♪ Rookie seiyuu, availability is first, acting comes in second ♪
Everyone. please meet the cynical sister to Sore ga Seiyuu!, Gi(a)rlish Number!.
Gi(a)rlish Number is another one of those workplace animes like SHIROBAKO or for more precise for this review, Sore ga Seiyuu!, this time it looks at the voice acting, light novel and anime industry through the lens of cynical narcissistic Chitose, in comparison to Sora ga Seiyuu's Futaba Ichinose optimistic ones.
The main group of seiyuu's Chitose Karasuma voiced by Sayaka Senbongi (Koutetsujou no Kabaneri as Mumei, Kitakubu Katsudou Kiroku as Claire Kokonoe), Koto Katakura voiced by Yui Ishikawa (Shingeki no Kyojin as Mikasa Ackerman, ... Qualidea Code as Canaria Utara, Owari no Seraph as Shigure Yukimi), Yae Kugayama voiced by Kaede Hondo (Handa-kun as Miyoko Kinjou, 91 Days as Luce Lagusa), Kazuha Shibasaki voiced by Saori Oonishi (Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka as Ais Wallenstein, Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata as Eriri Spencer Sawamura, Shiougeki no Souma as Hisako Arato) and Momoka Sonou voiced by Eri Suzuki (Amanchu! as Hikari Kohinata, flying witch as Chinatsu Kuramoto, Heavy Object as Milinda Brantini) felt like caricatures as the ACTUAL seiyuu's and their careers, such as Kazuha Shibasaki and Momoka Sonou being some recent veterans into the industry and knows all the pitfalls and perks to the industry (as Eri Suzuki and Saori Oonishi have been in the industry longer just by seeing their voice acting roles) compared to the newbies like Yae and Chitose. Though Chitose's parallel to Sayaka Senbongi a bit with Gi(a)rlish Number actually with Sayaka Senbongi being casted in Koutetsujou no Kabaneri as Mumei (a lead role), similar to her being one of the leads in the in-universe Gi(a)rlish Number plot. Koto Katakura as Yui Ishikawa felt like it was what happened with Yui Ishikawa in Shingeki no Kyojin and her gaining knowledge from the industry from a "hit anime" and that transferred into Yui Ishikawa's character. It's just LA's meta-thoughts about Gi(a)rlish Number and the obvious reasons of LA wondering about the voice acting industry.
Meta-talking aside, LA wants to delve into the characters themselves. Shall we?.
Let's start with Momoka and Kazuha, for the most part they are the sempai's to Yae, Chitose and Koto, they to have some cynicism in the form of their parental issues with being a seiyuu. Momoka and Kazuha have a bit of duality when it comes to their parental issues and becomes a major focus for the both of them. See Momoka's mother is a famous seiyuu and Momoka herself being brought up into the same industry as her, she is effectively put in the shadow of her mother when it comes to Momoka's job as a seiyuu, this contrasts quite well with Kazuha's more resistant parents especially Kazuha's father who dislikes Kazuha being in "fanservicey" acts with her job and wants her to quit, this kind of duality with both Momoka and Kazuha helps develop these characters for the most part and as much as it opens up both Momoka and Kazuha, their personalities are pretty much the same by the end of it. Next is Yae and Koto. Yae doesn't get the best character development with her being a rookie like Koto and Chitose and she effectively becomes the cheerleader to Chitose by her arc and not much else. Koto is the exposition fairy and mild comedic relief and also has the same position as Yae another cheerleader for Chitose. Now with all this Chitose this and that. It's time for Chitose, she is LA's favourite character and pretty much has the last half of the anime to herself along with the shady, don't give a crap Kuzu-P and his name is apt at that. Chitose gains a great deal of character development, all from how she see's the industry, as for her to gain popularity and not caring how she'll do it and quite the narcissistic, cynical behavior to go with it might LA add. Her character development really grows from what would happen if a seiyuu gains popularity but falls from grace quite quickly as the in-universe audience too quickly fades Chitose as a "main lead" from a "shitty anime". Thinking back on it though the circumstances isn't exactly the same, it reminds LA of real life seiyuu's like Yui Kondou to Asami Imai to Mari Nakatsu and hell even Ikumi Hayama who went through something like this fading from popularity after some main leading roles. Really Chitose's development as a rookie seiyuu and her experiences as one isn't all rainbows and easy pickings on the next roles she gets, bringing in the cynicism of the seiyuu industry.
Gi(a)rlish Number also jabs in how the current (as LA writes this review) landscape of light novel adaptations anime are been looked at also with the same cynical look at "anyone can write, but not everyone can act, what good are light novel authors if all they do make hack stories that gets made into anime boom" and very quick jabs at the light novel industry as well as the main anime the Gi(a)rlish Number cast are casted in is a light novel anime with abyssal production values due to...well Kuzu-P, on speaking of which.
Kuzu-P voiced by Kazuya Nakai gets something of a simultaneous character development along with Chitose bringing in the parallels to each other but for Kuzu-P on the producer side, his character development fall from grace and slow gains afterwards is nothing but what happens when a producer only cares about money and not the overall product of the anime and he'll drag EVERYONE one else down just to get his ambitions done with.....he does get "better" with the help of Chitose but only "slightly".
Really both Kuzu-P and Chitose reigns in the statement that yes the seiyuu industry is a rather harsh and brutal industry and that even "wasted potential" from a person with horrible personality can still have the potential to do great, cynical but uplifting for those in this brutal industry that we as the audience especially outside Japan, don't get an honest look at this brutal industry.
In terms of diomedea, the anime is full of moe, however LA will bring up this point about the moe and the cynicism "clashing" with each other. The moe in LA's eyes does NOT clash with the cynicism from the characters, if anything the moe helps highlight the fact that it is using moe which is a prevalent style in the anime industry to appeal to the demographic as being "cute and nothing else" to actually utilizing this same style to show that moe is being manipulative and cynical much like how the characters are being portrayed and their own cynical intentions of the "moe anime industry boom", it's not a detriment or clashes as it makes the point of using moe as their own antithesis to point out the cynical nature of the anime and it's own jabs at it's own industry. Ok with that rant out of the way, the moe aesthetics if anything is pleasing to the eye and the character designer QP;flapper with it's bolder, moe and colorful designs made the character designs overall one of the best things about the animation.
Well LA is gonna talk about voice acting in a voice acting anime, well what can LA say but favourite character = favourite seiyuu, it goes to Sayaka Senbongi as LA really loved Chitose's narcissistic and snarky attitude for the most part and used for all the jabbing at the other characters she did, but also given Sayaka range gave her a chance to do DRAMA at the same time. LA will quite honestly say that the voice cast did a 100% really, from Kaede Hondo to Yui Ishikawa, Eri Suzuki and Saori Oonishi and the more gung-ho characters like Kuzu-P's Kazuya Nakai and Namba Shachou voiced by Kenyuu Horiuchi, the CEO of Number One Produce and even Yoshitsugu Matsuoka as...himself???...huh they pulled a Sore ga Seiyuu with that one. Nonetheless, the voice cast is great in Gi(a)rlish Number and to be expected from an anime about voice acting!
Gi(a)rlish Number is another one of Wataru Watari's (Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Comedy wa Machigatteiru., Qualidea Code) original cynical creations and that blatantly shows, but having a cynical look at an industry that is more or less that is under wraps and hardly told to us about in greater detail but shown in a brutally honest yet cynical side of it's industry through the eyes and manifested in Chitose went through is somewhat refreshing take on the "workplace anime". Gi(a)rlish Number with some odd yet cynically encouraging theme of even a horrible person with a horrible personality wants to be in an dog eat dog industry like being a seiyuu can still have the potential to be a great one if one can apply themselves and move with the flow of the brutal and cynical industry they work in instead of being left behind.
Alternative Titles Japanese: ガーリッシュ ナンバー Information Type: TV Episodes: 12 Status: Finished Airing Aired: Oct 7, 2016 to Dec 23, 2016 Premiered: Fall 2016 Broadcast: Fridays at 02:28 (JST) Producers: Frontier Works, TBS, DAX Production, ASCII Media Works, NBCUniversal Entertainment Japan, i0+, Medicos Entertainment, NichiNare Licensors: Sentai Filmworks Studios: Diomedéa Source: Mixed media Genre: Slice of Life Duration: 24 min. per ep. Rating: PG-13 - Teens 13 or older Statistics Score: 6.811 (scored by 36,341 users) 1 indicates a . Ranked: #51622 2 based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded. Popularity: #2049 Members: 102,026 Favorites: 160 Available AtResources |
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