Gokujo.: Gokurakuin Joshikou Ryou Monogatari

Gokujo: Gokurakuin Joshikou Ryou Monogatari is a 2012 LMD anime based off of a Miyazaki Maya manga. I don't know the studio or the mangaka. Hopefully it'll be a good first impression.

Story:

Akabane Aya wants to be as popular as popular can be. She wants to rule over the all girls' school she attends. Unfortunately for her, she's a silly nitwit and her efforts seem to result in her embarrassing herself. Fortunately for her, there are multiple girls at the school who do have an interest in her. A very yuri-fueled interest.

So, what the series gives us is a dozen short episodes where ... Aya gets into something absurd and shenanigans ensue. The humour is pretty crude and, ultimately, kind of dumb. There's an entire segment with an electric toothbrush going up noses. And a lot of the comedy does employee pretty heavy fan-service and there are definitely gags where they cross the line from risqué to tasteless.

With that being said, it's kind of hilarious at times. The rapid fire nature of the comedy means that they do get to the point fairly quickly and the fan-service never goes too far. A lot of the visual gags do land quite handily in spite of being frequently crude and dumb. In that sense, the shorter episodes actually benefit the series since it does rely on the kind of humour that overstays its welcome quickly.

Characters:

The characterisation is pretty simplistic. Aya is the typical queen bee type of character you see in a lot of High school media but without the success that those characters usually enjoy. Konatsu and Ai are the minions/ friends. Asuka is the quiet and mysterious girl with an affinity for the supernatural. It's all stuff like that. However, the series does take these fairly basic high school tropes and exaggerate them in such a way that it makes them work well for comedic purposes, mostly. There are a few characters who are just the tropes but they still function fine.

Art:

I'm not sure how to feel about the art if I'm being completely honest. On one hand, the fan-service can get to be a bit much. But the fact that it's largely used for comedic purposes rather than titillation actually makes it considerably more tolerable for me. It also does help when there are some strong visual gags in the series.

Sound:

The acting in this is solid. Hikasa Youko, Takamori Natsumi, Sasaki Nozomi, Taketatsu Ayana and the rest deliver good performances and they do actually get to demonstrate some range in spite of voicing relatively shallow comedic characters. The music is pretty good as well. It does sound nice and suit the series well.

Ho-yay:

There is a lot of les-yay in this. Basically every major character in the series has a dynamic with at least one other female character that's a bit homo-erotic. Unfortunately, most of it is played up for laughs.

Areas of Improvement:

1. The whole idea of subverting character tropes could have definitely been executed better.
2. A little more care could have been employed with the more risqué jokes.
3. The les-yay could have been more genuine and used for much funnier scenes as a result. Just look at Kaorin from Azumanga Daioh or Hotaru in Non Non Biyori.

Final Thoughts:

While this isn't one of the best comedic anime I've seen, I do kind of recommend it. This kind of dumb, crass comedy is at its best when it's in a series like this that has shorter episodes and uses that to its advantage. And the series definitely has enough strong visual gags and absurdity to make it an enjoyable watch. For me, this one is a solid 7/10.

Ok, so how do I rate this thing.....Hummmmmmmmmm, well then, I'd probably say that if one is to look at this anime that one will categorize it as awful, co'z it is, but for me it's only the story that sucks, co'z there ain't one. This anime's genre according to MAL's info is: Comedy, school, ecchi and shounen, however there are 2 more genres that were not inculded like yuri and shoujo, the mentioned shounen genre is a mistake co'z there isn't any boys in this anime. So, for the story I give it a "Poor" number 3, since like I've said there isn't any, ... in fact this anime is more of a crazy everyday slice of life that revolves around Akabane Aya a returning transfer student from Los Angeles USA, with a typical American mean girl attitude and girls that surrounds her.

Art: Good 7.

The rating is for the fanservice that comes with this anime's ecchi genre.

Sound: fair 6.

Don't ask.

Character: Fair 6.

I could have given this part a 3, but then again since the characters did deliver a good laugh it's just fair that a 6 be given.

Enjoyment and overall: Fair 6.

Usually, I'm not a fan of yuri, but this anime is an exception, since what it lacks in story it makes up for its comedy and fanservice, needless to say that this 6 min anime is only for somebody who's just looking for laughs and dosen't mind its short comings.

I'm a woman that likes a bit of fanservice and laughs a lot with dirty jokes. I loved "B-gata H-kei" and "Habanero-tan", I laughed at some jokes in "Golden Boy", but I thought about making a time machine and going back in time to slap me in the face and scream to myself to not watch "Gokujo."

I can't really understand if I was warned or not by other people's opinions. I mean, what do you do when half of a fandom this big loves fanservice and the other half absolutely despises it? The score also wasn't THAT low by MAL's standards, I mean, it's 6,17 ... but it's still a 6... Yes, I actually take the score system seriously when I'm making my lists, even though I know that 98% of the users of this site doesn't knows how to use it or use it to troll other users in a way or another.

It's not even that the jokes are very sexual, it's that they're very bad. You know when you were like 15 and was with a group of friends talking shit about being horny? It's like they made one of these conversations into an anime. It's just as bad as those sex comedies that are aired on late night television and are butchered by review sites. Yes, even though every episode is just 6-minutes long it is THAT bad. The problem is that its short duration was tricky for me. It's only 12~13 episodes and they lasted less than 10 minutes, I thought I could make it but at what cost? By the end of this series I felt like my IQ diminished to -1.

The animation was, of course, below average but still tolerable. The character design is good even though it's very average I guess?

The voice acting was... Interesting. The voices itself were between good and average, but about the acting... I swear the VAs were talking like they were thinking "I'm not being paid enough to do it but I still need my paycheck".

The songs are somewhat catchy but you can listen to them somewhere else and skip the suffering that is the anime itself.

If you want perverted girls doing perverted things just watch "B-gata H-kei" or read "Habanero-tan" instead.