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The Fall 2016 Anime Preview Guide
Girlish Number

How would you rate episode 1 of
Girlish Number ?
Community score: 4.2



What is this?

With only about a year of experience under her belt (all in small roles), Chitose Karasume is still a relative newbie in the voice acting business. Even so, she still gets called on to participate in promotional events and join staff parties afterwards, which allows her to see some of the more rotten underpinnings of the business, such as voice actresses acting like prima donnas, people talking behind each other's backs, source material authors' behavior (and what her fellow voice actors think of them), and so forth. But egging her manager/older brother on to find her bigger roles may net her an unexpected return when she's chosen based on her looks alone to be the idol star for an upcoming light novel adaptation. Girlish Number is an original anime work and can be found streaming on Crunchyroll, Wednesdays at 1:00 PM EST.


How was the first episode?

Jacob Chapman

Rating:

Other reviews have already done a bang-up job explaining what makes Girlish Number strong as a snarky comedy on its own, peeling away the artifice of the industry to show voice actresses being catty and egocentric, production executives being impulsive and shallow, and little folks on the sidelines holding their nose through it all while trying not to get too cynical. It's great popcorn entertainment for people who want to see the anime industry just like any other entertainment grindhouse; with so many strong personalities pursuing their own visions, the process gets ugly sometimes, and even fans who love the finished product have an overwhelming temptation to rubberneck. It's a potent premise regardless of who's behind the wheel, so I went into Girlish Number with basically one big question on my mind: will this show be captivating to somebody who doesn't like My Teen Romcom SNAFU?

The writer of both these things, Wataru Watari, has a very strong voice for a light novel author. I didn't dislike My Teen Romcom SNAFU exactly, but I found its particular observations on high school hardships more obnoxious than engaging. On the positive side, Hachiman was the perfect portrait of a teenage misanthrope without a cause, and the female characters around him were refreshingly complex people with their own inner lives, proving Watari's strength as a character creator. On the negative side, his overwritten dialogue, overflowing with pacing-killing quips that became so homogeneous that half the cast's voices became indistinguishable from one another, drove me completely up the wall. The story's supposed condemnation of Hachiman's attitude also rang false to me when it became clear that his world was overwhelmingly constructed to validate his ego for all actions good and bad, as if he was owed an endless therapy session from the world just for being a sad dude. (This is in stark contrast to similar stories like Welcome to the NHK or WATAMOTE, where the characters must learn that other people don't owe them any rescue just because they're narcissistically disillusioned with the world. I just prefer that approach, call me a cynic, I guess.) For as much as I liked some of its ideas, the show's romanticized self-indulgence made even those good ideas pretty difficult to sit through.

Anyway! I bring all this up because SNAFU was an extremely divisive show. People seem to either love or hate it, and I'll admit that I came away from it mostly rolling my eyes. All this to say, please watch Girlish Number even if you absolutely couldn't stand SNAFU, because in writing screenplays for an anime rather than prose for a book, Watari seems to have magically disposed of his awful overwritten dialogue, allowing his strong character writing to flourish through natural-sounding conversations. It's too early to say how Girlish Number's world and predominantly female cast will be framed, which is my other concern given SNAFU, but at least up front, this show offers a biting yet sympathetic perspective on the anime industry through an immediately captivating cast and sharp direction/production values. It's also nice to see Watari has a sense of humor about his own profession, considering the hefty number of jabs at light novels in the episode. Give it a shot!


Theron Martin

Rating:

Titles like Yuri!!! on Ice and March comes in like a lion have received near-universal acclaim so far this season, but based on first episodes I can easily see Girlish Number trumping both of them as the fan-favorite title of the season. That's because, for all of the writing and technical merits that the other two offer, this one delivers something that its competitors have shown little sign of: some serious bite.

If the standard set by the first episode persists then this will be a behind-the-scenes look at the world of voice acting. It is being done through a split in viewpoint between Chitose and her elder brother/manager; through Chitose we see the content specific to the seiyuu, while through the brother/manager we see the forces working above the heads of the seiyuu. Both angles suggest a strong disdain for, and general cynicism towards, the whole process of dubbing an anime, with Chitose hardly being an innocent on the cynicism front even though she is shown as pretty naïve about many aspects of the business. In fact, any hope that this will be a loving portrayal goes out the window within the first few seconds, as Chitose makes some comments under her breath about a fellow actress during a promotional event, and she isn't the only one. What follows is a stream of behind-the-scenes details mixed with a healthy dose of airing dirty laundry.

And boy, if the details in the first episode are accurate at all (and I have no reason to believe they aren't) then this series is going to get nasty fast. The female seiyuu who acts like a diva is hardly anything new – after all, you see that kind of thing in almost every other performance art field – but the real savagery is reserved for how light novel authors are treated. The one shown here is portrayed as a stereotypical otaku in both physical build and social awkwardness senses, and he is not regarded favorably at all by either Chitose or the younger but more experienced voice actress with her at the time; in fact, they dodge any association with him. The writing further starkly implies that too many producers are involved in the anime-making process and, in its most jaded moment, details how Chitose gets chosen for a major new role simply because she's got a face which could be promoted as an idol rather than because she has actual talent. Given all the flavor unloading here already, the next episode about Chitose being the star over the stars of her current show should be juicy indeed.

It's also a big help that Chitose shows every sign of being able to carry the series on her own. Though she can project a sweet outwards demeanor, inwardly she is full of snark and brattiness, though not to an obnoxious level. The long-suffering brother, who sees the whole business as rotten, shows a lot of potential, too. This may be led by a first-time director, but thrown in the writer of My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU and solid production job by diomedéa and we have a real winner on our hands here.


Paul Jensen

Rating:

Girlish Number feels like a combination of Shirobako and My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU, and not without good reason. It's a show about the anime business, specifically the voice acting side of it, and the author of the SNAFU light novels is handling the series composition. It shouldn't be a huge surprise, then, that the main character is extraordinarily snarky and the story as a whole paints a less than rosy picture of the industry. It has one heck of a bad attitude, but it's clever enough to get away with it.

This episode takes its time in establishing Chitose's personality, and she initially serves as a slightly detached observer. As the people around her spout haughty complaints, nasty gossip, and baseless overconfidence, she joins the audience in concluding that this is a weird business to work in. It's not until we see Chitose alone with her brother/manager that we find out for certain that she isn't exactly a ray of sunshine herself. She's blunt, vain, and less than motivated when it comes to playing small roles. The good news is that she's fairly witty when it comes to expressing herself, and I found the banter between her and Gojo to be entertaining in its animosity.

What will make or break this episode (and potentially the series) for the individual viewer is whether or not its deliberately flawed cast can provide good reasons to keep watching. Just about every major character has a bad side to his or her personality, whether it's the enormous chip on Shibasaki's shoulder or the clueless vanity of the producers. Most of them are either amusing or interesting at the moment, but the audience will eventually need some kind of reason to care about these people. Unless Girlish Number is going to develop into a dedicated dark comedy, it needs to ensure that I don't spend all my time hoping for bad things to happen to the characters.

That abrasive, almost mean-spirited tone isn't going to work for everyone, but it's nice to see a series offer a view of the anime industry that isn't even a little nostalgic or rose-tinted. The production values on Girlish Number are good enough to convey the occasional unspoken emotion through the characters' body language, and the dialogue is strong in its own off-putting way. It has the potential to make some harsh but interesting statements about people in the industry, and perhaps people in a more general sense as well. If it doesn't immediately drive you away, it might be worth sticking around.


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