SHOUJO-TACHI WA KOUYA WO MEZASU

DESCRIPTION

CAST

OVA ComedyShoujo-tachi wa Kouya wo Mezasu: Iubeki Monokashira
MANGA ComedyShoujo-tachi wa Kouya wo Mezasu: Tori Naku Uta
MANGA ComedyShoujo-tachi wa Kouya wo Mezasu: Yukidoke no Oto

REVIEWS

• 

  nflstreet

  55/100
  Had the potential to be way better, but got too bogged down by poorly executed drama

  *Rokuhara*

  Shoujo-tachi wa Kouya o Mezasu (Shoujo-tachi for short) is an anime made to promote a visual novel by the same name. The anime is about six high school students forming a group (called Rokuhara) to make a visual novel. This anime's plot shares a lot with the one in Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata (Saekano). This anime isn’t a rip-off of Saekano though, it’s just a different take on a similar plot. There are many roadblocks in the way of the development of their game, many of them that also get in the way of the viewer liking the anime. I'll explain what I mean later, for now, I’ll introduce the characters:

  Buntarou Houjou

  

  Buntarou Houjou (more commonly called Bunta) is the main character of the anime. He ends up being the writer for Rokuhara after Kuroda sees his talents as a scriptwriter for the school’s Drama Club. He often gets writer’s block, but nevertheless is a hard worker.

  Sayuki Kuroda

  

  Sayuki Kuroda is the leader and producer for Rokuhara. Kuroda is the person who comes up with the plan to make a visual novel, recruiting Bunta (who recruits the others to join). She’s quite socially inept, leading her to be overly frank and condescending when she shouldn’t be. Kuroda is into Bishoujo games and is an otaku. She develops feelings for Bunta in the anime as the episodes go on.

  Yuuka Kobayakawa

  

  Yuuka Kobayakawa is Bunta’s childhood friend and the Voice Actress for Rokuhara. She is in the Drama Club and is generally known as a great actress in that circle. She’s very bubbly and the most outgoing of all of Rokuhara. She also expresses feelings for Bunta later in the anime, perhaps noticing the threat of Kuroda or the other girls.

  Teruha Andou

  

  Teruha Andou is the programmer for Rokuhara. She also works part-time at a maid café and helps on her family’s fishing ship. She’s a loud person and often thinks before saying or doing, causing friction between her and others in Rokuhara. She’s open about her obsession with anything BL, which creeps out everybody else in the group at least once.

  Uguisu Yuuki

  

  Uguisu Yuuki is the artist for Rokuhara. She’s one of the top artists on Pixi(v) and is probably the most talented of all of the people in Rokuhara. She’s very shy and has problems speaking up as a result. She has the tendency to overwork herself to the point of becoming sick.

  Atomu Kai

  

  Atomu Kai is the assistant director for Rokuhara and the only other male in the group and is also Bunta's other childhood friend. He has the appearance of a ‘nice guy’, but hates the term because being one has been his downfall with women in the past. He has an intense hate for ‘normies’ which fuels his passion to make a visual novel. He doesn't have a specific talent, so he mostly does busywork.

  As I was saying earlier, Shoujo-tachi is an anime that has a lot of melodramatic points. I'm not going to spoil any of them, but a lot of them were unnecessary in my opinion. Of course, an anime needs to have some conflict to make it interesting, but the way that Shoujo-tachi does it is poorly executed. It also makes some of the supporting characters unlikable in some parts of the anime. It’s difficult to fit the plot of a 20-30 hour long visual novel to a 4 hour long anime, but I think there has to be a better way of doing it. A lot of these plot points come off as ‘forced drama’, as much as I hate to use that term. It’s drama for the sake of it. Most of the drama (especially towards the end) isn't really resolved in a good way either. Guess you'll have to buy the visual novel to have an actual conclusion to it.

  The characters themselves are alright. As I said above, there are some points in the anime that made me slightly dislike characters (at least for a bit). I know that characters shouldn’t be perfect, but the way that these characters are shown to have imperfections is very annoying. A lot of this anime, especially the latter half, is annoying. That being said, I didn't hate any of the characters I do like some of them, like Kuroda. I'm sure there are enough characters for you to find at least one that you like the most.

  Shoujo-tachi wa Kouya o Mezasu isn’t a bad anime, but it isn’t a good one either. I’m sort of mixed on what to think of it since I believe that the anime had a great potential to be better. The anime had too much unnecessary drama in it. Perhaps that drama is better explained and brought out in the visual novel, but it’s just drama for the sake of drama in the anime. It seriously hinders the plot as time goes on. Between this anime and Saekano, I would rather watch Saekano since I like the characters better than the ones in Shoujo-tachi. That being said, this anime isn’t unwatchable, so if you’re into Saekano, I would recommend you this.

  ---

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• 

  HidamariSeashore

  58/100
  It's like Saekano, but more disappointing.

  Well, I guess you should aim for the wasteland when you're creating a big project, like a bishoujo game? I'm sorry.... I just can't come up with a good way to start off this review. After all, this anime is just NOT GOOD. I only picked this up because I wanted to watch a visual novel-based anime this season, and when I read the description, I was expecting another Saekano. Well, what I got was Saekano if Saekano was less interesting.

  Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to my review of "Shoujo-tachi wa Kouya wo Mezasu", known in English as "Girls Beyond the Wasteland".

  Shoujo-tachi wa Kouya wo Mezasu follows Buntarou Hojo, a.k.a. Bunta, who has no idea what he wants to do in the future. One day, he writes a script for the drama club and ends up being approached by a girl named Sayuki Kuroda. Sayuki is aiming to create a bishoujo game, and she wants Bunta to write the story for it. They also recruit other students at their school, like Atomu, Yuuka (Bunta's friends with the latter being talented at acting), Yuuki (an extremely shy girl who is a talented artist), and Andou (an otaku who really wanted to create a yaoi game), and they form the group "Rokuhara". Together, Rokuhara works on the game "24 Hours with Asamori-san" and aims for the wasteland! ....Apparently.

  Now, the story for this anime is dull and cliched. Believe it or not, I don't mind cliches too much, but this anime couldn't help but bug me about it; the story was just so predictable thanks to the cluster of cliches. I honestly don't have a lot to say about the characters, either. All of the characters are either uninteresting or annoying, and I really didn't care about what happened to any of them. If there was one interesting character in this anime, I'd say it's Atomu, but that's only because I found his "dark side" just slightly amusing. Other than that one quality, he's just as boring as everyone else.

  Well, the story and characters may be forgettable, but surely, the animation, voice acting, and opening and ending songs can't be as bad, right? In all seriousness, they aren't as bad, but the animation almost was. It was kind of easy to see that the studio behind this anime, Project No.9, put little thought into the animation. The opening and ending themes, which are respectively "Wasterlanders" by Sayaka Sasaki and "Sekai wa Kyou mo Atarashii" by Haruka Chisuga, Kana Hanazawa, Satomi Sato, and Satomi Akesaka, aren't the best songs ever, but they're doable. The voice acting isn't bad either, considering Kana Hanazawa is voicing one of the main characters (Yuuka), but.... is it just me, or does it sound like they're not having a lot of fun with this one? (That's reasonable, though, considering how this anime turned out.)

  With all of that being said, Shoujo-tachi wa Kouya wo Mezasu was a below average experience and an overall disappointment. Are you looking for an anime where the main characters are creating a game? I'd prefer that you watch "Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata" instead, because at least that one has better animation and characters that are actually better to follow. If you insist on watching Shoujo-tachi wa Kouya wo Mezasu, please don't compare it to Saekano, because you'll find that it's a waste of time in comparison.

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