Yukinari Sasaki is a lonely young boy. Hes small for his age called puny and teased by most people he knows and t make matters worse he lives alone in a large empty house. Hes always been considered something of a joke to the opposite sex as girls are the ones whove done most of the teasing and the only woman whos ever kind of liked him is the girl next door the tall busty brunette beauty whos built their bond on busting his balls for bumbling in on her bathing in the buff Kirie Kojima. If that wasnt bad enough his regrettable rapport with the fairer sex has resulted in him developing a previously unknown medical condition Whenever hes touched by a girl whether its a violent punch or a tender embrace or anything inbetween he breaks out in hives. He is quite literally allergic to girls and theres nothing he can do about it. Rather than transfer to an all boys school or hole himself up in his house and n ever come out hes instead elected to go through life without complaint dragging his feet though his own little world of depression and dejection. That is until hes quite literally beaten out of that world. One day when hes unfortunate enough to come home and catch Kirie naked in the process of preparing to take a shower his naughty neighbor turns nasty delivering a powerful blow that propels him through a magical portal in the bathtub which connects him to a strange world that I guess is supposed to be the beyond portion of Bed Bath and Beyond. He winds up in the tub of a pinkhaired airhead who through some miracle doesnt trigger his allergies. It turns out theyre on a planet in another dimension called Seyren where women outnumber men at a whopping 91 ratio. After escaping the threat of rape from the general community Yukinari is helped back through the portal by this strange girl who magically goes through with him As it turns out dimensional travel is going to be the least of his problems when his liaison with this looney loveinterest is going to turn his world upside down one unpredictable mishap at a time. AIC Spirits is a production company Ive somehow never mentioned before even though they did some of the work on Petite Princess Yucie in collaboration with Studio Gainax. Theyre extremely hitormiss and while I have seen quite a few impressive projects from them the overwhelming majority of it is cheap badly managed and with excuses of Its dated dwindling through the years. They did almost the entire Tenchi lineup if that gives you some idea of what were working with. If I had to put a pin in what kind of company they are or some kind of defining thread throughout their work And keep in mind this is an extreme generalization based on what little of their work Ive seen They tend to put more money into a project if its not something thats going to be a guaranteed success. Popular namebrand shows and shows with excessive fanservice and nudity often get the shaft while more outofleftfield titles like Bamboo Blade Now and Then Here and There and Humanity has Declined get much more attention paid to them. Which side of the scale does Girls Bravo fall on? Go ahead and guess. I wouldnt necessarily call Girls Bravo an ugly show but if it had a good personality to speak of Id try distracting you towards that. It doesnt always look bad but it never really looks good either. The characters seem to be drawn to type with the same basic characteristics youve come to expect from the harem genre only exaggerated and overthetop almost like parodied caricatures of the classic tropes. Theres an obvious lean towards moe with almost all the female characters sporting giant boobs and even bigger eyes which take up more than half of their round cartoony faces. Theres something distinctly unattractive about the way everyones drawn and while I cant quite put my finger on it but I havent come had this problem so badly since Ookamisan. There isnt a hint of inspiration in anyones design and the similarities that Miharu bears to certain other magical girlfriend characters is way too distracting. Even the loli characters little mascot alien pet which would normally serve as a mascot in other shows looks generic as hell here. There are some moments that I guess were animated okay as short bursts of inspiration are really the best thing about this title but well get to that later. I also really cant say its poorly directed as outside of certain fanservice scenes it at least knows basic things like what to focus on and how to frame a shot. When its doing something weird and dare I say at times even interesting its not too bad looking. Its almost like No Ill save that for later. The fluidity of movement isnt terrible but it hits jarring low points whenever theres something else happening in the episode to compensate for like CG water or a fast paced action comedy scene or whathaveyou. The nudity isnt always forced as it often happens when characters are bathing or changing but its still very clearly designed to be sexually appealing to the viewer which it fails at to a stunning degree. Not only does the sheer amount of it cause a dulling effect creeping farther and farther into sensory overload but it looks like crap with the female characters breasts often looking sloppily drawn with poorly placed nipples. As far as ecchi titles go its pretty pathetic in its delivery. The music is surprisingly enough really really good. A lot of it is your standard upbeat background fare that loops while fading into the background but even those tunes are inexplicably pleasant to listen to upbeat and ear=wormy but with a touch of class that you wont find anywhere else in this series. Some of the cringiest moments in the series have beautiful inspired tracks to accompany them such as the Tito Puenteesque romantic struggle ballad that plays when Miharu is fellating an entire shops worth of bananas. You wouldnt believe how many of these tunes I wound up dancing to when I heard them out of context for the sake of this review. They range from funky SouthAmerican style orchestrations to more relaxing Japanese style tracks to fucking classy shit with violins. Its a shame to hear such great music being wasted on such a trite series but if that bothers you dont worry the opening actually kind of sucks. Its generic as all hell both in terms of visuals and sound and it doesnt even remotely compare to the rest of Noriyasu Agematsus work on the project including the cute bubbly headbopper of an ending theme. The english dub isnt quite as good as the music but its still better than it really needed to be. Michelle Ruff takes her role as Miharu to heart and heres another example of why I consider her to be the greatest female voice actor of all time She actually succeeds in making Miharu likeable. This is not an easy thing to do as Miharu is only a few steps above being classified as a child with big boobs one of the most unfortunate tropes in anime history but Ruff just makes her sound so damn charming with her airheaded but well meaning approach. Another standout is the legendary Liam OBrien in the role of series antagonist and gropey blonde fop Fukuyama quite possibly one of the ickiest and least likeable characters in anime history but lordy does he just go to town with it. He plays the character like hes James from Pokemon but with his libido cranked up to eleven and his sense of boundaries and moral decency cranked down to negative one and its not hard to tell hes having the time of his life with it. Its hard to make a sad sack like Yukinari likeable but at the very least Yuri Lowenthal keeps him from becoming annoying or whinysounding which is the direction he could have very easily been taken. He plays him appropriately meek and depressive but is still able to light a fragile little fire in the characters heart when needed. Carrie Savage is cast to type in the role of Koyomi Hunter Mackenzie Austin is okay but largely unremarkable in the role of Lisa and then we have the two sour notes in the cast The mysterious J Ray plays loli anklebiter Tomoka and while Im glad they didnt give her a squeaky or highpitched voice that doesnt make the voice they DID give her any more listenable. I hate to sound mean but I dont really mind the fact that this reclusive actor only ever did three roles. Stephanie Sheh plays Kirie under the false name of Lulu Chiang and good God is she awful in it. I almost dont want to believe such a great actor could have turned in such a badly acted role. Well Ive said before that every great voice actor has at least one terrible role and I guess this is hers. Its still an okay dub overall though. So Here we are again. Here we are talking about another harem anime. Id really like to think that Id be done with this genre eventually because theyre starting to blur together in my mind at this point. And yeah I know I choose the anime I review but this time not so much I did a poll on Facebook listing five romantic comedy anime I could review next with Girls Bravo in there for shits and giggles but lo an behold it won by a landslide. I guess this is how the Republican Party must have felt with Trump so like them here I am committing wholeheartedly to the joke candidate. I should mention that my last pollwinner was spice and Wolf so in a way I trusted this group of idiots. They could have voted for Mysterious Girlfriend X which Ive been waiting for years to give a February slot to and it was in fact the second place entry but no I had three freaking people writing in their own options instead. Stupid Facebook polling system. Well I cant very well jump to an alternate timeline so we might as well get this over with. Once you get past the terrible animation which I have to admit is my main problem with this title the product itself from a writing perspective is just kind of dull. Thats probably a weird thing to say about such a universally disliked title but what else can I say? Its biggest crime is that its generic. It borrows conventions and design aesthetics from other iconic anime as well as from the legions of other anime like it. Right from the first episode its hard to not recognize it as a halfhearted ripoff of Ah My Goddess and that goes beyond the design of Miharu. The premise directly involves a downtrodden spineless male character who cant catch a break getting the perfectly loyal female companion from another world where her sister as well as several other ladies soon also come tumbling out to visit. The difference is obviously that we actually get to see this other world and that the relationship between them isnt strong enough or ever seriously tested enough to be considered the main plot. Other than that this series is painfully generic. The magical girlfriend genre is ubiquitous enough to be called a genre in the first place but very few titles follow in the footsteps of Chobits by actually doing anything new with it. Like I pointed out in my old Love Interests post if the main character is male the main girl is often the first girl as long as the first girl isnt a childhood friend who has as much a chance of winning the protagonist as the Buffalo Bills do of winning the superbowl. See? Not even in contention. On top of that you have overused ideas like the precocious loli girl the prim and proper shy girl the sex obsessed other dude the fists as forethought girl and of course the probably blonde and probably rich girl who somehow mistakenly believes through sheer coincidence that she and the main character are engaged to be married. Oh yeah and of course theres a cuddly little animal/alien mascot. I guess Im not being entirely fair here because only three of these girls are actually interested in Yukinari but hey Im only reviewing the first season. Who knows what happens after that. There are two ways that this series manages to stand out. First of all two of its characters actually manage to leave enough of an impression to defy convention and be more or less memorable. Unfortunately youll remember them for all the wrong reasons. The first one is Kirie the chick with the fists who we meet properly first. Actually her first introduction tells you all you need to know about her character Yukinari goes home walks into his own damn bathroom and catches her about to step into the shower so she beats the shit out of him. Yeah its totally his house and its never explained why she has a key to it but these things never cross her mind because shes too busy executing wrestling moves on people while telling them what they can do in hell. Even Naru in Love Hina had more personality than this. In terms of her character shes not so much a person as she is warthog that suddenly gained the powers of human speech and limited complex thought. She is one of the two characters in this show that make me hate my lifeTomoka is a close third and I cant believe Im saying this but shes actually the better of the two. On the other side of the fence we have Fukuyama the terror of Yukinaris school and the antithesis of his character as hes so perverted and girl crazy that he breaks out into hives when MEN touch him. If Kiries a warthog then I guess youd call Fukuyama the Japanese version of a squid And yes I mean the tentacle hentai version as well as the culinary version that tries to brainlessly wiggle down your throat. There are a lot of perverted playboys in anime its kind of a thing nowadays as every male main character must have at least one hopelessly girlcrazy friend to make them seem cool and approachable by comparison but Fukuyama isnt like most of these characters. The first thing we ever see him do is directly lift up Kiries shirt and grope her boobs right in the middle of school. He uses his wealth to create erotic opportunities for himself constantly gets back up for more after being pummeled for his rapiness and oh yeah hes a pedophile. I know he kind of redeems himself by helping Tomoka out at one point but later when her animal companion is turned into a little girl he abducts her and makes innuendoladen remarks about having sex with her. These two characters are painful enough to watch alone but theyre even worse when theyre together. You might imagine it would be cathartic to see the punchy girl get constantly groped or the gropey dude get constantly punched but all together all their interactions just feel icky and uncomfortable. It feels kind of like they deserve each other but at the same time it also feels like the series itself deserves to not have either of them in it. The only thing I kind of liked about Fukuyama was his relationship with his sister Lisa whos probably the only character I liked in the whole cast. She got cast as the rich blonde girl with the marriage complex but she actually has an interesting gimmick and backstory and she almost makes Fukuyama likeable in the way their dynamic works. They actually feel like a pair of siblings with neither one pining or obsessing over the other THANK FUCKING CHRIST and generally ignoring each others quirks and proclivities unless they find they have a reason to work together towards a common goal. If I didnt hate Fukuyama himself so much Id probably have put them on my favorite siblings list. And speaking of Lisa she actually brings me to the second thing about this series that stands out and it actually helps it to do so in a good way This show is really freaking weird. And Im not saying its weird like most shows are weird with a bizarre premise and string of gags and anteupping reveals that eventually get dull like in Hare + Guu. No this weirdness is weird even by weirdness standards and it actually kind of feels like genuine nonmanufactured randomness on the part of the writers. There are moments throughout the series where it feels like they just got bored with what they were writing or animating and just did random things to keep themselves entertained. None of it has any purpose most of it is largely self contained and inconsequential and it almost has me convinced that someone involved with this project Or hell maybe everybody were aware of the fact that the series they were making was going to be shit so they channeled that dude who put a dick on the Little Mermaid VHS cover and just went the extra mile to make their creative child as weird as fuck. Ive gotta be honest these were the moments that kept me going. These made the series interesting. Ive seen a ton of anime hot springs episodes but for no reason at all the first hot spring this cast visits was dried up and full of alligators and bananas. The pathway to Fukuyamas house is a hedge maze full of booby traps and military drones. An entire episode revolves around Miharu drinking an unlabelled liquid during science classbecause she is a well endowed toddler after all and getting drunk off of it which makes her spawn thousands of shadow clones that go on a hunger fueled rampage throughout the town in a genuinely good episode that I like to call The Nomming Dead. Its episodes like these that makes Girls Bravo feel like some care actually went into it on some level. Its ironic to think but its like its mastered the art of giving a fuck by not giving a fuck and keep in mind this is the kind of impression youll get when one of the main characters is fellating a bunch of bananas. And yeah it actually manages to be funny from time to time which is a welcome distraction from generic it all is. Girls Bravo was originally available stateside from Geneon entertainment but copies of it from that company are completely out of print although you can find them fairly cheap on Ebay. Thankfully it was rescued by Funimation and is available in a much more affordable slim pack. All releases also contain the second season which I barely remember but Im pretty sure its more of the same fare. The original manga is available stateside from Tokyopop which of course means its also out of print. A visual novel for the PS2 entitled Romance 15s is surprise not available stateside. I remember watching this series when it came out ten years ago and thinking it was one of the worst things ever. Now that I watch it again after all these years however its honestly not that bad. I mean dont get me wrong its really bad but its not unwatchable. Id even go as far as to say that its better than a lot of later entries in the genre like Haganai and Maken Ki. Its not an overall enjoyable show but as long as the two characters we discussed earlier arent making my life miserable its just a generic badly animated harem anime and Ive become kind of numb to those. Yukinari and Miharu are almost even a likeable couple at least once in a while. There really isnt much here to justify a recommendation especially since its more like a bunch of random things that happen than anything even remotely resembling a plot I mean come on even Lucky Star had more of a story than this But it kind of is worth checking out just for the random bizarre spots that feel almost dare I say inspired. At the very least I can recommend you seek out the soundtrack even if you wind up understandably giving the series a pass. I give Girls Bravo a 3/10.