Senryu Girl

AustinDR Jun 21, 2019

6.8

For a series that had episodes that were 12 minutes long, it was a pretty fun watch. Story wise, it's a basic story of a shy girl falling in love with a supposed thug because he made her feel like she was more than what she was. And you have a few more characters in the blend. It's nothing grand, but it is fun. The show's animation was good, but not breathtaking. I feel in some ways it fell short, but it also complimented scenes callingfor humor. With characters, we have a plethora of scenes of Eiji and Nanako together and they definitely make a cute couple. What with their mannerisms and adorkable personalities. Their moments are so sweet, it's sickeningly so.  However, because the episodes run for 12 minutes, it does keep from genuinely getting wrapped around other characters who had the potential to be great, but were otherwise limited due to run time.  The opening and ending themes were great at the very least. It bodes well with the premise.  While cheesy in some ways, it is a harmless watch that'll surely give you the warm fuzzies.

LilyLone91 Apr 15, 2020

7.5

I really wanted to like this anime and I did for an extent. I was even planning to read the manga but after watching the series I'm not sure about that anymore. It left me a bit cold...  ANIMATION and SOUND are definitely best about this series. Very high quality. The music is pretty good though I have heard better. The CHARACTERS are beautifully designed and they have intriguing personalities, especially Senryu Girl herself and Canvas Girl. I even find the fortune-teller quite cool though I'm not really sure about her purpose. She feels like a "filling" compared to other characters that blend in purposefully. I mainly took some points off from the characters because I cannot support promotion of unhealthy body image, mainly dieting when you are already slim and men encouraging an unrealistic standard of big boobs in a tiny figure. I'm not the biggest fan of shounen because of perversion towards female figure also present in this one. Maybe if they had created this as shoujo I would have loved it more.   The STORY left me cold because it simply isn't memorable. I gave some props to the story due to the creativity of Senryu Girl and Canvas Girl and the wonderful idea of the poetry workshop. However, after finishing the series in two nights I'm terrified because I cannot remember much of the events or highlights because the episodes are only 12 minutes. The idea is way better than execution. I like the upbeat, light-hearted, optimistic appeal of the series because romance more often than not is heartbreak on anime. Also the humour is quite hilarious on this one. But something is missing, whatever it is... More meat on the bones though the characters had some brief moments of depth or inner contemplation. 

krofire Jan 22, 2023

7

There is some degree of novelty to Studio Connect’s 2019 afterschool club romcom – principal character Nanako Yukishiro seems unable to speak so can only communicate by writing a form of Japanese short poetry called “senryu”. (The format is three lines consisting of roughly 17 syllables very similar to haiku yet intended to be more humorous.)  Yet a story featuring a very shy girl who can’t communicate properly seems common currency in anime these days. The actual novelty is not Nanako’s character at all, it is in the boy she loves Eiji Busujima. He has reputation as a delinquent but turns up one day at a senryu workshop having decided to turn over a new leaf. His clumsy attempts at writing senryu and his obvious soft heart endears him to the girl. The fact that Eiji so very quickly “gets” Nanako is why she loves him. Their obvious chemistry appeals to a girl who has so struggled to communicate with her peers. Together they join their school’s Literature Club and fall under the tutelage of Club President Amane Katagiri. Her attempts to develop their poetry writing skills and promote their budding romance is a major driving force in the story. The romantic elements are somewhat generic but still fun. Nanako can barely disguise her feelings for Eiji yet the boy seems too stupid to comprehend the next step despite the fact that he clearly likes her as well. The show is helped along by its colourful side characters including Kino Yakobe (a girl who can only communicate by drawing pictures), Koto Ohtsuki (an older girl who acts as Eiji’s older sister and endlessly teases him), and Tao Hanakai (high school fortune teller). The show is pretty slim with only twelve 12-minute episodes yet it is quite a lot of fun. Of course, the audience is left wondering exactly how Nanako can really communicate through written poetry. The anime portrays it as if she is speaking – neatly skipping past the fact that she has to physically write it down first for others to read it. In reality this would make actual communications quite stilted and difficult for the audience. There is no compromising with this difficulty yet we are all cognitive of the fact that this would be pretty hard in reality. How would her peers really behave under these circumstances? This anime, adapted from the manga series written and illustrated by Masakuni Igarashi, is a quick and easy watch. We enjoyed its romcom elements although the poetry seems to be lacking. There seems to be no art in it. It merely acts as form of constraint upon one of the characters who then seems unconstrained by it. If we didn’t know the story setup we would assume this was just normal conversation. In essence, this story element (which is pretty core to the tale) seems to barely feature as a plot fixture. This renders the show as just a funny romcom about an uncouth delinquent and the shy girl who loves him. As such it actually works really well, if unintentionally so. It may not have been what its creator intended but it is still enjoyable. A recommended short romantic comedy.