| Yuru Yuri is notable in terms of its excellent quality by many measures and there is no doubt in my mind that it is a classic. It is a great example of Cute Girls Doing Cute Things (CGDCT). It is a great example of the subset of the Yuri genre where the Yuri aspect is played for laughs as opposed to being a serious Yuri love story. This is sometimes called "Secondary-Element Yuri". And of course it belongs to other genres as well, e.g. Comedy. However, there is another aspect of Yuru Yuri that needs to be pointed out, which is that Yuru Yuri broke important new ground in CGDCT that started a notable trend. You can see this clearly if you look at Classiick's comprehensive list of CGDCT series here: http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=1105581 On that list, CGDCT series go all the way back to 2001. However, Yuru Yuri was the very first CGDCT in which ALL of the characters were cute girls! In every prior CGDCT series, they added some male characters or else adult female characters. I am talking about recurring characters as opposed to just distant background characters. In any case, Yuru Yuri decided to have nothing but cute girls. There was no need for male characters. There was no need for adult female characters. Just cute girls! Following Yuru Yuri, there were other good Only-Cute-Girl CGDCT series. Perhaps some of you prefer a more "balanced" story. Maybe you think that it is good to have a male character around for some kind of dramatic effect, such as the creepy Mr. Kimura in Azumanga Daioh or Konata's creepy father in Lucky Star or the creepy male nurse in A-Channel. Or perhaps you think it is nice to have important adult female characters, such as the club advisors in K-On! and Yuyushiki. Ichigo Mashimaro certainly benefited from Nobue, the creepy 20-year-old older sister (who was not cute, by the way). However, I for one enjoy Only-Cute-Girl CGDCT series. Here is a partial list: 2011 Yuru Yuri / ゆるゆり 2012 Joshiraku / じょしらく 2012 Yuru Yuri♪♪ / (i.e. the 2nd season) 2012 Gokujo / ゴクジョッ。～極楽院女子校寮物語～ / 6 minutes per episode 2013 Joshiraku OVA / 1 episode OVA 2013 Tesagure! Bukatsumono / てさぐれ!部活もの 2014 Tesagure! Bukatsumono Encore / てさぐれ! 部活もの あんこーる 2014 Hentai! / へんたい! / 7 minutes per episode |
okanaganAug 2, 2014 3:10 AM
| its a little bit pushing it with that "Only" part... 1-if there is 1 male or 1 relative will it stop the anime from being CGDCT ?i dont think so.... 2-Cute for who?Nobue maybe not cute for you but she can be cute for me... 3-Yuru Yuri also had a 20-year-old-creepy-sister 4-Dont forget the Crazy Scientist |
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| Hi LonelyWizard. Thanks. You are raising some great points. In retrospect, I will admit that just possibly I have jumped to an incorrect conclusion. (a) Okay, if you think that Nobue Itou in Ichigo Mashimaro (2005) is a cute girl who is doing cute things, then logically that series would be Only-Cute-Girls Cute-Girls-Doing-Cute-Things (OCG-CGDCT). And so Yuru Yuri would not be the first OCG-CGDCT series. (b) But let me try to make my case that Nobue is not cute: --- to me it seems that she is intentionally "drawn uncute" --- a chain smoker --- a heavy drinker So I see Nobue as a purposefully "anti-cute" character who makes the four young girls look cute by contrast. (c) You are absolutely correct to point out the older sisters in Yuru Yuri. I had overlooked them. Akari has her 19-year-old sister Akane. Chinatsu has her 19-year-old sister Tomoko. However, these older sister only appear in Episodes 7 and 11 of Season 2. (based on the Wikipedia episode summaries) So they have very little "screen time". By comparison, Nobue is visible nearly all the time in Ichigo Mashimaro. (e) I don't know what to say about the crazy scientist in Yuru Yuri, Nana Nishigaki (西垣 奈々). (f) Okay, it is good to wonder hypothetically about the presence of just one male relative, for example. My ultimate solution was not to try to come up with a "black- or-white" clear definition of CGDCT. Rather, I have a "percent system" in which a given series is characterized by its percentage content of CGDCT. My own system works this way: --- What percentage of the characters are girls? --- Of these girls, what percentage are cute? --- What percentage of what they do are cute things? Then, multiply the three percentages together. Basically, that's how it works. In practice, a little common sense is needed to handle special cases. So if you have a male character that rarely appears or never says anything, it should hardly affect the final percentage of CGDCT. The key is to avoid falling into "black-and-white" thinking. (g) I think that you have raised valid points, and I will respect the final judgment if a broad consensus emerges among CGDCT fans that Yuru Yuri is not really the first OCG-CGDCT series. (h) However, I think that there is a very interesting pattern where those later OCG-CGDCT series appeared, which are OCG-CGDCT beyond doubt. Have a look at Joshiraku (2012), for example. The cast consists of seven girls, all cute, and they only do cute things. (i) Even if, in the end, Yuru Yuri is not actually a perfect OCG-CGDCT, it seems to me to have been heading in that direction. Yuru Yuri is the harbinger of OCG-CGDCT, at least during Season 1. This out-of-date thread gives more details about my philosophy of how CGDCT should be defined: http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=673057 Also, please be sure to refer to Classiick's CGDCT thread: http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=1105581 |
okanaganAug 13, 2014 11:09 AM
| im not much knowlegdeable in this OCG-CGDCT thing and i didnt know who Nobue Itou was,just google'd her and she didnt seem not-cute to me...Then i read further and i just wanted to point out your restrictiveness...CGDCT system you talk about is easy to recognize but OCG part changes from person to person,the word "only" doesnt work good with the word "cute" because cuteness is subjective no matter how much you look at it... |
LoneWizzyAug 13, 2014 11:32 AM
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