tommy73

Being as frank as possible, I found the Winter 2013 season to be quite weak, despite having a lot of bright and colourful ideas. The majority of them only proved to be average, slightly above even, and they definitely won't be memorable for long. Now, this talk may portray to be a little irrelevant and bias (and apologies if it is), but the point I want to get across is that I was hoping that 'at least' one show in the season would be in a state without having to be stalled, being both enjoyable and interesting every episode and with no actual problems draggingit down. In other words, a hidden gem. Thankfully there was one, and funny enough it's about a school club with absolutely no purpose or theme whatsoever. Wait, what? The anime is about... as stated earlier, nothing. Kyouya is in a club called the 'Good-Job Club', and their activities involve having various discussions, eating food, laying around the room being struck by lasers of heat, biting each other, lewdly brushing hair, bringing little sisters in and many more things. The other members of the club are four girls; the childish club president Mao who has a short-temper, the refined angel-like Megumi, the genius Shion lacking common sense and the mysterious cat-like Kirara. You'd probably be thinking that... it sounds like a pretty generic slice of life without actually anything going on, which would naturally sound really boring to watch. To top it all of though, it sounds like a harem! There's no doubt it's harem-like with the boy:girl ratio of 1:4, and you'll probably agree that nearly all harem shows fail to be remotely good. And guess what? I found this much more interesting than all the other shows, and I'm not close to devoted with slice of life shows in a school setting. So... how, and why, did I find this more entertaining than the rest of the season? Because GJ-bu does something a lot of normal slice of life shows fail to do - restraining from pushing itself to far. Or in other words, it didn't try to hard to be what it is. GJ-bu acknowledges fairly well that it's a full slice of life series with the given setting; there's no unnecessarily technical writing involved and it doesn't forces the contents or intentions of the show onto the audience in a demanding way - it just does what a slice of life is supposed to be. It really does take a slice of one's life, and converts those everyday actions into animated form. Because of this, everything feels natural, both pacing and scenery, and without having to feel boring too. None of the jokes feel dragged, and neither does the dialogue, so the conversations and spacelessness you'd feel in real life are portrayed rather nicely here. But who wants to watch some guy's life in a club in the first place? Who'd find that interesting? Which brings me to my second point. The natural flow in the entire show gives of a really, really lovely relaxing pace. The pacing does feel rather slow at times, but because nothing is so dragged along or forced, it makes the audience quite relaxed whilst watching each episode, and so the slowness isn't something to be weary of (well, depending on your preferences but I'll mention that later). Although the speed of the pace is noticeable when you start the series, it starts getting less obvious and time starts to fly by so swiftly you'd be completely used it over the course of the series. That said, looking at a specialist's point of view, GJ-bu really isn't that unique at all. It just stands out because it does what most slice of life anime doesn't do, and that is to keep the viewers actually engaged without a plot in mind instead of building up their bore meters. The show is just about five members in a non-specified club, enjoying their time there whilst they can, so if anyone is expecting some actual plot, romance, drama, tragedy, deaths, epicness, inspiring moments and so forth, then I'm afraid your expectations are at risk (though, there is a sweet semi-closure which was done really well). But if you thought that it'd be a bore-pumper and something immensely non-memorable whilst choosing your seasonal shows (and, admittedly, that was me), then you should pretty much give this a go for a change of pace, and especially if you're a big fan of the slice of life genre. The animation isn't so remarkable as from the outside, but during the course of the show the art department actually does get handled as greater than what you'd expect. On one hand, the budget doesn't seem so noticeable and it's understandable since it's a slice of life. The outlines of the characters can be inconsistent in terms of thickness, which is a rather rare problem in anime in general. On the other hand though, there's certain scenes where the budget goes remarkably high, in both backgrounds, atmosphere and animation (which applies to 95%+ of the last episode). Regards to the budget, there's no rubbish or quality moments in which effects the series in any way. Talking about animation, the area which it's taken in full consideration is the EDs, which used the budget pretty wildly. Well actually, scratch that. GJ-bu wins for the best ending sequence in 2013 so far. And second place. And third place... ...and fourth place too. The anime consists of four ending sequences, one playing every two episodes and the fourth one playing throughout the second half of the show. Each ED is based around a certain character or two, provided with a theme; the first ED being based around the Amatsuka sisters (Mao and Megumi), the second being based on Shion, the third being Kirara's ED and the last one centered towards the entire club. The collection of EDs varies in the type of songs and mood, being from extremely high-spirited with a fast-paced rock style, to a more contemplative mood in J-Pop form. All four songs are outstandingly well-composed, being catchy and vibrant in their own ways, and the studio probably blew 90% of their budget in the EDs to make them as visually attractive and fluent as possible, even coming with a unique summer atmosphere and funky dancing. They're extremely fun to watch and I doubt you'd regret having downloaded the full songs of all four endings, because I know I didn't regret it. So... in conclusion, the four EDs are the best parts in the animation and sound department, in both the entire show and the Winter season. Woops, it seems like I dedicated a whole paragraph to the GJ-bu endings, so I should start on the actual sound department now. Uh... anyway, the opening sequence plays throughout the entire show, sung by the main VA cast. It's a really catchy up-beat song, and probably not so unexpecting in a slice of life. A lot of the time the OST doesn't play, mainly for the cause of the relaxing pacing and atmosphere. The soundtrack isn't at all incredible in stand-alone, but they're very cutely composed with simple and/or retro instruments, fitting the very light mood for the show. The voice actors do a good job (haha pun) with the characters, generally fitting well in their roles. Not to mention that several of the voice actors are actually teenagers, the youngest being Kirara's VA, at the age of thirteen. Now, despite the relaxing mood and atmosphere to the plotless show, it couldn't be as interesting as it is with just the aspects I described several paragraphs ago. Of course, we can't have a club without its members! Nearly the entire cast consists of female (the male being Kyolo, the main character), and they're divided into two groups; the members of the GJ-bu, and the little sisters of those members. Let's introduce the main members the second (or third?) time, since I think it's a little necessary too; there's presisdent Mao Amatsuka, the orange one, who acts rather childish despite her rich background, and bites Kyolo when she's angry. But her younger sister is quite the opposite - Megumi Amatsuka, the pink one, is both refined and well-mannered, described almost as an angel, although it's not the case when it comes to weight. Shion Sumeragi, the purple one, is somewhat clever in lots of ways, but it seems common sense isn't her strong point. And then there's Kirara, my personal favourite member. She acts less human and more cat, structuring her sentences uniquely, and does lots of things the other members don't usually do, like eating meat all the time. And of course, we can't forget to mention Kyolo, our main man. He's presented in the series as a kind, caring and laid-back guy, though usually questioning whatever actions the other members perform (and usually on him too). Oh and there's the green one. She doesn't appear in the beginning though. All of the members are, firstly to say, stand-alone in their own way. You get a variety of personalities (and hair colours), and each have their own qualities for themselves in which both benefits and non-benefits them. However, it's the way they're presented that fleshes out the personalities further - The features of each individual becomes clearer and fresher with certain tropes and actions happening on-screen. Basically, the characters are in a club room, talking and in different ways interacting with each other. Whether it's conversations or actions, each individual would perform any kind of action which adds up as the evidence of one of the features in the characters, and it fleshes out into the characterization of the members (some of those actions may reveal one of the tropes at first shot though, depending on how obvious the feature is). In other words, characterization happens in the course of events, rather than having them explained, which feels both natural and less lazy. The more fun thing about this though is that each of the characters has quite distinct personalities and different features, fears, knowledge, preferences and so on compared to each other, so it's pretty fun seeing them hang round together as a group. You get a lot of times when they all agree to tease Kyolo in the most entertaining way for them to watch, and then scenes where they all take their turns to do a certain activity, from having their hair brushed, to arm-wrestling, to guessing whatever picture Kyolo drew and so on. There's no real hatred, drama and problems going around in the GJ-bu, so it's hard to start hating a character in the series, though of course it's not the case for everyone. Also, need to mention development. Well, there isn't much development since the anime starts during the middle course of Kyolo's time being in the club, but he does get a well-hidden development in the entire series, to both towards the other members and personality. It's just not so easy to notice and stretched out. Did I enjoy GJ-bu? Considering that the entire show felt really natural and relaxing, and seeing each characters with different kinds of features interact with each other and Kyolo, of course I did. I had a really hard time debating whether or not to rate GJ-bu a solid 7 or a low 8, but it seemed like it was the latter (though honestly, I still can't decide). For anyone who just regarded this as some moe anime with really bland episodes might want to give this a second thought; this was the only show I started in the season which I didn't decide upon my full plan for the season, and it turned out it was the only show I actually thoroughly enjoyed in the entire show. If it wasn't for my brother I would've never encountered this gem, so it was lucky I didn't pass on this. GJ-bu was a enjoyable and relaxing ride for me, and it seems like I've grown fond to the series more than I expected to be. I just wish that more school slice of life anime was like GJ-bu.

Tomah

GJ-bu is part of a sub-genre of slice of life which encompasses K-On, Yuru Yuri and others. These shows spend most of their times showing characters on a club usually doing absolutely nothing, whether because they skip club activities or because the club activities have no real purpose. They are usually hard to review due to few complexity in plot and characters, but it's not like it's non-existent. GJ-bu, however, takes this to extreme measures. Now, before you argue that the quality of the story is irrelevant, consider the following. If GJ-bu wants to show cute girls (and a boy, though on the verge of beingconsidered a girl as well) doing nothing but random stuff, then first it must get the viewer to actually care about the girls, otherwise it's just irritating rather than endearing. That's what good storytelling does, by offering a bridge between the world, including its characters, and the viewer. The problem is... this show doesn't have good storytelling. While most shows at least try to construct a basic conceptual setting for the story to take place, this one decides it doesn't need to. Instead, we are thrown into the middle of an unknown place, with anonymous faces doing strange things we don't understand. Who are they? What are they trying to achieve? How do they relate with each other? There are many other questions, but these are the least you have to answer to convince the viewer that your characters are humans and not moeblobs walking around. GJ-bu's characterization is done through a few dialogues there and here and a few, very few, scenes outside the club. That's all you get. Maybe the story just wasn't well executed, but the characters could still be good, right? Indeed, conceptually it's possible to elaborate interesting characters, but fail to fulfill their potential in practice. That's not the case of GJ-bu, which defines its characters in terms of clichéd stereotypes and refuses to give them any further depth. It's not that they lack back-story or psychological investigation, they just weren't meant to have any complexity to start with. One-dimensional characters can be done well as long as they remain entertaining and/or charismatic, but to do so they must have interesting features and interactions with other characters. Characters from GJ-bu just do the same things over and over again, taking for granted the viewer's interest because of the cute and silly things going on. There's pretty much nothing fresh about the scenes, since they revolve around stereotypes doing their things. As one would expect, if the storytelling is bad and the characters are poor, the jokes aren't exactly a masterpiece of humor, specially because they rely heavily on the characters. Shion, for instance, is very knowledgeable about many topics, but lacks common sense, as the stereotyped genius she is. That's it, there goes about 90% of all jokes about her, and not particularly creative ones. Oh, eventually she reveals that she would like to have a younger sister and has Tama fulfill that role because it's cute. Yes, "because it's cute" and "because the public's desires must be satisfied" seem to be the main driving factors for GJ-bu. You've got tsunderes, maids, all kinds of hair colors, cat ears, little sisters, foreigners, heck, there's even cross-dressing for the girls and Kyoro. Everything is meticulously engineered to appeal the viewer through a specific stimulation. If the show had used at least half of the time spent on this planning towards making the characters and their context actually interesting, a great deal of its problems would have simply disappeared. Now that we've got the bad things out of the way, let's focus on the bright side. Since visual appeal is relevant to GJ-bu's purposes, it tries to build its own style, as colorful, cute and comfortable as possible. These efforts are mostly successful, but the character designs are easily forgettable, nothing you haven't seen in other moe shows, and the animation is only average. As for the soundtrack, it's pretty catchy, and a lot of effort is put into the ending's themes... still, they end up sounding quite generic as well. As a whole, though, the production values are all right. Now, after all of this, it could be concluded that this show is lame and boring, incapable of doing anything remarkable on its own. Well, there's nothing remarkable for sure, but surprisingly, it's still enjoyable. That's the ultimate secret of GJ-bu: it knows what it's doing. It was previously said that everything is meticulously engineered to appeal the viewer, and this becomes evident as the show goes on. GJ-bu's focus on quantity rather than quality may lose points in artistic and creative value, but it's an important trade-off. You don't like this girl? Oh, then have another, and another, and another, all with distinct specifications, until you have one that you like. The stereotyped personalities are very helpful because otherwise it would be difficult to do this. Real people have common mindsets and physical attributes due to sharing the same environment, many have similar goals and ideologies, are constantly changing or trying to change, show different sides of themselves depending on the context... Stereotypes, on the other hand, are static, simple, and make sure that two characters will be as different as possible. But surely there must be at least one grumpy old man who isn't charmed by any of the show's attempts, right? No problem. It may sound crazy, but GJ-bu doesn't deliver enjoyment solely from the viewer's love; hate is also effective. The series tries so hard to be cute and funny with its endless list of clichés, shallow characters and situations, fetishes and repetitive jokes that it turns into a laughable parody of itself for those who are not amused and become increasingly cynical. For example, the fact that the maid spins around every time she appears may either be seen as endearing or a pathetic attempt at being endearing. Both are acceptable, because GJ-bu doesn't care if it's being loved or hated, as long as it's not being ignored. GJ-bu is, quite literally, an anime for everyone. It has generic written all over it, but you end up either loving or hating it because it goes so overboard in applying all sorts of tested formulas. Truth be told, if you are a fan of this kind of series, has no problems with underdeveloped characters and poor storytelling, and want something with a sort of relaxed atmosphere and all types of cuteness, then try GJ-bu, as it probably won't disappoint. Otherwise, it's not advised to take the risk, but the show could be good for a few laughs; if not genuine, then mocking.