DOKI DOKI SCHOOL HOURS
Even when animated, high school is still pretty boring
Review by: Craig “See Me After Class” Norris
Length: 13 episodes plus 7 DVD-only episodes
Genre: Slice-of-life comedy
Watched: All, dubbed
Life as a high school student in Japan is markedly different from that of a high school student in the US, which is the only reason why I can possibly fathom that anime centering on everyday high school life could be interesting in the least. The lessons in culture aside, I just can’t find any appeal here. Maybe it’s unfair to judge a genre on only one series, but there’s certainly nothing here that makes me think it could be done with any great improvement.
Plot synopsis: Mika Suzuki is a 27 year-old teacher at Okitsu High School. However, you wouldn’t know that by just looking at her, since she’s shorter than her students. Despite her Napoleonic height and her tendency to be a bit irresponsible, she works hard to help her students experience such staples as the culture festival, the sports festival, and the class trip, as well as deal with all the miscellaneous nonsense that gets thrown her way. And, if that doesn’t sound boring enough for you, I’ve got some paint we can all watch dry!
Artwork: The mood of the series is light and cute, so the artwork follows suit. Colors are predominantly pastels, and character designs are simple yet distinctive. Exaggerated expressions are often used to convey over-the-top emotion, rendering the characters barely discernible as humanoid on some occasions. For the genre the artistic style fits fairly well, but the animation department doesn’t deserve too big of a pat on the back.
Music: Like the artwork, the fluffy melodies accompany the mood of the series. The opening and ending themes are not all that ear-catching, and the rest of the songs are even less so. Overall I can’t say I’m that impressed with the soundtrack, but it works well enough so that I didn’t find it noticeably bad while I was watching the series.
Characters: One would believe that a slice-of-life series would have interesting characters to hold our attention, seeing as how there are no magnificent plots to follow. The characters presented in this series are interesting, but unfortunately it’s only for the first few episodes. After that, their short list of personality traits get exploited to their maximum, leaving the rest of the series to float by on overused and predictable gags. First, there is Mika, who (save her diminutive stature) is very unremarkable. She’s somewhat irresponsible and still lives with her parents. Her mother is very disapproving of her irresponsibility, but her father spoils her rotten. Matsumoto is the school nurse who is the same age as Mika, and contrasts sharply with her physical proportions. The class roster includes: the constantly dieting and materialistic Kobayashi; the carefree dumb jock Suetake; the cross-dressing narcissist Seki; the sensible and mature “Old Man” Nakamura; the catgirl-obsessed mangaka Watabe; fellow manga-enthusiast (though she’s awful at drawing) Nakayama; the composed but not-so–secretly idol-obsessed Iincho; the very, very gay (especially for Suetake) king of nosebleeds Kudo; the sharp-tongued and violent Tominaga; the pretty, smart, and short girl-obsessed (especially Mika) Kitagawa; and the American exchange student Andrew, who is introduced in the DVD-only episodes and is as enthusiastic about reading manga as Watabe is about making it. That pretty much explains everything about the characters that you will need to know. As the entirety of the character development can be summed up in one paragraph, don’t expect much dynamics here.
Plot: There’s really no cohesive plot to speak of, other than the fact that the students are all in the same high school and do stuff together. The episodes aren’t without a certain cute charm, but it can’t make up for the overall blandness. Each episode is self-contained, and focuses on a specific aspect of school life, whether it is a festival, summer classes, or taking a day trip. Sometimes the episodes move off on a “what if” tangent, which are the most entertaining episodes in my opinion, if only to get everyone away from the school for a little while. After all, I spent four years in a high school of my own, so I’m pretty fed up with them at this point.
CHICKS!: The students and faculty are nothing to get too excited about. I guess Mika would be perfect for those who have a lolita fetish, but who don’t want to spend time in prison for acting on it. The schoolgirls are all pretty plain, the most beautiful among them being Kitagawa. But she’s so wrapped up in Mika that it’s fairly unrealistic to think anyone else has a chance with her. The top of the bunch is probably Matsumoto, if only because she’s of legal age, is pretty hot, and is in fact a nurse. Other than that there’s really not much else to speak of in terms of chick quality. The well isn’t exactly dry, but there’s not enough for a good drink.
Overall: If this is a representative high school comedy, I have no idea what makes the genre so popular. This series bears resemblance to the genre’s flagship, Azumanga Daioh, but is devoid of much of the madcap humor that made that series moderately entertaining. In the end, the attempts at zaniness failed, and this high school series winds up being as dull and uninteresting as, well, a day at high school.
IN A NUTSHELL
+ Kind of cute
+/- Mindless entertainment
- Not enough character development
Rating: 5/10
Return to Index