It's time for yet another seasonal review, and this time it's Senryuu Shoujo! Being one of the less popular shows this season (only ranking 15th of the season), one might assume that it's of low quality. And while that may be true in terms of the production, it coudn't be further from it in terms of writing.
So, synopsis. The show is about Nanako, who is socially akward. She has trouble expressing herself, so instead of talking directly to others, she writes senryuu to communicate, which is a form of japanese poetry. It's a pretty simple premise, and that's also probably why the episodes are only twelve minutes long. However, this is not a negative, as it's short runtime makes it easy to sit down and watch it for a bit. It's funny enough, though I think the premise is a bit too limiting. The show introduces a few more characters in the later episodes, though they don't really do enough to increase the overall quality of the show.
The biggest problem, is as I stated previously, the premise. It's funny the first few times, but it's basically just the same joke repeated multiple times. You can't really do that much with it, which is probably why all the funniest jokes in the show don't even include senryuu. The production is also extremely bad, with the show consisting mostly of still shots and simple motions. It's almost on the level of Death March to the Parralell World Rapsody in terms of animation, which is about as far away from a compliment which I could give a show.
To expand a bit on my point about the characters, some are pretty good and others are... less so. Eiji, the delinquent character is pretty funny, though he's kind of lame. There's some light romance between him and Nanako, but not that much really. Apart from him, the others are there, I guess. They're all basically just one note gag characters. Which I guess would be fine, but the thing is that it's a show that focuses a lot on comedy instead of characters, when the comedy isn't even that great, and the characters are the most important thing about a slice of life show. Sure, everyone loves the refrences in 'Lucky Star', but would it have been anywhere near as popular without Konata? No. Same with 'Gabriel DropOut' and 'K-On!', the characters not only make the show, they are the show. That's why all the mediocore 6/10 slice of life shows such as 'Anne Happy', 'Anima Yell' and 'Hinako Note' are mediocore. They all focus too much on the premise and comedy, when those things such take a backseat in these kinds of shows.
At this point, I'm convinced that no slice of life series cares about its OST. The OP and ED are your average anime pop song, nothing to write home about. But the background music is pretty much... no you know what? It is indistinguishable from other slice of life soundtracks. 'Lucky Star' is literally the only show in this genre with recognizable background music, and it really annoys me that no other show is even trying. Stuff like 'Comic Girls', 'New Game', and 'Nichijou' all have a catchy opening, but the background music is so unnoticable it might as well just be white noise.
In conclusion, the show is fine. It's your seasonal slice of life, take it or leave it. If you're not big into slice of life, you're better off watching some of the other popular shows instead.
As always you can check me out on Twitter @tes_star where I post links to my newest articles as well as random thoughts on what I'm watching.
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