Joushikousei (Girls' High) Ep 00

The anime will only begin from 3 April thus this is actually a prequel of what's going to happen in the series. We get an introduction of less than 10 minutes about the trio of Eriko, Yuuma and Ayano who have been friends since junior high and were from a co-ed school. They are going to be students at the all-girls Yamasaki Joushi Gakuen where Eriko in particular has lots of wonderful thoughts about her next 3 years in this school. As such, Eriko gets her friends to sneak into the school the day before the term begins so that they can find out more about a senior high school girl's life. However, Yuuma tells her to wake up from her fantasies and tries to knock some sense into her friends. During their snooping, they bump into 3 girls Kouda, Himeji and Ogawa who were from the junior high department of Sakikou (short form for the school name) where Eriko doesn't tell them the truth as the trio misunderstand that they are seniors (Eriko and Co were wearing the senior high uniforms to avoid trouble). When school starts, the six of them happen to be in the same class and Eriko can't help but wonder if she can survive in this school.

First impressions of the series:

- In less than 10 minutes, I like Yuuma and Ayano based on what I've seen so far. Yuuma is like the typical anego who may seem brash and talks in a not so refined manner but I find such character traits very interesting. As for Ayano, she may look like the sweet, gentle and harmless sort but when she speaks, she unwittingly pokes people at where it hurts most so it was hillarious to see her making fun of Eriko even though she didn't seem to mean it in a bad way.

- As for Eriko, I don't like such loud characters but according to the official website, it seems like she's not that hopeless and is very good at studies. Hard to reconcile this fact with her behaviour so that might be an interesting irony to watch out for.

- The other trio of Kouda, Ogawa and Himeji appeared towards the end so I can't really say how I feel about them.

- I don't like the obvious ecchi-ness when they showed the girls wearing skirts so short that you can see the underwear. And some of the scenes made me feel like the exposure was just to get the attention of guys which wasn't really necessary to the development of the story. I do hope that the staff can tone down on this aspect.

- Seiyuu-wise, I only recognise Noto Mamiko from the lineup where she plays Ayano but I like the seiyuu who plays Yuuma. There's an interview of the three seiyuus for Eriko, Ayano and Yuuma in Seiyuu AniMedia so I'll read that first to find out more on the series.

Overall, I find that this anime seems quite interesting but I don't think it's those that will invoke thoughts or make me identify with. It's more of a pure entertainment type of anime where humour takes centrestage. Anyway, I've never been in a girls' school before so it might be fun to see how they depict life in this setting.