Shoujo-tachi wa Kouya wo Mezasu – 03

Both Kuroda and this show’s title make reference to the “wasteland” / “wildlands”, but this show covers precisely zero new ground and blazes no new trails. Its premise and themes have already been thoroughly explored by other shows. There’s no uncharted territory here; only a retracing of steps.

KOYA also continues to paint its six main characters with the broadest of strokes in the dullest and least adventuresome of tones. This week features an interminable “training camp” that is supposedly intentionally aping the Hot Spring Inn cliché for comedic effect, but really only comes off as a Hot Spring Inn cliché, full stop.

There are two main developments at play here: the constant philosophical clashing of Kuroda and Andou, and feelings for Bunta awakening in Yuuka, depsite her hard friendzone status in his eyes (as far as one can tell). I personally prefer the raw, spunky Yuuka to the more muddled raven-haired maiden that is Kuroda, but portraying Yuuka as suddenly so blushy and weak-kneed around Bunta – who is barely a character at all at this point – does her no favors.

As for the conflict between Kuroda and Andou, well…Kuroda’s a hard one to figure out. Her character has a couple of distinctive ticks and qualities that don’t mesh into a cohesive whole. She’s more of a promising idea of a character not fully thought out. As for Andou, well…she is a character driven by one thing and one thing only: BL. And using the word “fangirl” as a verb; she really digs doing that.

She loves BL so much, in fact, she’s willing to see the treatment of Kuroda’s game through BL eyes, labeling it a “Yuri-homo” rather than a straight-laced shoujo story. Her constant reminders to everyone that she’s obsessed with BL even seems to wear on the cipher Bunta.

No, the most impactful moment of this increasingly dreary episode was when Andou got fed up with sparring with Kuroda, said “I’m done”, and peace’d out. Bunta managed to very easily lure her back to the inn from Akiba (he spends a lot on rail travel this week!), but I fear no amount of convincing will bring me back to KOYA. There’s just not enough here to sink my teeth into. To borrow Andou’s phrase: “I’m done.”

Shoujo-tachi wa Kouya wo Mezasu – 02

Now that Bunta has agreed to make a bishoujo game with Kuroda, he must be properly initiated into the world, which Kuroda achieves by leaving a choice selection of games in his shoe locker. She also shows him where the magic will eventually happen: the room she has reserved for the “Marketing Research Club”, which she helpfully points out is just a front in another quirky discussion between the two.

The Bishoujo Club has a producer in Kuroda and a writer in Bunta, but they’re short, a minimum, four more staff positions: for lead animation, programming, CG Art, and voice acting. She uses English-based acronyms to describe these jobs, but since this isn’t my first otaku rodeo, I found her explanations to Bunta somewhat redundant.

Despite Kuroda’s belief his social skills would make him the perfect recruiter, Bunta brings back a bunch of unmotivated poseurs. Then Yuuka and Atomu barge into the club to look around, and Bunta realizes Yuuka would be perfect for the voice actress role (of course she is; she’s Hanazawa!) and Yuuka herself is interested in voice acting, even if she doesn’t much care for games.

That leaves Atomu, who isn’t sure how he can contribute, and fails to impress Kuroda…until the subject of dating comes up, and he goes on a bitter rant about how fickle girls are and how he wants nothing more but to abandon the 3D world for 2D paradise. That gets Kuroda’s applause, and she appoints him assistant director.

Kuroda continues the initiation of her new club members by returning to Akiba. Strangely, Bunta acts like he’s there for the first time despite having gone there just last week with Kuroda alone. Maybe now that he’s into games he’s seeing the place with freshly opened eyes?

There, Kuroda shows them some very nice doujin works (including some by pros) and boldly proclaims they’ll create a game that will leave all the others in the dust. This isn’t a labor of love for her, results matter. Especially when her brother runs a highly successful game company.

After the group breaks up for the day, Bunta visits a maid cafe…where his classmate Andou Teruha just happens to work part-time in secret under the work name “Luka.” I thought sparks would fly, but both parties keep their cool, with Teruha switching from her normal deep voice to the bubbly Luka at the drop of a hat, while making clear her job will remain a secret (she doesn’t have to say “…or else”).

After spending all night playing games he’s legitimately into, Kuroda’s next task is for him to acquire an artist. He’s not that good at discerning good art from bad, but that’s the person she wants searching for talent: if he’s moved by something, than it’s going to be something special.

Sure enough, while perusing the wares at a bookstore, he comes across a little sign drawn in a style that makes his heart flutter. His research determines it was done by  “Hokikiyo”, alias of the top-ranked-on-Pixi Yuuki Uguisu, who also just happens to attend their school as a first-year, and works at the bookstore Bunta visited.

However, she’s also a painfully skittish milquetoast, however, so the club’s aggressive attempts to recruit her fail at first (i.e., drawing her out with a love letter and then surrounding her menacingly).

It’s when Teruha sits beside a frustrated Bunta and learns he’s making a girl game and looking for “Hokekiyo”, Teruha reveals she’s a fujoshi (another term defined by side-chatter), is familiar with her work, and helps recruit her, cornering her in the girl’s lavatory and bringing her to the club room. Everyone praises her enough to convince her to createart for their game, though she quietly confesses she really wants to draw for an eroge.

Teruha herself also joins the club as a programmer, and just like that, the team has been assembled, presumably leaving the rest of the show to the production of the game. On this efficiency, I’m a little torn: quickly getting the “building the team” out of the way is satisfying in its way, but it relied on an awful lot of convenient coincidences.

Also, and this is could be an ongoing thing if the two episodes are any indication: the characters all feel rather smoothed over, subdued; as if they lack sharp edges; Atomu’s “breaking”moment being the lone exception. The characterization and accompanying comedy often walks a fine line between understated and overly buttoned-up, even to the point of tedium.

I hope it doesn’t stray too far to the latter side. What with all the intros, there wasn’t a lot of time to go in depth with anyone. Perhaps the show will find a stronger voice once the game-making gets underway in earnest.

Shoujo-tachi wa Kouya wo Mezasu – 01 (First Impressions)

Haruchika and Prince of Stride had pleasant enough first episodes, but weren’t particularly dazzling or earth-shattering. To be honest neither is Shoujo-tachi wa Kouya wo Mezasu, but it did do something more often than those other two shows: it made me laugh, and it impressed me with its characterization and snappy-ish dialogue. So far, SKM reminds me of a quieter, less punchy, less fanservice-y Saekano.

Continuing the theme of honesty into this second paragraph, none of the characters in SKM are staggeringly unique, but they’re well-executed and I quickly came to root for not only the hard-working, gregarious Houjou Buntarou, but also his little circle of friends, the “inconveniently popular” Kai Atomu and in particular his good female buddy/possible childhood friend Kobayakawa Yuuka, a talented girl who wants “to do everything she wants to do” whom Hanazawa Kana breathes life into.

While the raven-haired loner maiden Kuroda Sayki gazes mysteriously from afar, “Bunta”, as everyone calls him, is always in the thick of it, whether it’s seeing to everyone’s needs at the restaruant where he works, to shooting the breeze with his neighbors, to settling classroom disputes amicably. He’s a nice guy; the only problem is, unlike Yuuka, he has no idea what he truly wants to do.

Enter Kuroda. In a uncomfortably funny (but not vulgar) scene in the men’s room, she has a very interesting (and also funny) conversation with Buntarou, likely the longest one he’s ever had with her by far. It’s full of compliments: he’s observant, in tune with the needs of those around him, and knowledgeable about the “leisure areas” of town. Their talk ends with Kuroda asking him to arrange a date for them on Saturday, so she can tell him something she can’t say at school.

From the get-go, I had the feeling this wasn’t anything as simple as a date with a girl who likes him, but rather some kind of evaluation by a girl who might find him useful. Nevertheless, Bunta proceeds as if it were a conventional date, complete with accepting Yuuka’s offer to put him in touch with an underclassman known as the “Bitch Queen” who offers him sage advice on tomorrow. Her line about “cladding herself in innocence for the sake of her bitchiness” was pretty amusing, and I hope we get to put a face to the voice.

The day of the “date” arrives, and Kuroda encourages Bunta to take the lead, showing her a good time at the amusement park while responding to most of his personal queries with “it’s a secret.” By sundown, he realizes what we viewers realized, but like me, he knows there’s nothing sinister about her motives.

Rather, she takes him to a game store in Akiba, shows him the value of the successful games versus the failures, and lays out what she wants: to make a bishoujo game with him. She believes he has the writing chops and the personality to help make her dreams come true.

As for the details of those dreams, all she’ll tell him is that “the world is a wasteland” where “the innocent are only devoured”, and wants to strike out and stake her claim in that wasteland with Bunta by her side. Bunta, unsure of what to do up until now, has been given an intriguing opportunity; he’d best not waste it!