| about
trismugistus.com
and digital-bondage.net
are my web sites.
trismugistus.com
is where I upload my anime, manga and tv&film reviews,
and also where I occasionally post short stories and
longer works I've written.
digital-bondage.net
is my wallpaper site and provides anime, manga and other
desktop wallpapers in a variety of resolutions. I also
have a few tutorials and some resources, such as psds
for you to download.
I also run a site called scan-city.org,
which provides scans from the latest japanese anime
magazines for you to download and use in your wallpapers.
You can also read my blog here
or check out my anime list here. |
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| details |
| The Genre: Fan-service, basically, but with
rom-com and sci-fi elements. |
| The Format: 24 episodes across 6 DVDs from
Geneon [actually two series, but weirdly, s1 is
11 eps and s2 is 13 eps]. |
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| The plot: A boy's reflection appears on the
water's surface in the bathtub. A beautiful girl,
Miharu, wonders about that boy. The name of the
boy in her thoughts is Yukinari Sasaki. He is
a junior at Mizuno High School. Due to a childhood
experience, he has become fearful of girls, and
he continues to get harassed by female students
at school. Returning home tired, Yukinari immediately
goes off to take a bath. There, he finds his childhood
friend, Kirie Kojima, wrapped in a bath towel! |
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| back
to top |
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| opinion
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| Ah, fan-service, what would my DVD collection
be without it?
About a quarter of the size for starters.
If you like fan-service you should get on well
with Girls Bravo. I mean it's not hugely ground-breaking,
and unlike, say, Godannar, it's using the copious
fan-service in a much more traditional way. But
for what it sets out to do, it does a good job.
The series is full of jiggling boobies and nudity,
but has just the right amount of comedy and romantic
elements to make it satisfying.
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This isn't to say it doesn't have a handful
of problems. Girls Bravo is a harem type
show, with our weedy, nerdy protagonist,
Yukinari, ending up surrounded by (and of
course lusted after by) lots of loverly
ladies.
I should perhaps give a better set-up than
what I'm managing here. Yukinari is the
star, but he's wimpy and short, and because
he has been picked on by girls all of his
life, he's developed a girl-phobia. This
means he gets a rash whenever he comes into
contact with a girl.
One day, Yukinari is transported (via a
bath) to Seiren, a land/planet/dimension
where the population is, like, 99% female.
There, Yukinari meets Miharu, who has apparently
been watching Yukinari, via the bath, and
is in love with him. But also, Yukinari
can touch Miharu without breaking out in
hives.
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Back on Earth, there are a whole host of other
characters, such as Yukinari's friend and neighbour,
Kirie, who is rough and violent, but also she's
secretly in love with him (of course). Then there's
Lisa, something of a witch (literally), who has
decided Yukinari is her soul mate. There's also
Kazuharu, Lisa's brother, who has the exact opposite
phobia to Yukinari, getting a rash when he touches
boys.
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There are some more girls too (now there's
a surprise)--Koyomi and Tomoka as notable examples--who
either end up living with, molesting, or falling
in love with Yukinari (or one of the other characters).
In other words, and to get to where I was going,
there are a lot of characters in Girls Bravo.
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The problem then, is that in only 24
episodes we don't get very much development
of many of these character. Now that's okay
for minor characters, but we have a lot
of main characters too, and some of them
end up getting side-lined. I got the distinct
impression that the makers of the anime
were trying desperately to include all of
the manga original's characters, so as not
to disappoint anyone. However, this does
also mean the anime has inherited the manga's
problem of a lack of development.
But the anime is a lot better than the
manga in lots of other regards. Already
being familiar with the manga, I was kinda
reticent about watching this, cos I don't
really think the manga is that good, but
this is.
It feels like I'm rambling around the point
here, but it's because that point is not
a concrete one. The reason it's not concrete
is partly because this failing of a lack
of development and depth is one that could
easily be levelled at this whole genre,
but also, here, it actually represents one
of the series' biggest strengths too.
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In many series of the harem genre, we end up
with too many character traits compressed into
too few characters, which makes things distinctly
muddy. In Girls Bravo we have individual character
traits assigned specifically to individual characters.
Now this can make them seem a little stereotypical,
but it also helps to mitigate the effects of the
lack of development.
The characters aren't developed because they're
so simple, they don't need to be, if you will.
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Another area of problem/strength is in the
type of comedy. Those familiar with the harem
and ecchii genres will be used to seeing the same
basic gag--hero gets into some 'situation' with
one of the girls and receives a severe beating
(in this case from Kirie)--being repeated over
and over again.
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Well, whilst this does happen quite a
bit, there are other gags too. In other
words, we have predictable and repeated
gags, but each one isn't repeated too much.
So what else is there to say?
Animation quality is excellent throughout,
sound is good; and even the dub is passable.
Whilst we have lots of squeaky characters
in the Japanese, the mistake of making the
Western actors pretend to be squeaky is
mostly avoided.
There are a reasonable numbers of DVD extras,
although many are in the form of things
like pencil boards (a weird extra if ever
there was one); however, the best thing
is the disk count. There are just six of
them for the 24 episodes, which is reasonable
value for money in anyone's book, and very
good by Geneon standards.
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So to summarise, if you like or don't mind
fan-service, and fancy something with some genuinely
funny, if predictable, comedy and some light romance,
then you should enjoy Girls Bravo.
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| back
to top |
|
| summary |
| The Summary: Pretty much does exactly what
it says on the tin, and does it with enough gusto
and commitment to make a good job of it. |
| The Score: 4/5 |
| The Pictures:
(click for larger versions) |
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