Are you an otaku?
What They Say:
Wakaba looks like an elegant rich daughter, but she aspires to be like a trendy “gyaru”. Moeko is a pure, innocent and fairy-tale-like girl. Mao is capricious and behaves in her own way. Nao used to be an athletic type of girl, but has now become a fujoshi who loves boys love.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Though Wakaba’s friends haven’t made too much of an impact with who they are yet, it was fun to see the way she’s really taken by them having not really had friends before. The trio she’s aligned with fall under the usual cute girls with mild silly aspects to them, such as Mao getting excited about gaming with the others and pulling out a card deck to be a part of things. It’s an easy gag to be sure, but their reactio of an “analog” game just had me laughing because it shows the difference in generations in a cute way.
When Wakaba gets involved in it though, things take an even more amusing turn as she talks about the videogame she has, a gal game no less, which embarasses the hell otu of everyone else. Her story of how she got into them is comical since it’s filled with simple misunderstandings and her not realizing the intended audience. Of course, anyone should be able to enjoy any game, but this is pretty much Japan and its putting of things in specific boxes in general. Wakaba also takes things in some awkward directions for Shiba as she asks if she’s an otaku and just gets into a huge laughing fit about it in a really great way. Amusingly, when they start checking out Wakaba’s game, they’re actually a bit interested in it. In general though, the show plays well in letting the girls get to know each other a bit better and that’s certainly fun.
In Summary:
Wakaba*Girl doesn’t break new ground here but it’s starting to feel like we’re getting to know the cast beyond our title character. And that’s definitely a necessity in order to really engage with it and have fun with it as the gags get rolling. Of course, they come mostly at Shiba’s expense here, but Wakaba gets taken down a bit as well as we see her misunderstandings of what a gal game is. The group is certainly proving to be a good mix of silly and sweet with some great wild takes and internal dialogue pieces from Wakaba. The wrapup at the end is definitely hilarious as she gets to experience a really strong game.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
