First Impressions / OVA/Movie / Series Introduction

OP:

OP: 「青春として」 (Seishun Toshite) by manzo

Summary:
Madarame and Sasahara are in the Genshiken room wondering if they’re going to get any new members this year and discussing what everyone’s up to when Kuchiki pokes his head in the door. He is back after having spent time training at the Anime Club, and plays Sasahara in a game of King of Fighter XI, though Sasahara still wins. When Saki and Kohsaka arrive, Kuchiki gets quite excited by Saki calling him “Kuchii.” She initially refuses to allow Kuchiki to join the Genshiken, causing him to flare his temper at her. Saki just stares him down and only allows him after he asks nicely. She spends the rest of her time there enjoying the spring weather from the window, but she soon notices that there’s something going on across the courtyard at what Madarame identifies as the Manga Club’s window. They see a girl jump out backwards from that window, landing on the ground below and hurting herself.
It is a few days later that Takayanagi of the Manga Club visits the Genshiken and tells them about this girl. He wants the Genshiken to allow her to join, but Sasahara first asks about the trouble this girl was involved in. Takayanagi admits that it’s 90% the girl’s fault, but since she wanted to join this type of club, he thought of the Genshiken. Saki suggests they at least see who this girl is, so Takayanagi brings in a girl with a weird haircut. The guys are taken aback when she introduces herself as Ogiue who hates otaku, particularly female otaku because they like homosexuals. Saki tries to smooth things out by claiming that Ogiue is also an otaku, but Ogiue counters back that Saki is too. This of course gets Saki mad as she explains that she’s only here because of Kohsaka. She also tries to get Ohno to say something, but Ohno ends up proclaiming that there aren’t any girls who hate homosexuals. Seeing the rift developing between Ohno and Ogiue, Saki realizes that this is similar to what must have happened in the Manga Club. She points out that Ogiue is just looking for friends and suggests that they work on that first. Kuchiki tries to help out too, but when Ogiue calls him strange, he flares his temper again. The group sees Ogiue stops his yelling with a simple glare, and are shocked when Kuchiki then hits her on the head. Saki responds by slapping Kuchiki with all her might and patting Ogiue – who is about to cry – on the head.
Having joined the club, Ogiue arrives one day at the Genshiken room to find no one around and homosexual doujinshi all over the table. This is a setup by Ohno, who is watching from a room across the courtyard with the other members and wants to expose Ogiue’s true character. At first, Ogiue cleans up all the books on the table, but after a little while, she looks over at the stack she made and leans over to get the top one. However, Saki then comes in – back from her date with Kohsaka – and interrupts Ogiue, messing up Ohno’s plan to catch Ogiue in the act of reading yaoi. Saki sees all the doujinshi on the table and figures out that it must be Ohno’s. Ogiue thinks that Ohno must be trying to annoy her, so Saki suggests they test that and proceeds to call up Ohno on her cell phone. Panicking, Ohno ends up telling Saki that she’s currently in the bathroom and admits that the doujinshi is hers.
When Saki flips through the doujinshi and starts talking about it, Ogiue declares that the people who write these have twisted minds. Saki gets Ogiue embarrassed by talking about what otaku do with ero doujinshi and wondering if girls do the same thing with this stuff. She then points out that for Ogiue to hate these, she must have read at least one, and gets Ogiue to admit to having read her first one back in the fifth grade. Still watching them from the room across the courtyard, Ohno wants to know what the two girls are talking about and finally decides to go there herself. When she arrives, Saki starts to tell her about what Ogiue admitted to, but Ogiue stops her because she doesn’t want Ohno to know. In response, Ohno claims that she doesn’t actually want to know. Saki tells her anyway, which starts a verbal match up between Ohno and Ogiue, with Ohno claiming that the fifth grade incident couldn’t have been traumatic. Ogiue finally gets pissed off enough to hold up one of the doujinshi and claim that Ohno is the lewd one for *bleeping* to it. Ohno, however, holds up another one – with a bald man on the cover – and says that this is what she *bleeps* to.
Just as Saki is wishing for someone to come save her from this situation, Kuchiki arrives. He, however, makes everything worse when he produces photographic evidence that he saw Ogiue yesterday at a special Scram Dunk yaoi event. Saki ends up punching him for taking a picture without permission, but now Ogiue is completely red-faced. She tries to claim that it was for her little brother, but when Ohno then holds up the Scram Dunk doujinshi she had lying around, Ogiue tries to jump out of the window again. Madarame, Sasahara, and Tanaka arrive back to the crazy scene of Ohno dancing around happily while Saki is trying to restrain Ogiue. In the end, the only person kept out of the loop is Kugayama, who finally comes by after job hunting and finds two new members.

ED:

ED: 「びいだま」 (Biidama) by アツミサオリ (Atsumi Saori)
I was quite surprised that the new opening sequence parodies/parallels the Kujibiki Unbalance OP, which I thought was a nice touch. It definitely made me watch both of them simultaneously to see all the similarities. The new manzo song isn’t bad either. The ending song and animation sequence remain the same as they were in the original Genshiken series – in other words, a zooming out shot of the room while a Kujibiki Unbalance episode plays on the TV.

Included with the first Kujibiki Unbalance DVD is the 13th episode/OVA of the Genshiken anime. As expected, this one’s all about Ogiue joining the Genshiken. I’ve been looking forward to seeing this for a long time now, and so I was pretty much all smiles while watching it. Overall, it had several of good laughs (like Ogiue’s introduction or the “this is what I *bleep* to” scene), and it made me want to go back and read the manga since the episode followed it pretty closely (end of volume 4 and beginning of volume 5). Animation quality still isn’t anything to call home about, but it wasn’t that terrible either. The voice acting brought back lots of memories, particularly of Yukino Satsuki as Saki and Kawasumi Ayako as Ohno. It’s a shame though that it’s going to be a bit longer of a wait since the 14th episode won’t be released until February 23rd and the 15th episode won’t be until April 25th, coming out with the next two Kujibiki Unbalance DVDs. But hey, it’s been two years since the original anime ended, so two more months shouldn’t be a big deal.

27 Comments

  8. Awesome, I loved Ogiue’s intro in the manga. And Ohno trying to stake out Ogiue is one of my favorite parts! I wonder how far the 14th and 15th episodes will take us into the storyline. 😀

    Neo Horizon
    Reply

  15. May i say the animation of Genshiken 13/OVA is not that poor,movement is simply quite natural,and characters close enough to Kio Shimoku.I don`t think it`s a parody either,but quite realistic (well,partly)depiction of college youth`s otaku club life in Japan.Maybe there is too many cute girls included compared with real japanese clubs/circles.Yaoi fangirls doesn`t scare me at all.How`s with all fanboys fantazising of cute lesbian girls in action,where`s the difference?We are all for equality,right?I feel many writers here aren`t mature enough for stuff like GENSHIKEN.

    Kari Manninen
    Reply

  17. @Kari: The audience has every right to criticize something they don’t enjoy. That’s not to mean that they can do better. If I go watch a movie and the movie sucks. I have every right to voice my opinion of not liking the movie. It doesn’t mean I can make a better movie. If I bought a car and it breaks down after a month, I can call it a piece of junk. Doesn’t mean I can make a better car. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. If you’re going to tell people not to judge Genshiken’s animation, then don’t be a hypocrite yourself and judge others.

    Sakuragi
    Reply

  19. @Sakuragi:I didn`t mean everybody has to like Genshiken OVA 1,but the animation and drawing style/quality isn`t bad objectively.I can sometimes enjoy badly animated anime etc.for other reasons,but that wasn`t the case here.I know very well that technically high-class productions can still be unenjoyable.Maybe the reason for someones view of Genshiken`s bad animation is because they`ve seen the DivX/avi version only,which was of low quality.I have watched DVD-quality version,and there`s big difference.I have to apologise the attitude in my earlier comment on Robin.That was uncalled for,so i have to accept most of your criticism also.So let me conclude as “tensai otaku”:all anime you like rocks!

    Kari Manninen
    Reply

  20. Did they skip the part where everyone found out that Ohno and Tanaka are dating? o_O If I remember it correctly, that should have occurred before Ogiue joins the club. Hopefully the other OVAs will cover that story because I think Ohno and Tanaka are cute together. =3

    Neo Horizon
    Reply

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