Niko's avatar

Niko

  • Joined Jul 6, 2009
  • ?

Good Luck Girl!

Jan 1, 2016

(Note: This is a late entry in the holiday "Secret Santa" rec exchange.  I'm sticking with my usual "pros & cons" style of reviewing, but wanted to say that overall, I enjoyed this series a lot.  Thanks for the recommendation!)

This series is worth watching because... it's a self-described "gag" comedy that delivers on that promise with lots of laughs, but also mixes in a nice dollop of heartfelt "feels" to balance out the wackiness.

The hallmark of a good "gag" comedy in anime tends to be a frenetic, over-the-top, laugh-a-minute sort of pacing, and once the setup gets rolling, Binbougami ga! definitely delivers on that score.  The comedy here has a little something for everyone:  the basic premise of over-the-top personalities clashing in a perpetual stalemate - Momiji can never quite defeat Ichiko's luck to complete her task, but Ichiko also can't get Momiji out of her life - provides a setup for plenty of general laughs,  and then they add in plenty of other comedy favorites -   pratfalls and other physical comedy, quickie sight gags (often including some REALLY clever references to other anime series), and plenty of fourth-wall-breaking.  There's a little something here for everyone, here, so even if one style of humor doesn't work for you, there's always some clever sight gag or over-the-top reaction shot around the next corner to keep you laughing.

But beyond the comedy, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the series has a nice amount of heart to it, as well.  In the first few episodes, my one gripe with the series was how unlikeable Ichiko was - her selfishness and over-the-top lack of compassion for people around her skewed the balance so that I was 100% rooting for Momiji and not really enjoying the clash of wills between them as much as I might have... but as the series continued and they made an effort to introduce a character-growth arc for Ichiko - learning that friendship and having people around her is more important than the things that she gets from her "Luck" - the show won me over to caring about both characters equally, and that only enhanced the comedy, since it's a constant see-saw with no perfect "winner" in their conflict.  The several moments where Ichiko's forced to realize that she's come to care about other people are nicely handled (for the most part) and give a show more substance than "just another gag comedy".

This series is prevented from being truly "great" or "classic" by... the fact that it lacks some polish in a few areas.  One is the production values.  The character designs and animation are serviceable, but not particularly striking.  (I spent the first few episodes feeling like Ichiko's character model, in particular, was just really bland.)   And although I really did GREATLY enjoy both the comedy and "feels" elements of the show, as summarized above, there are also some missteps.  In the "feels" area, the final few episodes of the series actually overplay that hand a bit, letting the "heart" elements get rather maudlin in that final story arc.  It's nice that they took the time to give the show a bit of closure, but it devolves a bit into sad-sack melodrama and loses some of the "bite" that the comedy gave it.

As an adult female viewer, I also was rolling my eyes quite a bit at how heavily the show relied on 'boobie' jokes and general "pervert" humor.  I've been around anime long enough to know that "Ha Ha! Ichiko has Big Tits!" and "Ha Ha! Groping girls is funny!" and other "hilarious" pervert gags like this are part of the nature of the beast in anime, and the show isn't as tasteless or prurient about it as others in the genre, but the sophomoricness of that particular brand of humor WOULD cause me to think twice about recommending this to some other adult anime fans that I discuss anime with, so I felt it was worth noting as a possible downside.

The Bottom Line:  A tremendously funny and enjoyable series with a nice thread of emotional character growth, as long as you're not too bothered by frequent "boobie" and "pervert" gags.

8/10 story
7/10 animation
8/10 sound
7/10 characters
7.5/10 overall

You must be logged in to leave comments. or

There are no comments - leave one to be the first!