This is review number one hundred and thirty six. It’s part of the Winter 2012 lineup. It’s been awhile since I’ve watched an anime from this lineup. I’m just checking some anime off the list. The anime I’ll be reviewing is a six minute episode anime called Gokujo. It’s a twelve episode Comedy/Ecchi anime with an all-female cast. Let’s read on.

Story

The anime is about Aya Akabane and her normal school hanging out with her friends. They hang out at the nurse’s office, the school dorm and they eat lunch together. Being in all-girl’s school though, these girls often do more than harmless fun.

Taking the Pants Off

There’s an interesting tidbit about this anime. It was cancelled during its initial airing. It didn’t air the first episode because of censorship issues and after the second episode, the show was cancelled. The rest of the episodes were then aired on the internet where censorships aren’t an issue. What exactly was the thing that caused some set back? Well, the anime is pretty perverted. I’m guessing it was this:

The first episode was about going commando so I’m guessing it had something to do with this:

Can you censor the ass? I’ve never seen it done. It must’ve been aired in a time kids can see it or whatever. Anyways, try not to stare too much at that ass. This is basically what Gokujo is about. It’s an Ecchi anime set in an all-girls school and there is no male cast. I didn’t really enjoy this anime for various reasons but it’s mostly the elementary humor of the anime. It pulls the comedy strengths from three things. The first one is physical comedy. You heard that right. People hurting each other and seeing people in pain is one of the elements of the show. It’s not really for me. Like I said before, the comedy genre is fickle. The things I find funny may not be funny for some. That’s the case here. I don’t find it funny to see a girl stick an electric toothbrush up another girl’s nose and then seeing the same tool shoved in the other girl’s nose. It’s pretty juvenile and childish.

The second element of the Comedy in this anime is “Toilet Humor”. Basically, gross out comedy that involves farting, poop jokes and other form of childish acts. A child finds it funny and maybe some pretty open people but I don’t really see the charm in seeing so many vagina jokes. Yeah, you heard me right. Vagina jokes. I’ll type that again because I might never get a chance to do it. Vagina jokes. There’s a lot of scenes that involves pulling off panties, shoving things up the hey-hey and simply exposing, as the show calls it, the girl’s rafflesia (the vagina, screw subtlety).

The third is the Ecchi part of the show, the Lesbian jokes. It’s an all-girl cast so there’s a lot of teasing and kissing happening among them. It almost border Yuri in some of the risky scenes of the anime. I’m a fan of boob grabbing but I don’t see a lot here. The Ecchi mostly stems from girl on girl kissing or the “almost about to have sex” kind of situations.

It’s kind of weird because I’m really impartial when reviewing anime but I didn’t really see anything brilliant or worth watching in this anime. I guess the themes of such a low brow humor and its brash comedy reminds me of 90s comedy where toilet humor was standard.

The characters also turn me off a bit. They’re girls but they’re not refined girls. Can you imagine the type of girls involved in an anime where the main charm is physical comedy and vagina jokes? They’re brute and pretty brash. I guess you can appreciate the unbecoming personalities of the girls and the lack of moe in the anime is something worth noting. They just don’t appeal to me. The loud type girls who prefers sitting with their legs open. I guess I’m already brainwashed by moe. Anyways, there is a limited cast and there are only nine characters in the anime. They’re all generic and not everyone is utilized for the comedy. Mostly two or three of the characters do the comedic acts. The other two characters harasses the main character and the other two character doesn’t really do much.

The anime does grow on you so if you’re a fan of vagina jokes then you might enjoy this anime. It’s pretty outdated though and the more I watch it, the more I’m reminded of 90s anime with god awful comedic content.

Sight and Sound

If the characters just sits still then you can appreciate their Shoujo charm and you can see just how beautiful they are. They have pretty faces, nice clean looks and some sexy curves to them. They anime don’t utilize that though and bring out a more comedic look to the characters. They usually have funny faces, heavy outlines to them that make them more Shounen than Shoujo and their energetic personalities comes off as a bit childish. It makes sense because the anime is Comedy but it does turn me off a bit.

The animation is obviously low budget. The characters often lose details when the characters move around. There is a lot of movement in the anime though and there is enough to deliver the comedy. There are also some nice scenes where windows shatter and stuff like that. Despite some short cut in some of the animation, there is enough to keep you watching.

The anime’s OP is “Gokujo Joking?” by Youko Hisaka, Maaya Uchida, Ayana Taketatsu and Satomi Akesaka. These are the seiyuus that voices some of the girls in the anime. These are also pretty big names for a short anime, huh? It’s a short song but the girls’ voice does nicely sound together. The OP sequence features the entire cast and some stuff toys with genitals. Yeah, that’s fun.

The anime’s ED song is “Extreme Woman Overdrive” by Hisaka, Uchida, Taketatsu and Akesaka. The same girls that did the OP. It’s the same as the OP, to be honest. The singers’ voice sounds nice and the sequence features the girls in still poses. Nothing complicated.

Overall Score

3/10 “Vagina Jokes and Lesbian Comedy.”

This is my personal thoughts on the anime but I do try to be as impartial as I can. The jokes are too old school to appreciate but the anime did a lot in the span of six minutes. If you like physical comedy with some sprinkle of Ecchi and Yuri then this anime may appeal to you.