Score: 7.76/10
Joshikousei no Mudazukai
Synopsis
As she heads off to her entrance ceremony at Sainotama Girls' High School, Akane Kikuchi muses over her grade school dream of becoming a manga artist and the lack of progress that she has made. When she finally arrives at school, she is surprised to learn that she is once again in the same class as her two best friends: the deadpan and emotionless Shiori Saginomiya and the hyperactive and ridiculous Nozomu Tanaka. Tanaka then comes to the obvious realization that she can't achieve her grade school dream of being popular with the boys and getting a boyfriend by going to an all-girls high school. In desperation, she begins asking the girls in her class to introduce her to their guy friends. Her classmates, however, are anything but ordinary. From a grandmother-loving loli to a reclusive chuunibyou to an overly analytical stalker, each one is given a fitting nickname by Tanaka to accentuate their weirdness. And so begin the wasteful days of these high school girls, each day kicked off with a simple question: "Hey, wanna hear something amazing?" [Written by MAL Rewrite]
Watching the first episode of Joshikousei no Mudazukai new series was a bit of a roller-coaster ride for me. The lowest point came relatively early on, when the teacher introduced himself to the classroom of girls, some of whom, like “Baka” Nozomu, had undoubtedly been at least entertaining the notion of hooking up with a young male teacher. I’m sure his long-winded way of saying that he’s not interested in high school girls but might be if the laws were different was supposed to be funny, but that fell far flatter than any other joke the episode tried to put off. The writing seems to not understand that such a joke and character only work if they go much too far, a la Kimura in Azumanga Daioh. In fact, the whole time I was watching the first episode I couldn’t escape the impression that the series badly wants to be an updated, less artistically-distinct version of that classic early 2000s sketch comedy. Even based on the brief introductions so far, you can match most characters from this series one-to-one with characters from that one.
Fortunately the teacher’s introduction is not typical of the rest of the content, which I found funny enough that I actually laughed at the episode a few times. At its peaks the episode works best as a sketch comedy, with the most entertaining bits mostly dependent on the antics of Baka. She spends part of the episode cycling through other ridiculous nickname choices, but the one she ends up with is well-deserved for the way that she has an utterly oblivious one-track mind about being popular with boys, especially the running gag in the latter part of the episode where she cycles through all of these clichéd fantasy scenarios about her ending up being labeled an “interesting woman,” including some really ridiculous ones. The added joke here is the sense that she may be clueless about what, exactly, it means to be “popular with the boys” as high school students understand it. So far the other two main girls haven’t shown much beyond the obsession of “Robo” with presenting biological samples as food items, though there definitely seems to be some potential to mine with the implied obsession of “Wota” with bishonen.
Though introductions in the first episode are limited mainly to the main three girls, one nicknamed Loli for her small size, and a clear chunibiyou girl, both the opener and closer (both of which have clever visuals) suggest a diverse and colorful cast is going to be available for future episodes. That’s good because I’m not sure how long Baka can carry the weight on her own. Regardless, the funnier parts more than outweighed the failures for me, hence the positive score. You can also free Joshikousei no Mudazukai anime watch online and free download.
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