Comic Girls (2018– ) User Reviews

A charming high-school-girls series

[Tweekums · 8/10 · 29 June 2018]

This anime series follows the lives of the girls living in the Bunhousha Women's Dormitory. They are high school girls who, when not doing their usual studies, work on their manga projects. Our protagonists are Kaoruko 'Kaos' Moeta who is struggling to come up with ideas for her manga; shoujo artist Koyume Koizuka; Ruki Irokawa, who draws erotic manga; Tsubasa Katsuki, who writes popular shounen manga. As the series starts we are introduced to the household at the same time as Kaos so we get to know the other characters as she does. Over the course of the series we see them working on their various projects and getting up to the sorts of things high school girls do... all the time wondering if Kaos will actually get a manga published.

There are plenty of anime series centred on groups of school girls who share an interest and this is a decent enough addition to the genre. The characters are likeable; one can't help feeling sorry for poor Kaos as her various ideas keep getting rejected by her editor. The best laughs are provided by Suzu Fura; the seldom seen, slightly creepy, writer of horror manga who also lives in the dorm. The introduction works well and the things the girls get up to are fun to watch even if they aren't particularly memorable... it is one of those shows that is a lot of fun while it is on but likely to be forgotten once the series is over... of course then you can enjoy watching it again in a year or two!

These comments are based on watching the series in Japanese with English subtitles.

The best portrayal of artists I have ever seen in an anime

[Protogeist · 6/10 · 11 March 2019]

I am an artist. It may seem like I'm bragging, sorry if it does, but it is pretty important to my enjoyment for this show. Cause even though every artist doesn't have the same experiences, there are things that many artists do feel. Being ashamed of oneself work, not feeling deserving of food and other self-destructive thoughts. I have never really seen an anime about art that shows this side of how artists feel. There are probably other shows that do this. Maybe even shows I have seen that do this. But this is the show that has made me remember that part the most. Cause the artist part in many anime characters is irrelevant in most cases. The character might be memorable, but the fact that they're an artist isn't. It isn't important for the character that they are an artist. I'm not saying that a character should change because of a hobby they have. But that's kind of what it is. To most artist characters I have seen, it is just a hobby. Again, this is fine. But for me to really resonate with an artist character, the art part should be their personality. They're hobby effects them as a person. That might sound weird. But it is the one thing that makes me like Comic girls so much.

In the show, Moeta moves into a dorm with exclusively artist. This was a way for her to gain experience from these artists. To find inspiration. But as I see it, I wouldn't say that living there was particularly good for her. Yes, she finds very good friends and the ending might have been different if she didn't live there. But, Moeta doesn't really feel good living there, even though the friend she makes, makes her happy. Cause as I said before, there are things that artist do when they're not happy with their work. And living with two artists that already have serialized works, this feeling is only amplified. As Moeta lives in the dorm, she does a lot of self-destructive things. She stays up all night to finish her comic ideas, that she knows will inevitably be trashed. She rejects food since she doesn't feel deserving of it. Of course, she doesn't even have a serialized comic yet.

And as an artist, I resonated with her a lot. All of the feelings she gets around her art is something me and a lot of artists feel. I can tell that an artist wrote the story.

And she wasn't the only artist that was written so well. We also have Ruki and Tsubasa. While they weren't as relatable, they were still really good. While Tsubasa doesn't have any particularly bad feelings against her art (At least from what we know), her parents do. They are very much against her drawing. That's why she moves to the dorm so that her parents wouldn't shame her. Ruki also experiences something a lot of artists do. When becoming an artist, her agent sees how attractive her art style. She advises her to draw more attractive manga since her art style compliments this genre. This leads to her being successful as a hentai artist. And while she tries to implement a romance aspect into the comics, that doesn't help her self-image. The fact that she's a hentai artist kills her. It's only when she meets her fans and she sees how much they care for her story that her self-respect gets better.

Sadly, this was only how I felt in the beginning When we stopped learning about their insecurities, the story gets a lot more boring. We keep seeing Moeta's self-destructive nature from time to time. But it wasn't as interesting as before.

But because of my bias, I will give this show an 8. I would have given it a 7 before. But the very accurate depiction of artists was just so interesting to see.

Weak 8/10