Karen's Anime Blog

This is one of my favorite shows of the season so far, and it’s about a whole lot of nothing. Okay, not really– conversations count as something— but there really isn’t a plot. It’s just two girls chatting, over snacks.

Wada and Yamamoto are two girls who are unpopular in school. One a teacher’s pet and one a gyaru, they don’t seem to have much in common. However, every day after school, they meet at a food court and talk about everything under the sun. At the beginning of the show, they’ve already met and have been meeting this way for some time; I hope we get a flashback episode where we learn how they met and started teaming up. Both girls seem to favor KFC as their preferred fast food– betcha a certain fried chicken company had a seat on the production committee here.

Both girls are interesting characters for very different reasons. Wada is a mercurial, internet-savvy mobile game addict who likes to play the part of the perfect student, while Yamamoto is a surprisingly calm and analytical young woman whose fashionable appearance seems to clash with her personality. In fact, Yamamoto reminds me of Galko from Please Tell Me Galko-chan!, which anyone who’s seen that show/read the manga knows is quite a compliment.

The direction tries it’s damndest to keep things from getting stagnant, which mostly works; for a twenty-minute conversation, we get a lot of different angles to break up the monotony. Still, none of that storyboarding work would help if the conversation wasn’t interesting, which it is; the two talk about all kinds of topics, from aliens to the nature of internet culture. There’s even one part where they skewer what “a typical girl conversation” sounds like; if you’re just going to say “Really?” and “Amazing!” a lot, do NOT go near Wada, she will not tolerate that nonsense.

There’s one thing I’ve been wondering a long time: this is perhaps the Mona Lisa of the “girls get a snack after school” anime, but it’s pretty common in anime for students to be shown going to a burger place or something after school lets out. If I went and ate a burger and fries (or a full plate of KFC, like Yamamoto often downs), I wouldn’t be able to eat dinner, and my Mom would have words with me. Do these kids just not eat dinner? Are they eating like 3000 calories a day? I guess when you’re animated, you don’t need to worry to much about packing on the pounds. I missed my calling to be an anime character….

If you really want action, this isn’t for you, but then again, you know that– you’re watching Dan Da Dan already. But if you’ve got a tolerance for something a little more chill, this is a great option.

CHIBI SUPREMACY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!