Wasteful Days of High School Girls

AustinDR Aug 10, 2019

5.3

Well, this was something. The series is about three childhood friends - Nozomu Tanaka, Akane Kikuchi, and Shiori Saginomiya respectively - attending the same class at high school. One day, Tanaka decides to give her friends nicknames; for Akane, it's "Ota" becacuse of her being a nerd; for Shiori "Robo" because of her emotionless demeanor. And such, they nickname her "Baka" because she is an idiot. Okay...the show isn't bad per say, but it's also something that I'm not largely fond for. There is no big story, of course at it just revolves around the titular girls' every day high school lives so nothing overall amazing. The show also suffers from repetition. Each episode goes like this: Tanaka tells her friends that she was going to tell them something amazing much to their annoyance; the "amazing fact" is wholly nonsensical; Tanaka does something stupid often at the expense of other characters...rinse and repeat. But I would give that a pass because some of the characters are enjoyable. Scratch that: some are. The animation is average but unimpressive, befitting the series. Voice work is again decent in some areas. My only issue is that the subtitles would often then to go through to quickly for me to read, but that's more of a minor gripe. The opening is very catchy, I'll give it that.  As for characters, it's a mixed bag. Starting with Tanaka. Tanaka is an idiot who does idiotic things and whose seeming only reason to exist is to be an utter nuisance to the other characters. And that is what she is. Tanaka is probably the worst character I have ever had the misfortune of being introduced to. Her voice is annoying; she acts like a total douchebag for no other reason than for amusement; and she never changes for the better. While annoying characters can be funny, here, there is nothing endearing about Tanaka. She is that bad of a character. I don't even begin to fathom why Ota and Robo have anything to do with her. Worse, I feel that one of the reasons as to why this show often varies is because it's being weighed down by Tanaka's presence. There are such things as lovable idiots, but this is not one of them.  Ota is slightly better. She is a level-headed otaku who tries to also be a manga author, and she also is deeply into BL. But that's mostly it. Robo funnily enough is probably one of my favorites of the show thus far but I can't really say why. Maybe it's her stoicness; or that she is some kind of mad scientist who's head is perpetually in the clouds. Or how she tends to be the deadpan snarker of the trio. Whatever the case, she is the best out of them both. As the series continued onward, you get introduced to more characters like Saku "Loli" Monoi who is unfortunately nicknamed that because she looks like a primary school student. Worse, she acts the part as the innocent child unintentionally such as still believing in Santa Claus or that babies were born when the parents to be write to the country's court to grant them one. She also lives with her grandmother of her own volition. It's...really touching. Hits really close to home for me. Or there's Minami "Yamai" Yamamoto, the resident chunnbiyou with delusions of grandeur and royally sucks at her academics. She is also pretty hilarious with how she uses this level of escapism to explain her poor performances in her grades and classwork. Kanade Ninomae is the boyish girl who finds herself unwittingly popular with the ladies and possesses a deep admiration for Robo. Lily Someya is the foreign exchange student and token lesbian of the setting who breaks out in allergic welts whenever she's around men, but somehow, Tanaka has the same effect on her. But my other favorite character of the series has to be Masataka Sawatari, the teacher of the trio of misfits. His funniest moment is when he introduces himself to his students and then bluntly explains that he was into college girls and then goes on a tirade about Japan's legal system. But I swear that I give this guy the upmost of respect. I mean, having to deal with bad students like Tanaka or Minami or all of the shenanigans that happen on a daily basis, and somehow not break down mentally...that takes some balls of steel.  So, with that being said, my final thoughts on the show? The show is not perfect as it has many problems that I feel keep it from being largely enjoyable such as with Tanaka herself, or how the comedy doesn't always hit. The show runs on a formula where you know that if you have X then Y must come afterwards. It can sometimes feel like an obnoxious watch, which is why I can't really recommend it. But the show did remind me of a few school animes like Lucky Star, Azumanga Daioh, among others, so if you like those slice of life shows, then by all means, give this a try.

Reinjy Jul 10, 2020

9

This kind of anime are really good. It's fun and refreshing anime that you can enjoy watching. The opening song are excellent, I like it alot. And I love the characters, it somehow fitted some good serious scenes (like the friendship of the 3 protagonist how they stop having in touch with each other, the love relationship of Momoi and her grandma, Ota and the professor moments at the convention), it gives breath to the characters own doing too outside school life. The trio developed of Kanade, Momoi and Lily are great too. It's at ease to see how Baka was so extraverted and loud, I never get tired of it. And since they're highschoolers who wasn't even focused on studies, it makes them more relatable of course specially with these genres (ex. how Ota stays on her bed wholeday while Baka was bombing their group chats). It's really great, I enjoyed it.

namisalami Nov 30, 2019

10

I'd like to start off my review by thanking my Secret Santa, cosmia, for sending this to me as a suggestion for this holiday season. I've had this show on my want to watch list ever since I heard about it. I can't even say how long it would've been before I watched this, so again, thank you. Story I'll start by going over the story. After going to different middle schools, three childhood friends - Tanaka, Kikuchi, and Saginomiya - reuinte as first years at an all-girls high school. All three of them are excited to spend the next few years together, but Tanaka decides to spice up the start of the year by giving all of their classmates nicknames; Kikuchi becomes "Wota" (since she's perceived as an otaku), Saginomiya becomes "Robo" (due to her emotionless attitude), and Tanaka reluctantly becomes "Baka" (because she's not the brightest). Over the course of the series, Baka, Wota, and Robo meet a variety of other girls and befriend them, including a girl who's convinced she's a half-dragon warrior from another dimension and another girl who's obsessed with occult activities and loves the sight of blood. Many of the later episodes feature girls other than Baka, Wota, and Robo, giving us some insight into their interests, personalities, and how they act with other characters and outside of school. I wasn't sure what I thought of this at first, but I found to be a refreshing change of pace. Animation I don't have a whole lot to say about the animation, but I do have a couple of things I'd like to mention. First off, the expressions characters make when they're experiencing strong emotions are over-the-top and often bring a smile to my face. They certainly convey what the character is feeling in that moment. Second, there are select scenes that I did find especially beautiful, such as in the ninth episode where Loli is trying on a variety of clothes and in the final act of the last episode with the sakura trees in the schoolyard. Lastly, I loved to watch the ending and see all of the references to events that took place in previous episodes. The animators certainly could've done something cliche, but they made the effort to do something cute like that, and I appreciate it. Sound The sound design was also fairly good. A lot of the music throughout the series is pretty cutsie and upbeat, but they do have some ominous music for more intense scenes here and there. I did think the voice acting was very good, though. My favorite lines were always between Baka, Wota, and Robo because Baka would say something absurd, Wota would freak out about it, and Robo would calmly respond to both of them; I did also find scenes with Baka and Loli equally entertaining. Speaking of entertaining, this show is friggin' hilarious. I really didn't know what to expect in terms of comedy when I started this, but I think every episode had me laughing out loud at least once. The lines of the characters and their deliveries seemed all too perfect. If you asked me a week ago how funny an anime about high school girls doing random things inside and outside of school would be, I probably would've said moderately; I hope this gives you a good idea of how much I enjoyed the comedy in this show. Before I get to the characters, I have to talk about the OP; I think I can say that "Wa! Moon! dass! cry!" is already one of my favorite anime OP's, and I only started watching this two days ago. It's got a very unique structure, the lyrics are just as random as the show itself, and the voice actors for Baka, Wota, and Robo sing it. Probably its strongest feature is its chorus; that isn't to say that the verses or prechorus isn't good, but I always seemed to underestimate the chorus when the opening started. Even if this show doesn't sound interesting thus far, give the OP a listen. Characters Finally, easily the best part of the whole show, the characters. Every character seems to have some sort of relationship with one another, and they all seem different enough to keep you engaged in them. While I do really like the supporting characters like Loli and Yamai, it's so clear that the core three (Baka, Wota, and Robo) are the most developed, the most interesting, the most entertaining, and the most realistic. They get mad at each other, they make each other laugh, they lift each other up, they bring each other down. If you have a small group of best friends, I wouldn't be surprised if they act like these three do. However, just as commonxreaction said in his review, you'll either love or hate Baka. When I learned that she was pretty much the main character, I was a bit surprised and disappointed that it wasn't Kikuchi, but I quickly found out why Baka was: she's the glue that holds everyone together. I don't want to fully spoil the ending, but in the last episode, all of the characters come together to help her out. On top of this, she's just one of those people who you love to hate and hate to love. She's probably one of the dumbest, grossest, and most random anime characters I've ever seen, but she certainly stands out, and I think that's why I love her so much. Conclusion That statement can be extended to the anime as a whole as well. Wasteful Days of High School Girls may not seem to stand out much at first, and you may continue to think so even after spending some time with it, but there is an equal chance that you may come to think "Why haven't I watched this sooner? Why haven't I heard of this sooner?" And I think I know why that is: this show is like that one kid that you had in your class. You know the one. The one who sat in the back of the room sleeping, talking to his friends about the most random things, and eating food in the middle of class. Maybe they were examining microorganisms on a petri dish, bragging about how they got a 10 on their last test, or gushing over a random Internet artist that only has a small amount of listeners. You probably didn't talk to them when you were in school, but maybe you'll run into them later in life and find something that you'll never forget.