What They Say:
In a very old building within the grounds of a high school, there exists a club shrouded in obscurity. Kyoya Shinomiya is coerced into joining this club, known as GJ-bu (Good Job). Here he meets . . . Based on the popular Japanese light novel, this anime series depicts the nonchalant interactions of Kyoya and the unique female characters in scenes you are sure to enjoy.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Base on the light novel series by shin Araki and Aruya, which began in 2010 and had nine volumes in its first series and has four in the second run that’s going, GJ Club is a twelve episode series animated by Dogakobo that’s airing on NTV. With the series name standing for Good Job Club, it’s a pretty familiar work that makes out with some very good looking character designs and animation, though it is largely a show about character sitting around talking about various things across several different scenes per episode. It’s easy to rattle off a few shows off the top of your head that are the same kind of thing, but each of them have their own charms.
The series revolves around a group of high school students where there’s an existing club known as the Good Job Club. They have a pretty elaborate and well detailed club room that seemingly nobody really knows about and a club that doesn’t seem to do a heck of a lot. But within it we get the four main girls named Mao, Megumi, Shion and Kirara. Mao and Megumi are sisters, though Mao is older yet looks like a middle school student because of her height and general attitude. The two also come from a fairly wealthy family so there’s some nods towards that throughout the series as well, especially when their maid shows up from time to time in a very relaxed and calm manner. Beyond them, we get the very worldly and smart Shion, a fountain of knowledge, and Kirara, the blonde girl who is very attuned with animals, eats lots of meat (and cartoon looking meat at that) and is a bit more primal in a cute way.
The group doesn’t change hugely when it brings in a new member in the form of its first guy, Kyoya. Kyoya is your average good kid who has a decent knowledge of things, is at ease with all the girls and is generally a fun guy to be with while not being overblown or annoying. Call him bland if you want, and he is in some ways, but there’s a general real world kind of quality to him in that he is a good guy. His interactions with the girls upon joining the club for the first few episodes is just to get to know them and their personalities. Each of them is distinct enough in their stereotypes and definitely fun in a lighthearted kind of way. You can see the obvious push with the writers to bring us to liking the pairing of him and Mao, who is often just referred to as president more than anything else, but you can easily see him with Shion as well based on the way the two of them act together.
The series is set up so that while there are themes at a time for an episode, a lot of it is just smaller scenes that go on for a few minutes or half the episode but without any larger meanings to it. The early exploration of the characters shows us what they’re into, such as how good Shion is at chess and Mao’s utter distaste for manga that involved kissing. Her nature with that is comical since it means she refuses to read shoujo books and is focused mostly on shonen and light novels. Kyoya has a good little bit of prodding to see just how far the distaste goes and seeing what her limits are definitely leaves you grinning over it. Especially since there are enough shonen series where there is some minor forms of kissing going on. Seeing this with Mao definitely clues you in to her mindset in a good way though and it explains a lot.
While the show is pretty empty in a way, it is fun watching this group interact, which is mostly within the clubroom itself. There are some minor times spent outside, including a bit during the sixth episode where Kyoya goes to a family restaurant as Mao’s guardian since she needs that in order to be able to go. It’s cute seeing the two of them outside of the school clubroom and how there’s a different dynamic to it. Things like this also lets us see Kyoya’s younger sister, Kasumi, who has a certain affection for her older brother and wants to be the one to make sure he’s raised to be a proper young man. The family dynamic is cute and we see echoes of that with the other family characters, such as the two main sisters and the first hint of Kirara’s sister that shows up towards the end of this batch of episodes here.
In Summary:
GJ Club is something that is admittedly pretty light and forgettable overall. It’s not exactly damning it in saying that, but the show is the kind of light and fun show where you enjoy the interactions of the cast but can’t help but to feel that there’s not much in the way of substance. Which is something that you want sometimes since not everything has to be full of meaning and weight. The nature of this show in mind, there’s plenty to like here as the characters are engaging without being incredibly over-cliched, the character designs and costume designs are very solid and the animation has a good flow to it with the color design. I like the show and enjoyed the first half of the season experience, but I also know that it’s a show that won’t leave a lasting impact once it’s done and over with.
Grade: B-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
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