GJ-bu is the Best Anime of the Season

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Currently I am watching too much anime, so I did the most rational thing to do and picked up yet another series.

Turned out that GJ-bu actually is the best anime of the season.

Do not be scared by the seemingly dull premise of a single male character being stuck in a clubroom with pretty girls, because rest assured: this is no Haganai or anything remotely similar. Instead of pandering to the audience with different fetishes, sexual tension, abusive jokes or the likes, GJ-bu instead takes a modest approach that does not make much of a ruckus.

It is a simple and honest attempt at having a bunch of likeable and charming characters confined to a single room while still being entertaining.

And GJ-bu succeeds at that with ease.

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What makes the series so enjoyable to watch is the aforementioned likeable characters. Considering how similar anime usually stick with dull stereotypes we have seen a million times before, it is a pleasant surprise that this is not the case with GJ-bu.

If you want to it is possible to define every character by certain common tropes, such as “Bizarre Character” or “Hyperactive Character”, but they all have distinct enough personalities to feel unique in the end. Mao, the orange little energy pill, has a calmer side to her while our male character, nicknamed “Kyoro”, avoids being the generic bland lead without a personality. It is hard to properly explain each character in detail thanks to how natural they come across to be.

In other words, most of the fun with GJ-bu therefore comes from an aspect that is highly personal. If the characters do not fancy you, there is simply no need to continue watching. But if they manage to charm you, then you might just fall for GJ-bu as much as I did.

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The actual content of the series is not anything new or amazing, but it has a calming atmosphere that at times remind me of why I fell in love with, hold your breath, Aria the Animation. It is the kind of atmosphere that at first embraces you before devouring your entire mind rendering any sort of critical thinking meaningless.

The only things I could criticize GJ-bu for are the sudden appearances of uninteresting imoutos and that Tamaki sounds a tad bit too much like Dekomori from Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai!. Everything else is pure love.

Watching our characters play Twister, eat sweet potato, tease each other or do other trivial matters is simply fun. Add a competent production with simple but lovely visuals and a good pacing that never drags anything out and you end up with the most heartwarming anime of the season.

GJ-bu is, without a doubt, my favorite anime of the season.

22 thoughts on “GJ-bu is the Best Anime of the Season

  1. draggle says:

    So I watched episode one and was bored out of my mind, should I bother to keep watching? I remember you love Aria and I can’t stand it, is it the same kind of thing?

    • Marow says:

      I’d give it one or two more episodes, just to see if it catches your interest. The first two episodes are actually a little slower than the rest, but if you only were bored as you said, then… yeah, it might not be for you.

  2. John Samuel says:

    Interesting, I think CrunchyRoll have released all of this series to Australia so I might check it out.

    Well, once I’m done with Thirty Days of Planetes at least. 🙂

    • Marow says:

      Ah, yes, they actually picked it up (much to my surprise). They seem to nab every little anime they can.

      Are you enjoying Planetes?

      • John Samuel says:

        Given that this is at least my third time through? Oh yes.

        I will admit that writing the reviews in the middle of a brain draining period at work is something of a challenge. Schedule? What Schedule? I don’t need no steeenking schedule. 🙂

        For my money Planetes is one of the best series in the last 10-15 years, that is why it is getting a Thirty Days series of posts.

  3. Overlord-G says:

    Good to know you found a show you really like. I have nothing else to add this time dood.

  4. Anonymous says:

    kirara’s voice actor is 13 years old. :O

    • Marow says:

      I learned that yesterday, actually! After that I looked up the whole cast and they are all really young. Megumi’s is 16, for example. Quite a surprise.

  5. […] continue to criminally underrate this show. From early on, I thought it was just a cheap looking, do nothing anime of the likes of Hidamari […]

  6. lostty says:

    This definitely looks like something I might be interested in. I guess I need to find the time to catch up with another series this season…

  7. You liked it? I love slice-of-life series with a passion, but for some reason, the first episode did not leave a strong resonate strongly with me. I was planning to give it another shot, so guess I will…

    • Marow says:

      Well, this comes from a person who loves Aria, so my love for slice-of-life is on a crazy level. I’d suggest giving GJ-bu three episodes (seeing as others fell in love with it after a few episodes). But in case you only dislike it, then just drop it!

  8. ObiWan says:

    GJ-Bu is an amazing anime .. Its not too serious and also not to simple to the point of comedic-overkill. Its just sad that it has come to an end though .. Do you think that a second season might be in order for a show like this ?? It has gotten a lot of positive feedback and they creators cant ignore the fact that people enjoyed this show ..

    • Marow says:

      Yes… I’ll definitely miss it. I even rated it 9/10.

      I doubt there will be a second season as the final episode covered the finale of the light novels its based on. They DO have scenes they cut out and so on, but that wouldn’t really be possible to add without “remaking” the series. So there won’t be a second season 😦

      There were rumours regarding an anime adaptations of the GJ-bu spinoff GJ-bu Chūtō-bu, which involved the imoutos creating their own club. But it seems like it was false…

      So we’ll probably only have GJ-bu. But, hey, we can always rewatch it! 🙂

  9. […] to provide maximum enjoyment for an impressively sizeable target audience. As Marow puts it on his blog post, “it is a simple and honest attempt at having a bunch of likeable and charming characters […]

  10. […] anime blogging idol Marow has written a beautiful post explaining why GJ-bu is the best anime of this season and I suggest you all to go and have a […]

  11. […] me, GJ-bu is amazing (https://animeviking.wordpress.com/2013/03/06/gj-bu-is-the-best-anime-of-the-season/). Go read that post. After having seen the finale I cannot utter any more words about it. No, I […]

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  13. […] ended up as one of my favorite anime of all time. How it managed to do so is unbeknownst me. I have tried to explain why, but much like every other relaxing slice of life anime it is nigh impossible since […]

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