Hello and welcome to the first official edition of President Dog Takes On... To get you all in the mood for this first offering, let me tell you all a little story about the first time I ever played paintball when I was a little pup. I was in middle school at a small Catholic school, about 13 years old. It was a brand new school, I knew no one there, I wasn't even Catholic. Plus the uniforms sucked, but I digress. Trying to fit in with some of the new people there, I was invited to join a group of my fellow male students on a trip to play paintball. Wanting to belong to something, I said yes, though had no idea what I was getting myself into. Guns and ammo and masks and all the stuff for it flew over my head when I got there, which was more than intimidating enough considering the range was way out in the sticks, deep in a forest. Feeling completely lost I headed out to the range and hid, trying to avoid getting shot and just survive. Suddenly, I heard rustling and thought someone was coming so I sprayed the whole arena with all the shots I had, until I actually hit someone. Granted I never saw who it was exactly and it could've been someone on my own team, but this little bit of experience helps me connect a little better to today's subject: Stella Women's Academy, High School Division Class C3 (Though I will be dropping the rest of the title past the comma for the sake of brevity).
So the first thing I want to let you
all know about is how I'll be reviewing this group of shows from here
on out. I will likely be summarizing the first episode or as much as
necessary to show how the show in question is set up, gives some
critique of overall aspects of it, like characterization, setting,
art style, music and other components, plus pointing out specific
moments that I either liked or disliked along the way. After everything is said and
done, I'll sum the show up and give it a rating out of 5. With that
said, let's get to the show.
On the production side of things, Stella Women's Academy is yet another series from the legendary animation studio Gainax, which gave the world such classics of the medium as Evangelion, FLCL, Gurren Lagann and most recently before this, Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt. Needless to say, there's a good pedigree behind this series but whenever I hear the name Gainax, I always think confusing endings that border on total non sequiturs. Whether or not this series follows suit is hardly on the radar just yet anyway, so let's move on. Second,
the overall gist of this show is that it's about a club of girls who play war
games with airsoft guns, so yeah, definite points for a fun premise. It's unusual
enough to be interesting, but not over the top like something like 2012's Girls und Panzer where they're driving tanks and treating it like a martial art. The show begins with the typical
'girl in a new school' scenario we've probably seen a million times
before: our main protagonist Yura Yamato is looking to make a fresh
start in the school she's always dreamed of attending, Stella Women's
Academy, shown in the first scene as a fantasy castle in her eyes.
(Ooh, it's so sparkly...)
She's in awe of the whole place until she runs into some of the other
girls who seem far more outgoing and she sinks back a bit into some
self-doubt. We've got to start somewhere if we want to grow, I guess. After finding her dorm (Rooming with a senior, who we
don't see initially) and getting settled in, Yura reaches under the
pillow of her new bed to find...
A gun?! And yes, she promptly freaks
out about it.
Anyway, that's the opening to the first
episode, so let me take a moment to talk about the opening, which
seems pretty standard. Montages of all the girls we're going to know
later on fighting to a generally upbeat J-Pop song. Animation's
pretty solid, as is the whole show, no real complaints, but nothing
truly stands out here.
So coming out of the break we get to
meet most of the supporting cast, namely the rest of the C3 airsoft
gun club, discussing about the state of said club. They're in
desperate need of new members, as we only see four members at the
time (despite five names on their club room), and are devising plans
for recruitment. There's Yachiyo, the tiny freshman with a penchant
for big sniper rifles, Karila, the brazen Rambo of the club who loves
acrobatic moves and SMGs, Honoka, the strategist with a prized G36
assault rifle and Rento, who has an never-ending supply of sweets
and traps.
Anyway, back to Yura and the gun under her pillow. If you
haven't figured it out, it's only an airsoft pistol, though our girl
still isn't sure, thinking it's some kind of prop from her roommate
and that she's in drama club or something far more innocent that many
others would think. Yura begins to snoop around the room and finds
her roommate's collection of movies (all big action/war movies) as
well as drawers and a closet full of more guns, ammo, protective
clothing and other equipment. She still thinks towards the acting
excuse, though it's both a relief and odd she doesn't think worse of
what she finds, especially when she doesn't know they're just airsoft
and not real live guns with actual deadly bullets or anything. Just
think about stumbling into that here in America. We then head back
to the airsoft club where the girls start to get bored of planning
their recruitment strategy and decide to just play a war game to get
their minds off it. Karila asks Rento to get a gun for her from the
missing club members' room, and when she arrives...
It not only turns
out that the missing senior club member of the C3 club is Yura's
roommate, but Yura's knee deep in all her stuff watching a Rambo
movie and acting out a scene from it. Of course this leads to a
pretty funny moment when Yura realizes this new girl she's never met
before is watching, which leads to the C3 club trying to recruit her. At first, our protagonist thinks it's like a typical girls' club:
have tea, eat a bunch of sweets, and just hang out with a bunch of
older girls. But then, they actually describe the club and their war
game playing ways. Yura freaks out like before and runs off.
Also at this point, it's a good time to
point out that Yura like to fantasize a bit throughout the show, from
her fairy tale castle version of the school at the beginning, to
imagining herself as Cinderella, pre-fairy godmother, as well as
several so far in the middle of the war game scenes. The effect of it is kind of hit or miss, though. It works well when played for comedy and hyperbole, but using it as emphasis for a dramatic or sad scene sends some mixed messages.
That and Yura's
trepidation about her new life are her two main character traits for
the moment, though it's only the beginning and there's plenty of time
for character growth. Anyway, at this point Yura is starting to get
depressed about how things are starting; she keeps running into girls
already finding friends and getting along well while the only
interaction she's had so far is from the airsoft club, which she
still doesn't have an interest in... until she finds a piece of cake
laying in the hallway of her dorm. She does to pick it up and gets
pounced on by Rento who, after pointing out she laid a trap with cake
because she saw Yura respond after getting some, tries to get her to
join the C3 club again.
This time around, it works; Yura reluctantly
agrees to try out the club and gets roped into their daily
airsoft game. Another nice touch of this show is that they directly
explain to everyone, including the audience, how each of their war
games is played with either chibi versions of themselves or paper
cutouts so we know exactly what the rules are. It really is a
beneficial moment for enjoying arguably the best part of this show,
the war games themselves. Yura's inaugural game in the club is called
Rambo War, a four-on-one handicap deathmatch with Karila as Rambo,
fitting.
This fight scene has some excellent scenery and shadows in
it, plus there's a lot of atmosphere from the forest they fight in to go with an excellent showing of tactics and gunplay to set the standard for the show. There's even some nice
background music going on here too. I won't go into detail on the actual game and the action itself outside of saying it's truly the centerpiece of the show and arguably worth watching for these fights alone.
Also, hooray for funny fansub typos.
Near the end of the episode, we
get our first glimpse of Yura's roommate and the senior member of the
C3 club, Sonora, who currently is my favorite character in the show
so far. Confident, accurate and just an overall good leader, she
makes a strong presence as soon as she gets mixed into the rest of
the cast and takes Yura under her wing to get her better at airsoft
and getting acclimated to her new school life, though some of her
lessons may be a bit much, though I'll explain that after I wrap
things up overall.
The first episode of Stella Women's
Academy does a good job establishing its main components and
characters, for the most part at least. In the
setting we mainly know three places in the school to start: Yura (and
Sonora)'s dorm, the C3 club's meeting room and the main forest area
where they played their war game. No other parts of the school really
make an appearance in the first couple episodes, for better or worse.
The story seems smaller in scope like this, but doesn't have to bog
itself down with school matters just yet as the actual first semester
at the school hasn't started. Overall, it's a positive move. The
characters seems to have just a few things about them at most that
separate them in terms of personality, though Rento is currently the
hardest to define as the one real set thing is that she has wide
access to cake and sweets (the mentioning of traps was really in that
pouncing moment I mentioned earlier). It does leave open room for
character growth as the chemistry between these girls does appear to
be there, it just needs to become more defined.
Speaking of character growth, there is
one moment in a later episode I do need to talk about that could
possibly affect the way this aspect is going, unfortunately not for
the better.
**MAJOR SPOILER ALERT, HIGHLIGHT TO READ**
In episode 3 after fully welcoming Yura
in, the C3 club goes to their first major airsoft tournament of the
new year. Playing Capture the Flag, they seem to do pretty well, even
with a new member, until they get near the end and run into another
school's team which the older members consider their rivals. Long
story short, the rest of the C3 club gets taken out, leaving Yura
scared and lacking confidence in being able to win, as the other team
could easily capture their flag and win. Even one of the opposing
team members points this out to her leader. However, the leader, for
no reason more than either having some kind of vendetta or being a
bitch decides, no, we're going to take that new girl out. Yura
fumbles her gun hiding, gets captured by the opposing team and
surrenders instead of getting shot. Understandable to you and me,
right? Unless some kind of miracle happened, she was pretty much out
either way. This however angers the RL and questions why Yura didn't
fight to the end. To that I have to ask, isn't it obvious? You knew
she was new (they meet face to face in a scene before the fight), she had dropped her gun out of nervousness and you were
right there. Anyway, she calls Yura's surrender 'despicable' and
basically assures us that the RL takes this game just a bit too
seriously than necessary. Of course the rest of the club comes to
Yura's defense, calls the RL a nut job and tells Yura that it's
alright and they'll get that other team next time. That is, until
Sonora speaks up... and agrees with the RL?! What?!
I have several objections to this plot
point for different reasons. First, we had established over the
second episode that Sonora has had the attitude to let Yura grow her
own way and make her own choices in the club while under her
guidance, letting her get acclimated at her own pace. This moment
however just feels jarring, as just as the RL talked about the game
like it was actual war, Sonora starts talking about it the same way
saying Yura 'made all her comrades sacrifices be in vain by running
away.' She should know better than anyone that she's not the most
confident player just yet and despite the positive traits she's
established so far it makes Sonora come off as bitchy as the RL was,
not to mention completely wrecking Yura emotionally by the hands of
her mentor. Second, none of the other club members know how the whole
scene played out, even though Honoka points out that the other team
has a easy shot to get their flag and win. Confidence levels were
exactly too high to begin with here. It's not like as soon as Yura
was the only one left she immediately gave up. She was cornered by
the opposing team and in a compromised position, left unarmed. To
attempt to escape or try to regain her gun would've led to being shot
by the RL who was right on top of her position. By not giving Yura a
chance to explain and the bad word choice of 'forfeit' instead of
'surrender,' it really wreck a chance for redemption. Instead we get
a hot spring scene to try and ease the tension, but it doesn't really
work and it just sends Yura into mental tailspin about relying on
others. Which for some reason leads to her chopping off most of her
hair and getting the other C3 girls to stop calling her the nicknames
they've been calling her for the past 3 episodes (something I
considered so unimportant that it wasn't worth mentioning until
here). This is not how you do character development at all,
especially for someone lacking in confidence and skills as Yura is so
early in the show. Not only that, it wrecks the strongest, and in my
opinion most likable, character by giving her such a bad attitude to
something so minor.
**END SPOILERS**
Now that this sidebar's been covered,
let me get back to wrapping things up about the show overall. The
ending theme is excellent. Catchy, bright animation to go with it and
shows a lot of personality. Definitely better than the opening by
simply standing out from everything else the show throws at you.
Voice acting is solid enough from what I hear from Japanese dialogue,
but I'm not the biggest stickler for it unless it's really obvious.
As a whole, Stella Women's Academy seems to be like a fun show with
some good action and a lot of potential from its premise, but the
characterization so far is hit-or-miss and the way character
development is going to be handled on this show may eventually be a
deal-breaker, but it's still to early to judge that. After three
episodes, I give it 3.5 out of 5; I'll keep watching and recommend
others take a look at it, but it's not flawless by any means. If you're interested in checking it out, the show airs on Thursdays in Japan and can be found online soon after but some major sources for simulcasts like Crunchyroll air it the following Tuesday.
Next
time, sharpen up your scissors and break out your favorite book
(hopefully not while reading my review, of course). President Dog
Takes On... Dog and Scissors.
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