well. Just be aware that the series isn’t heavily concentrated on either plot or characterization. Instead, it deliciously tries to appeal to the audience with that happy tone in graffiti style.

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