Anime: Shoujo-tachi wa Kouya o Mezasu 3g1x5i

While traveling through Japan this April, I noticed a lot of manga and game shops featuring this work (either in VN or manga form). Thus, I held perhaps a tad too much expectation for this work from Minato Soft (whose prior works include Majikoi and Kimi ga Aruji). Shokomeza is about a group of high schoolers coming together to create a bishoujo game, not terribly differentiated from another show with the same theme a few seasons back- Saekano. Again, we start with a protagonist with a seemingly hopeless future, who through meeting a girl decides to do his best to make a game. In this case, Bunta is not a fluffy stuffed animal but rather a writer who makes scripts for the drama club. Will he and the rest of his soon-formed club successfully "master up?"

Don't be led astray by the Minato Soft tag, this show focuses much more on the game creation process than any deep character relationships; you won't find a harem here. The show comes across as a marginally interesting slice of life, which starts very slow (like bedtime story slow) but then eventually starts clicking once deadlines start approaching. If you're looking for a relatively light show where, honestly, not much happens until the end, this is for you. If you're looking for deep relationships or insights as to how to really make a gal game, you're not going to find much here. If you're just looking for a random show to pick up, chances are you'll have better luck elsewhere.

Animation:
The animation is pretty good, which is to say it's up to current standards. The show uses a moderately saturated color palette, though the overall feel is a bit dull due to the gray uniforms and plain school walls. The backgrounds are slightly above average with nice attention to details, like rust on desks or swings; with a few add moments of artistic brilliance, such as a panning shot of mugs and plates. The characters are decently drawn but nothing in particular stands out from other shows. Redhead Andou is really the only spice in of color you get in addition to a few nice, sunset-hued skies. Emotions are fair but nothing special as well, in fact it is a tad annoying that Kuroda is a kuudere (with an overwhelming focus on the kuu) given the amount of screen time she hogs.

This is neither an action nor an ecchi show. There are a few bit of ecchi such as a few BL references, a self-proclaimed "fan service" episode where everyone goes to the beach, and a maid scene- but really, compared to recent harems this is comparatively nothing.

Sound:
I find it funny that the show chose a song that started with "despair", though I guess it fits with the lightly utilized "wasteland" theme. The opening is a fast-paced, action-oriented song, which isn't a particularly great melody and furthermore doesn't seem to fit with the mostly-calm nature of the show. The show's ED features the girls of the show and has a fair melody. The BGM is standard-fare filler pieces that are lightly mixed in- be warned that this will put you to sleep if you're not on guard. There's a central, four note melody that is featured throughout the show.

The characters in this show weren't particularly engaging, and I'm not sure of the casting choices as well. Using a relative newcomer, Haruka Chisuga, as the kuudere female lead was risky and didn't work too well for me. Kanahana is at her best voicing relatively shy girls, which is exactly not the drama club star Yuuka. Though it was a good effort overall, it just came across lackluster.

Story:
Alright, I it it; I have absolutely no idea what the intended story of this show is. At points, it tries to tell of the brutal, fast-paced, and deadline oriented gaming industry. At other points, it tries to lighten the mood with the playful essence of youth, adding in trips to the beach and the local yakiniku shop. Additionally, at other points, it tells of the dramas the club faces with sickness, slumps, and outright desertions. With all of these, you end up with a weird balancing act of a story that goes in multiple directions and yet ends up not moving very far from where it started. Somehow, it manages all this while the main plot remains utterly predictable. Perhaps the intent was to focus more on the characters, but more on that in the next section.

In addition to the odd execution, I felt that the pacing was also jarring. The first few episodes were so plain that I felt it was already in the drop-worthy category. There aren't a lot of plot twists and the overall tension of the story hovers at a mediocre level until the final few episodes, where all of a sudden everyone is energized by the impending deadline; in fact, the show ought to just be renamed "The Procrastinator's Guide to Game Making."

That brings me to my final complaint, which is that the show keeps you at distance from the actual game making logistics and product- you barely get even a few glimpses of what they're actually making. Furthermore, somehow, being the younger sister of a game designer is apparently enough to know everything about the industry- and so Kuroda magically solves how to procure background art, BGM, and how and who to communicate with throughout the entire process. Oh, and somehow everyone still goes to school though they never show how the students balance everything.

It's one of those shows where at the very end you question why you even bothered picking it up in the first place.

Character:
The show has a good variety of character archetypes in the club but fails to really make them engaging. All the characters are pretty static and, other than the protagonist, really don't get much of an exposition. There's only a slight hint of any character relationships and, well, as with the school uniform colors, everything just feels kind of dull. There weren't too many ing characters, which is even more reason why I would have expected a deeper, more engaging main cast.

In any case, you get a pretty cookie-cutter set of girls with the outgoing VA Yuuka, bad-girl programmer Andou, know-it-all kuudere Kuroda, and shy artist Yuuki. Our protagonist writer doesn't know what to do with his life, moving between random jobs and finally finds something he likes doing with the group Rokuhara. And finally, he brings along his "nice guy" childhood friend who hates couples after getting dumped. The group interactions are fair overall but nothing I'd consider particularly special.

Value:
This is not a harem and it is not really a drama. It's perhaps just a slice of life loosely wrapped around the theme of making a game. If you have hours of time to waste on a show, spare yourself and choose something else. In this show about how it is difficult to make a game, we end up seeing how it is difficult to make a good anime.