Shelf Life

Girls Beyond the Wasteland

Don't let the title fool you – contrary to what you might think, Girls Beyond the Wasteland is not some kind of post-apocalyptic action thriller, as I believed it might be before watching it for review. It turns out the “Wasteland” in question is much more metaphorical: the wasteland of corporate drudgery and adult malaise. Based on a visual novel of the same name, this 2016 series follows protagonist Buntarou Hojo, a high schooler with a knack for the written word who usually spends his time helping produce the plays for his school's drama club, though he doubts his passion for writing will actually get him anywhere out in the “real” world. One day, he gets cornered by the enigmatic and somewhat awkward Sayuki Kuroda, who offers him a new line of work as the writer for her passion project: an independently developed bishoujo PC game. Of course, itself being based off a bishoujo game, GBtW eventually amasses an entire crew of cute girls to serve important roles in the development of this ambitious project. Christening themselves “Rokurhara”, this team of ambitious teens aims to see if their following their dreams can carry them beyond the wasteland of corporate culture into a fulfilling future.

I'd only heard of GBtW in passing when it came out last year. Its production house, Project No. 9 Studio, is relatively new to the scene, perhaps best known for shows like “Recently, my sister is unusual” and “And you thought there is never a girl online?”. However, I was excited to learn that the series was directed by Tayuka Sato, who spearheaded my favorite visual novel adaptation of all time, Steins;Gate (among other well known projects). GBtW doesn't have any of the science-fiction trappings of that juggernaut, but it does take on another sub-genre of anime I've grown increasingly fond of, which is following a team of artists as they work on some kind of industry mainstay, from visual novels to TV anime and beyond. Shirobako is the gold standard for shows like this, but game development can be just as fascinating as television production, so by the time GBtW arrived on my desk to watch, I was reasonably excited to dig into it.

Having watched all twelve episodes on Sentai's two-disc Blu-Ray set, I can say that the results were decidedly mixed. Girls Beyond the Wasteland is by no means a bad show, but from the first episode to the last, I was constantly bothered by the nagging feeling that this series could be so much more. It might be naïve to expect another series as good as Shirobako to just fall into my lap out of the blue, but neither the visual novel angle nor the game dev behind-the-scenes angle ever gelled with me. I came in expecting a breezy romance that might also offer insight into an industry I love, and I walked away with something sort of like that, but lacking in the energy and heart needed to make it truly engaging.

A lot of the problem has to do with the characters. Buntarou is your average visual novel protagonist, charming enough to justify all the girls flocking around him while also being milquetoast enough to work as a reasonable self-insert for anyone who wishes they could be dating these nerdy yet attractive young ladies. Every character fits their stock type to a T. You have the tomboyish friend with secret feelings for the protagonist, the aloof leading lady with social interaction issues, the goofy and shy comedic relief, the aggressive fujoshi with a taste for yaoi, and so on. All of these characters are fine, and they have an easy and naturalistic sort of chemistry, but none of them ever rises above the tropes that make up their personality traits.

While I can understand this reliance on stock characterization for the supporting cast, I also found Buntarou and Sayuki to be fairly flat. Their character arcs were predictable, and the relationships that develop between each other and the rest of the team are functional without ever being satisfying. So in the long run, I never really got invested in the stakes of the plot, since it was clear that everything would more or less work out in the end. Some might be okay with this lackadaisical approach to the writing, but I need my narratives to have a little more meat on their bones, even if they're supposed to be breezy fare.

Outside of the writing, the other production values of the series are equally serviceable while also failing to leave a lasting impression. The visuals are probably the show's weakest point, with flat animation and generic character designs that make it harder to become invested in the already underwritten cast, but I don't know that I'd call GBtW ugly; it's just forgettable. The music, the character designs, and the series' direction all do just enough to get you to the next episode, but it's impossible to recall specifics once the end credits have rolled on the finale.

Sentai's Blu-Ray set is similarly functional, offering the twelve TV episodes with only the original Japanese dub, and nothing much beyond that. Notably, the set is missing the series' OVA; while it doesn't seem essential from what I've read, its absence will surely disappoint anyone hoping to own the complete series. The set's technical specs are fine, though I did catch that the colors in the more brightly lit scenes looked noticeably washed out. That could be a symptom of the series' lackluster visuals rather than a transfer issue, but I'm not sure. The only other thing of interest was the discs' weird tendency to lag on the subtitles whenever I rewound or fast-forwarded, with a couple of occasions taking almost thirty seconds for the subtitles to return. I don't know if this is an encoding issue or just a quirk of my hardware, but I bring it up because it occurred on both my PS4 and my PC.

Girls Beyond the Wasteland is the poster child for a Rental quality series. It's functional without ever being too much fun, checking all the requisite boxes but lacking any special something to make it truly memorable. It isn't bad, it isn't good, it just is, another visual novel adaptation in a sea of similarly forgettable titles, and even its meta-commentary on game development and bishoujo tropes isn't enough to save it from the doldrums of mediocrity. If you absolutely love visual novels, or if you're interested in giving the Girls Beyond the Wasteland game a try, you might get more out of this than me. Everyone else would be better off finding a different wasteland to scavenge.
-James[TOP]