Shoujo-tachi wa Kouya wo Mezasu Episode 1 (First Impression)

I don’t know why I wanted to watch this show, but I did. And it was interesting in a weird way. Right off the bat people have been comparing this to Saekano, which I didn’t bother watching, because they both have the same premise more or less. After reading some of Hideki’s reviews on that show, I’m not sure I want to watch it. I guess it’s a good thing that I didn’t watch it because I went into Shoujo-tachi without any bias. So, to get down to business…

Kuroda is weird.

Of course I knew she’d be because the synopsis says that she’s the one that wants to make a bishoujo game. We get introduced to our main man, Bunta. He’s a guy everyone seems to like and depend on, and all around he looks like a pretty nice guy. We also get to know his two best friends. An energetic girl named Yuuka, who we saw in the beginning in a short play representing the drama club. I’m not really into the super genki type of characters so she’s only okay to me, but she seems like a good friend. We also meet the other friend…a guy whose name I don’t remember. Sorry. Though I like their friendship, it felt natural. Bunta seems to live mostly alone, as we saw in his house a little whiteboard saying something about a business trip, likely something his parents wrote. Because in anime the parents are always on business trips, that’s how we get weird shit to happen to our main characters. Wonderful. The two friends visit Bunta to hang out, it’s all chill.

The next day, there was a little problem with some forms for the committee not being properly organised, so Bunta takes it upon himself to help out out of the kindness of his heart, along with some other people in the class. While he’s doing this, there is one person that watches him from afar. It’s…her.

Kuroda-san. And that wasn’t the first time she watched him. She’s been watching him for quite some time now, and she finally confronts him in the boy’s restroom. Because for some reason she couldn’t wait to talk to him in the hallway or something. She asks him out on the weekend at an amusement park because she wants to talk to him alone. It’s something that she can’t talk to him about at school, so he agrees. And his two friends think she asked him out on a date. And it really did sound like it, that whole conversation was a bunch of anime cliches. But with this type of show, I think that was the point.

So after getting some advice from someone called Bitch Queen (which was hilarious), the day comes of the “date”. Bunta meets up with Kuroda, and she leaves all the decisions to Bunta. She lets him do whatever and she follows along, and whenever he did something she liked she would say “As expected of you” and whatnot. In the end of their “date”, which wasn’t a date, it was obvious that Kuroda brought him out to really observe him. She deduces that his communication skills has no problem. Then she starts being very personal towards him by bringing up dreams and the future. Occasionally during the episode, the characters would talk about the career forms they needed to fill out. Bunta never did because he doesn’t seem to know what to do with his life.

But not Kuroda. She then talks about, you guessed it, bishoujo games. How much she loves them, so much it seems like a religion to her. She then takes him to Akihabara, to a shop where they sell games. She points out one game that’s 8,800 yen, which is $75 (USD). I don’t know if that’s a lot for a computer game since I don’t play them, but it is more expensive than a new console game. She then points out another game that’s only 500 yen, which is only a little over $4. That’s cheap! It’s because that was a failed bishoujo game. Then again, Kuroda goes into this spiel about bishoujo games, how it’s her dream, and it’s important to her because the rest of the world is a wasteland or something and honestly someone tell this girl to relax.

She then asks what Bunta wants to do in the future, and he doesn’t know. So she gives him the offer to write bishoujo games with her. Because those that write successful bishoujo games usually go on to write scripts for anime, write for light novels, etc. Basically, it opens up more paths for him to possibly take, as he doesn’t really know what to do in his future. He shows a proficiency in writing after he wrote the script for the play Yuuka was in, even though the script was based off the original work. Even so, Kuroda wants him to join her.

I’ll admit that this first episode was a little slow. Or maybe the more correct term would be, a little boring. There were times that I wasn’t particularly interested, but there were some pretty good moments of comedy that had me laughing (Bitch Queen, Kuroda on the ride). I don’t know if this show will go deep on the making of a bishoujo game, or will it be mostly comedy? I feel like it could be both but it’s still a little hard to say, it could go either way.

The characters are fine so far, but I found the music and visuals to be a little mediocre. I liked the OP song though. Not that I didn’t like this episode, but it didn’t Wow! me either. Still, I’m interested to see more of it. Kuroda was described as a loner, so it’ll be fun to see how more characters are going to get involved in his bishoujo game nonsense. So far, not bad. But I hope it’ll attract my attention more.

Possibility of watching: Guaranteed

Possibility of blogging: Guaranteed