GENSHIKEN
Step 1: admitting you have a problem
Review by: M.H. "..........Am I really that bad?" Torringjan
Length: 12 episodes
Genre: Self-deprecation
Watched: entire series
When it comes to admitting that otaku are funny people, I'll be the first to admit it. Having been the president of my university's anime club for basically two years, I've seen my fair share of otaku come and go, as well as non-otaku (or "norms" as I came to call them) come and go, usually in a much shorter time span than the otaku came and went. The marked difference in attitudes of the two groups always amused me (I consider myself in between, although my friends might say otherwise). So, when I saw Otaku no Video a year ago, I enjoyed the gentle fun it poked at otakus with its farcical nature and caricatures of otaku. Genishiken has been described as the new ONV, but it makes a stronger satire of the otaku community than anything in ONV.
Plot: Kenji Sasahara arrives at Shiiou University as a 1st year student with a penchant for watching lots and lots of anime. At the club registration day, he surveys the Anime club, the manga club, and the Society for the Study of the Modern Visual Culture, or Genshiken. After visiting Genshiken and hanging out with the members, he decides to join their courageous journey to watch anime, play video games, and read doujinshi that only ten billion other people have probably already watched, played and read before! It's a terribly complicated plot, so do try to keep up.
Artwork: The artwork for this series is pretty standard fare for real-life anime. The settings and colors used are about what you'd expect for a college series. The character designs are very distinct and correspond nicely to the characters' personalities. Another minor point is that, similar to Martian Successor Nadesico, there is a series within a series present in the form of Kujibiki Unbalance, which seems to be a fantasy action series that's the hottest thing around. The art style for that series is very similar to the standard art style used in series of that genre, which lends to the satire as you see familiar storylines unfold in the series as you would in real life series of that type, such as the fanservice episode and the cooking tournament episode.
Music: Very little music is used in this series, other than the opening theme, an upbeat song about being an otaku, and the closing theme, a little slower love song. The rest is poppy stuff that could easily have been left out. The music of Kujian is dramatic filler except for the opening theme (which serves as the opening for the whole series' first episode), which is a bouncy pop track. Overall, it works pretty well as setting music, but it could have been better.
Characters: In watching this series, what amused me the most was that I knew people in real life who were exactly like the characters in this series. Kenji Sasahara is the enthusiastic newcomer who tries to be accepted by the rest of the club by learning the way of the otaku. At the beginning, he seems to realize the attitudes of some of the more hard-core otaku in the club are a bit extreme, but as time goes on, he seems to become more accustomed to it. Kohsaka is the bishoujo hard-core otaku who seems to be completely clueless about everything outside of his video game specialty, including Saki Kasukabe, who has a blatant crush on him. She is a norm who tags along to the Genshiken meetings in order to be with him, and hates everything about otaku. She is a compulsive clothes shopper, and stays current with the styles that are in. Madarame is a shifty-eyed 3rd year who is socially inept and goes hardcore with anything concerning doujinshi. Kugayama is the heavy-set stuttering member of Genshiken who specializes in drawing doujinshi and, as usual, is socially inept. Tanaka is the second oldest member of Genshiken, and he specializes in cosplay designing and plastic model construction. He adds a more reasonable voice to the club's proceedings, but again is socially inept (are we picking up on a theme here?). Kanako Ohno is the latecomer new girl who loves to cosplay, and has a thing for bald guys. On the other hand, she has little confidence in her appearance out of character and (take a guess) is socially inept. I think it also goes without saying that every male character lives off of hentai computer games and reading doujins. I mean, why else would we watch anime?
Plot: There is almost no overarching plot to this series, since the only point to the series is a blatant impeachment of the otaku lifestyle. The series doesn't go to any extreme lengths, because it doesn't have to. The extreme humor of the series lies in the fact that they portray otaku almost exactly as otaku are in real life, from the newbie staring up the skirt of the plastic model to Madarame attending the Comicon through the pain of a broken hand. It also makes an important point that everyone has something that they specialize in and could be called an otaku about, so don't be hatin' (or something like that).
CHICKS!! Two great chicks are offered up here for the taking, assuming you're an otaku. Kasukabi is a take-charge kind of girl with a great figure who comes to realize quickly enough that otaku can't be "cured" of otakuness, so you just have to put up with it. Now, if only she'd figure out that cosplaying isn't that bad (especially in the sack), every fanboy would be set! Kanako is a shy, quiet girl whose love of cosplay could shoot her quickly to the top of any otaku's list. She loves to take the chance to show off her lovely figure, assuming there's a photo op involved. And my guess is, with that kind of figure, there'd be a couple of other kinds of photo ops you'd want her to do for you.
Overall: The strength of this series is that it does a wonderful job of delivering a punchline with a straight face, which always makes jokes even more funny. Although the show did slow down in the last three episodes or so, there were still laughs to be had along the way as it told the sort of story that really could happen in real life while reminding you that you need to have a sense of humor about what you like. This series should be enjoyable for anybody who's an anime fan or anybody who's known an anime fan.
In a nutshell:
+ Straight-faced humor
+ Realistic characters
+ Easy to relate to
- Soundtrack lacking
- Slows down near the end
Final grade: 8.5/10
Return to Index