Joshikausei

This is a collection of three-minutes long vignettes of a certain high school girl’s life. The gimmick is that there are no dialogues, so it’s basically pantomime. The gimmick works. That’s it. 9/10.

No, really. The situations presented are far from mundane, so the plot actually keeps you engaged. The characters express more personality than 90% of the anime casts. There are backstories, twists and deepest lore. The art and music are fine. Fun things are fun. Dixi.

Incidentally, the first episode is about anime thighs. It’s not representative of the content and exists solely as pleb filter (just kidding, it’s actually the opposite - an appeal ... to the degenerate demographic which is like the main group of people that actually buys the BDs in Japan). Anyway, the point is this is not a gravure series, so there is no fuel for the “ironic weeb” act, the only enjoyment will come from the show actually being good.

Some anime this year impressed me. There are also some anime this year that made me wonder if the creators were high on something. Then, there’s Joshikausei.

There’s an old phrase that you’ve probably heard of before: silence is golden. As a short anime without any dialogue, that’s what Joshikausei represents. The manga itself is also silent without dialogues. So now the real question comes, how would this show work? Was the author high when they made this?

Not quite. It’s actually real simple. The show is about high school girls interacting with daily activities. An easy draw of the show is the character chemistry between the ... three main girls – Mayumi, Momoko, and Shibumi. The show explores their lifestyle that reminds what normal people would do. Sometimes, characters are represented with fan service in the case of Momoko. The first episode is a testament of this with the suggestive leg shots plastered all over the place. But an important part is to see the character interactions. Joshikausei explores the limits of language and how characters communicate with their expressions. Their emotive performances combined with music carries the mood of each episode. Writing a series like this isn’t easy. For a manga with over 80 chapters of content, it’s not hard to see why. At the end of the day though, it works out just fine and dandy.

Joshikausei isn’t long and ran the risk of looking like a humorless joke. Embedded into the show is simple slice of life storytelling featuring a trio of girls. Every episode is only 3 minutes so it’s an easy way to pass time. The real question is if this silent anime is a golden treat for you. For me, it’s just so-so.

Ugh, this show... Who thought this was a good idea? :/

One of my favourite short comedy anime is Morita-san wa Mukuchi, where the extremely shy protagonist doesn't speak a word during the whole two seasons and we can only hear her thoughts from time to time. It was a cute gimmick that fueled the lighthearted SoL comedy of that series and made me remember it despite the rather plain "cute girls doing cute things" formula - I'm sure many people would find it boring, but it was well-crafted and relaxing.

Here, the silent cast is not a gimmick. It's a pointless hindrance that adds nothing of ... value to the whole setup - there are obvious places where dialogue takes place, but we don't hear it. The gags are mostly piss-poor and don't utilize the lack of dialogue in any interesting way. Fanservice is weird and obnoxious, with the opening episode (!) missing the mark in a particularly spectacular manner. Characters are boring cliches. Not even the visuals or the ending song are particularly appealing (and that also is very important in making these kinds of shorts memorable).

There's nothing even remotely interesting or memorable here, and the humour doesn't land more often than not. I've seen worse shows, but I'm not sure I ever saw one this pointless - truly a waste of time.