Denki-Gai - Reviews

Welcome to The Electric Town's Bookstore, a truly magical place and a wonderland for all otaku or a just any anime/manga/novel/video game/whatever fan. And us, the chosen ones, get a sneak peak at the first floor (sometimes also the 7th) of this 7 story building. Be warned thou, Sommelier-San could force you to read some weird thing that trigger your inner fetish. 

Story:

The story of Denki-Gai focuses on its 7 employees.

From left to right: Kantoku; Fu Girl; Hio-tan; Sommelier; Sensei; Umio; Kameko

Throughout all of the 12 episodes there is very little story involved, as we generally just follow the everyday lives of the 7 co-workers experiencing what’s it like to work in a bookstore on the dark side of the moon. But the story is also at the same time very important as it pushes characters forward and reveals their quirkiness full load. The stories main emphasis is on the personal relationships of the main team. We have 2 couples and a sort of love triangle…square…doesn't matter. Traveling to conventions, working hard to create the best display shelf ever and off course drinking is all part of story here. A lot of time and effort is also used to show the story of Senpai (she is a newbie manga artist), her creative struggles and incredible low amounts of femininity. There is definitely nothing special about the story, but it still provides premise and opportunities for some great jokes/gags.

Animation:

This show is very far from being something one could call eye candy. Personally, I really liked the character models; all of them were unique and very fitting to their characteristic role. I also loved the way the zombies looked, they were hilarious. The thing that disappoints me a bit is the level of detail, especially within the shop itself, sharper edges and more background details could have helped and even provided more comedy material. But what we have is pleasant for the eye and fits the dark humor of the show.

Sound:

I must say, the opening song "Kajirikake no Ringo" caught me off guard. I found myself listening to this song over and over again, it's so simple and yet somehow addictive… I guess this is what you call love from the first "tune". Otherwise the soundtrack is pretty blank and uninspiring, something you would expect form a comedy/gag style anime… But, "Hats off to" all the seiyū. The voice acting is really top notch and contributes to the overall greatness of the show. The way voice actors fit the characters is really something to be amazed.

Characters:

 

This is where the show shines... Each member of the main cast has a distinctive personality, traits... and fetishes. I'm sure you will love Fu Girl, she is zombie freak, always carrying a baseball bat with her, just in case a zombie apocalypse happens. Her interactions with Sommelier and Umio are a LOT of fun to watch. Then you have Sensei, her messy life style and constant struggles to have more "girl power forces all the girls in the group to help her be more "lady-like". Sommelier is a GOD and there is nothing much to add, as he speaks very little, but his presence is divine. The director is a boob philanthropist and Umio is just your typical Otaku 3000. The side characters are also amazing, especially G-men (a government manga inspector), her relationship with Sommelier was heartwarming and hilarious at the same time.

The down side is that there could have been more development on Kameko and Fu Girl, because they seem to be a bit below average compared to other members of the crew. More back-stories would have been appreciated as well, but this of course strongly depends on the original material.

Conclusion/Enjoyment:

I must say, knocking on the door of this bookstore I wasn't hoping to find such an energetic and exciting bunch of people and the 12 episodes just flew by like summer breeze... Leaving the bookstore, I did not expect to see something like what was shown in the last 4 minutes of the final episode :D Nonetheless the great impression stays and I am glad to give this show a nice 9 on enjoyment.

Note: When star-rating shows on AP, I always give them my "enjoyment" score(I'm so nice), but on my reviews you will always find the true technical score.

as big fan of this series i love what they done with this arc.
they delete all comedy content from the manga and make minor changes, and what we see now is masterpiece.

Sounds
the ost in this anime is Fire ,and this arc no doubt is fantastic I LOVE IT.
10/10

art
this anime is always known of wonderful animation back days, this arc is worth the wait
this gorgeous animation is in next level.
10/10

characters
at this point we all know all the old characters and how great they are.
for the new enmy so far they only 5 eps we can't talk too much here.
but for what we see is well done characters.
10/10

story
with 4 to 6 chapters adapt per episode and what we see until now make the story phenomenal.
10/10

overall 10/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 10

Shin-Ei Animation’s 2014 otaku-culture-fest may tick a lot of boxes for manga store fans but its zany antics fail to impress. The action focuses on the lives of seven employees at the Umanohone Bookstore (abbreviated to just “Uma” and meaning “the horse’s bone” – a tongue-in-cheek-reference to real-world doujin shop Comic Toranoana – “the tiger’s lair”). It is a fairly obvious setup for a self-referential manga. Why not read manga about people who read manga then watch an anime based upon that manga? It sounds like it could be a lot of fun and the young shelf-stackers are your typical slice-of-life stereotypes: we have the manga guru, the innocent newbie, the shy girl obsessed by zombies, the amateur manga author/artist and so on. When the manga artist needs help they all muck-in to form in impromptu doujin-circle. Like that is normal huh? Then they all troop off to Comiket. This is the first show we have seen where season one has two Christmas episodes and two Valentine’s Day episodes. It is so lacking in imagination it has to repeat these significantly over-cliched celebrations to piece together a story. Other than stacking books, talking about girl’s panties and having mad unfulfilled crushes on each other not much else happens. To keep the thing steam-rollering along the anime is filled with over-the-top visual gags such as bashing imagined zombies with a base-ball bat and other such violent-looking action. It thinks of itself as “crazy” and "whacky" in delivery but sadly the humour is way wide of the mark and it mostly fails to deliver any humour. A typical scene has the bookstore clerks getting drunk in a park. We wanted to like this show but it fell pretty flat. The visual humour just isn’t funny so we assume that fans were laughing at the otaku jokes. We weren’t. Dull.

Denki-ga is nowhere revolutionary..but what it does well is keep you laughing with hillarious otaku extreme gags,,,I'll will defintely watch again...it is something light, entertaing, pleasant surprise, Thin Genshiken mixed with Monty Python... 7 out of 10.

I love it! It's very funny but i would like them to have another season like when they fall in love and start to date! It's a very good anime!