YUYUSHIKI

DESCRIPTION

CAST

SPECIAL ComedyYuyushiki: Nyanyashiki
MANGA ComedyYuyushiki
OVA ComedyYuyushiki OVA: Komarasetari, Komarasaretari

REVIEWS

• 

  Antimony

  85/100
  Thriving off its self-imposed narrow scope, Yuyushiki is one of the most effective and enjoyable entries in its genre.

  The "cute girls doing cute things" subgenre of slice of anime is hardly a formal classification, nor is it one with a firmly set definition, but everyone has a vague idea of what it entails--a seinen featuring a small group of female main characters, usually (but not always) in a high school setting, going about their daily lives, with the entertainment value coming firstly from how cute they are and secondly from situational comedy featuring mild conflicts that are normally resolved over the course of the episode. A lot of viewers, particularly Western anime and manga fans, don't see the appeal in this sort of thing--there are no epic fights, little overarching plot, and little to no drama or suspense. To this type of person, Yuyushiki must be the worst of the worst, as it in many ways takes this format to its logical conclusion--a "cute girls doing cute things" 4-koma adaptation where there are exactly three main characters and four recurring side characters and where the vast majority of both the manga and anime consist exclusively of these characters' mundane daily conversations and interactions, with any "conflict" coming from the characters mildly bothering or annoying one another.

  And that's exactly why I love it.

  While even similar series like K-ON! and Hidamari Sketch add touches of drama, particularly as main characters near their graduation dates, Yuyushiki fully commits itself to showing its audience the joys of banality, to the long stretches of adolescence where we were doing nothing in particular, even eschewing stock high school anime episode premises like the cultural festival or the sports festival. The three main characters--the gentle airhead Yukari, the energetic and mildly perverted Yuzuko, and the no-nonsense Yui--take over the empty Data Processing Club after entering high school. Whatever it was in the previous year, it soon becomes a club about nothing, an empty room with two computers where the girls spend a couple hours each day searching for random stuff on HooYa!, which is definitely not Google or Yahoo, and talking about it. The first episode firmly establishes the tone of the series, as Yuzuko nonchalantly brings up having taken an online quiz about BDSM and forces Yui to take it as well. From here on out, the interactions between the three take a distinctly flirty "yuribait" tone, without veering into either outright yuri romance or ecchi. This extends to one other girl outside their friend group, as well as to Yuzuko and Yukari's interest in their mild-mannered and well-endowed homeroom teacher and club advisor, who they almost always refer to as "Mom"/"Okaa-san".

  That is to say, even if Yuzuko is more than a little gay, they're just friends hanging out and messing around with each other. The humor comes not from wacky situations or dynamic slapstick, but from the characters having fun with and riffing off of each other. To a viewer this can feel like either immersion or voyeurism, but either way it succeeds in feeling authentic, as if these pastel color-haired anime girls are real people and you're getting glimpses into their ordinary lives, thanks to both simple, grounded writing and excellent voice acting, particularly for Yukari (Risa Taneda). Like real friends, they're very often obnoxious and annoying towards each other, with Yuzuko deliberately pushing buttons, Yukari passively tagging along, and Yui snapping back. But they're genuinely close enough that Yui is perfectly willing of putting up with her friends' nonsense--otherwise, why would they be together almost all the time?

  Yuyushiki establishes a very narrow purview and never pushes those self-imposed boundaries. While this might prevent it from being considered among the absolute greats of slice of life anime, it doesn't have to be--by concocting a simple formula and executing it near-flawlessly, with good animation and a generally pleasing aesthetic to boot, it succeeds in being an enjoyable anime greater than the sum of its parts.

  
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• 

  nflstreet

  80/100
  A simple anime that turns the most mundane of situations into hilarious bits

  What’s the ‘gayest thing’ you’ve ever seen? Something gayer than ‘gay porn’, which might seem gay at first, but is actually quite straight when it comes to the spectrum of gayness (in my theory anyway). In the realm of anime, one might say yuri anime like Citrus, Sakura Trick, and Bloom Into You. These answers are getting very warm, and are very gay indeed, but are still wrong. I’m prepared to state that Yuyushiki, an anime that isn’t a shoujo-ai anime like the three listed above, is the gayest thing I’ve ever seen. It isn’t what makes Yuyushiki a good anime (in my opinion), but its ‘gayness’ along with its comedic routines have made it a favorite for several ‘gay friends’ of mine. Yuyushiki is a hilarious and grossly underrated anime.

  Yuyushiki revolves around the lives of the three main characters: Yuzuko, Yui, and Yukari. Unlike 99% of anime, the main characters have been friends for several years at the starting point, with the only change being that they’re now in high school, which allows us to skip the ‘becoming friends’ phase (with that being said, there are some flashback scenes with how they met and became friends later on). They decide to join the Data Processing Club, a club dedicated to the ‘researching and collecting of information from the internet’. Basically, they decide on a theme, Google (or “HooYa” in this case) it, and then write a summary of what they’ve learned on the whiteboard inside their small club room. That is, if they don’t decide to riff and do bits with each other instead. Their advisor, referred to as ‘Okaa-san’, is lenient on them, which allows them to get away with not taking the Data Processing Club that seriously. Other characters include Aikawa, Kei, and Fumi, who are a fellow friend group within the same class that occasionally interact with the main three (Aikawa mainly).

  Yui is the closest thing we have to a ‘main character’, mainly due to her being the tsukkomi to Yuzuko and Yukari’s boke. She’s often the target of Yuzuko and Yukari due to her straightforwardness. Yuzuko is what I like to call ‘The Genius Dumbass’. She often is the instigator of whatever they’re talking about, and is quick to make situations weird for her (and Yukari’s) enjoyment. While Yuzuko is ‘The Genius Dumbass’ due to her making great grades, Yukari is just ‘The Dumbass’ due to her absentmindedness. While she also jumps in on teasing Yui most of the time, she’s the most wholesome one of the three by a mile.

  What makes Yuyushiki so enjoyable to watch is that it’s genuinely a funny show. Yui, Yuzuko, and Yukari all have great chemistry. It’s not my wheelhouse to explain how or why they do, so just trust me when I say they do. They remind me of back when I was in high school, talking to my friends in class and such, albeit our conversations were a lot cruder and probably less funny. Out of all the ‘cute girls doing cute things’ shows I’ve watched, Yuyushiki is the most ‘These girls should have a podcast’ type out of all of them.

  Trying to write a review for an anime like Yuyushiki is difficult to do, mostly because there isn’t much to critique. There is no plot to Yuyushiki, the progression of time only has an effect on whether they go to the beach or hang out on New Years Day, and no new characters are introduced after Aikawa and her friend group are early in the anime. While a year and a quarter does pass in the anime, there isn’t a ‘K-On! Dilemma’ going on, with them having to backload the majority of episodes during their third year so they don’t run out the clock so quickly. Technically, the show could never end, due to its plotless nature. It could work like Yuru Yuri, where the school year never changes. I haven’t had the pleasure to read the Yuyushiki 4koma, but I can’t imagine the girls graduating being a huge issue until it becomes time to end the series.

  Watching this anime made me think about ways of categorizing ‘cute girls doing cute things’ anime. While this is a CGDCT (not typing out the whole thing each time) anime, it isn’t a ‘healing anime’ by any means. Yuyushiki is way too chaotic to be one. CGDCT anime like Yuru Camp and Non Non Biyori occupy that spot. An example of a CGDCT anime that would be even more chaotic would be something like Asobi Asobase. If ‘Healing’ and ‘Chaotic’ are the left-right axis on the CGDCT anime chart, then ‘Gay’ and ‘“Just Friends”’ are the top-down axis. As I said earlier, Yuyushiki is a very 'gay' anime, so of course it would be included on the ‘Gay’ side. The top-down axis would be a little more disputed, since there are people who classify any CGDCT anime as ‘gay’, due to external reasons. I don’t care about whether an anime is ‘gay’ or not, but it would be dishonest to assume that every CGDCT anime is ‘gay’. A ‘“Just Friends”’ example would be Chuuibyou or Oreshura, both of which are horrendously straight. This way of categorizing CGDCT anime is still only theoretical, since this is the first time I’ve written or even expanded the idea. I’ll have to get back to anyone who cares later about this at a later date.

  At the end of the day, Yuyushiki is a simple yet hilarious anime about the various hijinks and goofs that the three main girls (mainly Yuzuko) get into. As you can expect, it’s hard to write a review on an anime on this since the way you would rate this is different from anything else. The only thing a CGDCT anime has to do is to leave you feeling better about yourself. In that aspect, Yuyushiki knocks it out of the park, due to its fast-paced humor and refreshingly loveable characters. Even the jokes that revolve around breasts get a laugh (compared to a sigh and/or groan when poorly executed (and mostly for eye candy) in other anime). Even if you’re homophobic, you would most likely enjoy this anime. Yuyushiki is criminally underappreciated in the wider CGDCT market. I can only guess this is due to the relatively dull art style that Yuyushiki has, the fact that there are so many other CGDCT anime out there, and the fact that CGDCT anime are only a small and niche sector of the wider anime industry (K-On!, the most popular CGDCT anime, is only the 102nd most popular anime on AniList, believe it or not). The Yuyushiki 4koma is still running, and the series has a small, but dedicated, fanbase. By all means, watch Yuyushiki. It’s a hoot and a holler, as they say.

  ---

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• 

  perrydimes

  80/100
  An underrated slice of life and the quintessential experience of messing around with your friends

  What a delightful little show! I love the colors, the character designs are super cute, the music is fun, and the show looks really, really good. There are times when over the top animation is used for comedic effect and it works really well, but most of the time the show still looks really good. I had never heard of this show before either, and probably would have never checked it out if it were not suggested to me, so I'm happy about that.

  I would say I have two problems with this show, and they both sound pretty major, but they're really not. The first is that the humor didn't always click with me. A lot of it is non sequiturs and Japanese puns, so that's to be expected. This show captures more than anything else I've ever seen the feeling of a "you had to be there" joke, for better or for worse. The second is I didn't really get the personalities of Yukari and Yuzuko at first. It felt like there was an imbalance with the two wacky ones and one straight man, especially since they were kind of serving the same role in the group. Over time I got used to them and what made them different, but I feel like the side characters could have been used more. Whenever they do appear, it's always a great time, because they're often just as wacky as the two Yus but in their own unique ways.

  But neither of those issues I have are really that major, because like I said, this show is the quintessential experience of fucking around with your friends, and that's pretty priceless. Over time the characters really started to grow on me, and by the end I was laughing a lot. I don't know how I didn't notice this before, but a few episodes in I noticed this show actually has the characters whole-heartedly laugh at the end of most gags. Whereas a lot of absurd comedy anime (especially rapid fire 4 koma adaptations like this) will just cut from a deadpan punchline to an exasperated reaction or just the next joke, in this show there's almost always one character laughing over the punchline (usually Yukari, rarely Yuzuko, almost never Yuichi) and the laughs always sound really genuine. It's a little detail but it makes the whole show come together and I don't think any other show does it quite like this. If I'm bored I might make a Yuyushiki giggle compilation cause this was honestly what sold most of the jokes to me. I also love the OP, it is the absolute peak of hyper saccharine Jpop and it has been stuck in my head for about 30 days continuously. An OP sung by the cast is always great, but I especially love the contrast between the goof's angelic voices and Yuichi's unquavering earnestness. There's also a really nice OST which is apparently Yui's theme, the whole OST has this off kilter vibe that kind of reminds me of Azumanga Daioh.

  Ultimately, this is an extremely underrated show and any fan of slice of life should check it out. It's one of the consistently best looking shows in the genre in my opinion, and despite not being that different from a lot of other shows on its face, it has a distinct personality and vibe that is worth experiencing. It's also basically exactly what I was looking for in terms of this kind of show.

  Sidenote: I went deep into this rabbit hole trying to figure out how to read the manga (it's untranslated past the show but it's ongoing) and I found out that there's a freaking fantasy RPG mobile game crossover game in Japan called Kirara Fantasia featuring 4-koma moe characters from Manga Time Kirara. So if you want to see mage Yuzuko do a special move against the gang from K-On or Yuru Camp look up some vids on Youtube, lol.

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