life line by line

What happens when someone decided to combine elements from Maria-sama ga Miteru, Sensei no Ojikan, Kujibiki Unbalance, and add in a puppet? Why Gokujou Seitokai of course!

The best way I can describe Gokujou Seitokai based on the first episode is, “Not so average high school student Rino Randou along with her puppet Puchya transfer to Miyagami School while meeting an variety of girls as Rino tries to adjust in her new settings. But is Rino’s transfer to Miyagami luck or someone(s) pulling strings in the shadows? Find out as you join in Rino’s adventures in what has to be the all-girls school comedy series of the new anime season!” Also add to the fact the series has an all-star female seiyuu cast and Gokujou Seitotaki starts to shape up to be an unusual but fun ride into the realm of “slice of life” high school comedy genre.

Opening Sequence (OP)

Onee-sama?

Ending Sequence (ED)

BluWacky and Jeff Lawson both have their own reviews on the series so don’t forget to stop by their sites too k? It’s actually thanks to BluWacky that I decided to blog Gokujou Seitokai after reading his entry (okay, I’ll admit I’m a Yukari Tamura fan too). Thanks man for the heads up on this crazy series!

I’ve been debating about how I want to write this entry. I was thinking of just going full-blown and write an play-by-play synopsis but realized 1) I’m too lazy 2) it’ll be fricking long! A little more thinking, and taking a break to re-read Ichigo 100% volume 13 for no reason, I’ve come to the conclusion to discuss the first episode of Gokujou Seitokai through its cast of characters. I figure it’ll be easier this way than going back and forth with the various things that go on.

Rino Randou (VA: Yukari Tamura)
The star of the show, of sorts. I can’t help but thing Rino is one of the standard characters Yukari Tamura is known to play: energetic, up-beat, and all around nice girl. Two traits of Rino separate her from the average high school girl though.

One is her puppet friend Puchya. If I had to say, it’s almost a split personality of Rino or a way for her to deal with being by herself (I think she lost her family?). Puchya plays many roles: friend, parent, protector, etc. Most of the time, Puchya (whom I forgot to mention Yukari also voices) is Rino’s “common sense” usually remarking to Rino about obvious things any normal person would notice. Like her mysterious penpal friend, where the school is, and what’s right and wrong. What’s really interesting (if Satoshi ever decides to blog the series, he’ll probably have a field day trying to take apart Rino’s personality because of the puppet) is how Puchya and Rino seem like separate people (the split personality theory). The actions Puchya does Rino doesn’t have any control over and it’s like her hand is a different being at times. Examples have to be when Puchya helps Rino win her class election to be part of the student council (since members are secured housing, which she lost thanks to a fire fanatic), protecting Rino from physical dangers, and waking her up from being unconscious. Puchya is definitely a strange character and it took awhile to get used to the idea of a puppet… but after re-watching the episode a couple of times, made complete sense. Probably more on Puchya later as the show progresses…

Rino’s second trait, well I guess it’s more like the standard for Yukari’s roles is her total genki-ness / comedy? The screenshots should tell how Rino reacts to various things and it’s funny as she seems to be the only one with such extreme reactions. Then again, since she is the main character she’ll probably get more screen time than the rest so I’ll have to wait and see how the others play out.

Besides Rino’s character, I’m surprised how she rolls with the punches so to speak. Willingly moving to a new school thanks to a person she has never met, dealing with losing housing and most of her personal possessions, and getting used to school are all things Rino takes decently well (okay, she didn’t do THAT well initially when she lost housing). Goes to show the strength of her character and how Rino is able to move forward without looking back…

… there’s probably one more important thing I should mention about Rino. She’s really clumsy around certain people. The whole scene when the student council members are after the fire fanatic was hilarious; Rino kept stopping their attempts to stop the guy even if she didn’t mean to. Thereby “beating” like half the best of the council in one shot…

Kaori Izumi (VA: Chiwa Saitou)
I initially didn’t even notice Kaori’s voice was Chiwa Saitou (for shame on me) but once Kaori got going I could definitely tell it was Chiwa Anyway, Kaori’s a pretty fun character in my opinion. Sort of reminds me of Sumire from Gakuen-Alice as she thinks/knows she’s one of the “elite” while trying to impress the higher members (i.e. the student council president). I found it funny how Kaori tried to hide her true personality (quick temper and anger) when she went back to the classroom after a scolding from one of the other council members. Kaori knows it was all Rino fault and ironically, finds out she’s also in her class! Loved how she calmed her anger and acted all “gentle and nice” in front of the other students while in the background, we see and hear her true feelings on Rino. Good stuff

I had to feel bad for Kaori when she gets outvoted when the class was re-electing their student council member and Rino won instead (there was cheating involved?). And if that wasn’t the worst of it, when she tried to stop the fire guy Rino got in the way again and knocked her unconscious for the remaining of the episode! Talk about bad days!

Kaori is apparently a fighter of some type, at least based on how physically active she is. It’s interesting that based on Kaori and the others we meet that the best of the best of the student council all have “special” abilities. This ain’t your normal student council dang it!

Kanade Jinguuji (VA: Hitomi Nabatame)
The school president whom I had no idea whatsoever was voiced by Hitomi Nabatame until I looked her up in various seiyuu databases. Definitely not any of her normal voices Hitomi has used in various other series, Kanade has the feel of a very calm, organized, and collected individual. I think she also uses that more “up-class” way of talking (similar to Maria-sama ga Miteru).

Currently not much is really known of the president other than she might have had some part in getting Rino to the school. Also seems like the incidents with the fire guy she tries to deal with since it hits home or something. Not exactly sure of that…

Nanaho Kinjou (VA: Junko Noda)
I’m not exactly sure of Nanaho’s position in the council but I’m relatively sure it’s one of the higher uppers. Junko was a dead giveaway as her voice actress as she uses her “standard” voice, which had no complaint from me

Nanaho also seem to be an “fighter” by use of a yo-yo. Yes, a yo-yo. Don’t ask me how it works as I’ve only seen this kind of crazy BS in anime and no where else. I also can’t say how good she is at using it since Rino stopped her attempts to do so…

Sayuri Hida (VA: Ayako Kawasumi)
Basically from the two or so minutes Sayuri had on screen, her character is a lot like Kasumi Kisaragi from Kujibiki Unbalance. And I mean A LOT. Both are high on the student council, are swordwomen, and Ayako uses her “deep” voice for both of them. Not bad in opinion

It’s too bad Sayuri didn’t get too much fighting time because of Rino, as once Sayuri loses her glasses she’s completely useless! I almost fell off my seat laughing when Sayuri lost her glasses and kept searching the ground saying “glasses glasses” over and over again! Even funnier was the fact at the last scene of the episode, they go back to Sayuri STILL looking for them! Too bad she’ll never find them since Rino broke them but promised to fix the glasses (though Sayuri never heard of it). Just awesome.

Cindy Manabe (VA: Tomoko Kawakami)
I can’t say much about Cindy either other than she’s apparently the driver of the group. She had only one word the whole episode and I had no clue her seiyuu was Tomoko Kawakami until I looked her up. Surprisedly, sounds like Tomoko is going for a “deep” kind of voice and not any of her usual peppy ones (i.e. like Misuzu from AIR or Youko from Tactics).

It looks like Cindy’s character is more of a stonic comedy type of charcter, or at least that’s the impression I’m getting. Kind of scary that she was driving a brand-new looking expensive car at the beginning but once she caught up with the fire guy, it had damage ala Yukari’s car from Azumanga Daioh. I mean, I know Cindy drove through the forest to get to the location the faster but still… seeing a damaged expensive car definitely scared me (the Chiyo-chan experience from Azumanga Daioh)! I wonder if she’s related to Yukari huh?

Mayura Ichikawa (VA: Miyuki Sawashiro)
Shinku from Rozen Maiden! Er… anyway, Mayura sounds to be the accountant of the student council and looks to have a decent relation with Nanaho. There was a scene where she was worrying over something Nanaho was about to do…

… then again, it could have been that if they damaged the car the expenses would have killed them. ^_^;;

Rein Tsunomoto (VA: Yuki Matsuoka)
Yay, another voice actress from GIRLS Bravo! Not much to say about Rein so far since she had little screentime too. The only things worth mentioning are she seems to be a decent friend to Kaori and her “special” ability is to use cards ala Gambit from X-Men.

Kuon Ginga (VA: Kaori Shimizu)
I enjoy Kaori Shimizu’s voice for some reason and I knew dead on she was VAing Kuon once she talked. Kuon is the vice-president of the council and seems to be an cheery type of person… I’m sort of getting a Shizuru (from Mai-HiME) vibe from her, but we’ll see how that goes in the future.

Ayumu Oume (VA: Eri Sendai)
The one to save Rino from total helplessness. Ayumu had the unfortunate chance to be the one Rino latched on to when Rino was found sleeping at the gates of the school. Seem like Rino and Ayumu become fast friends and it’s thanks to Ayumu that Rino joined the student council (since she heard of Rino’s problem). Other than that, can’t say much about her character…

I think I’ve gone through the cast of characters that so far have made an appearance in the first episode. I hope I gave some sort of idea of who’s who though I don’t think I’ve really gave any idea of the plot did I? More I just named off which seiyuu voiced which character and my quick feelings on them.. hehe ^_^;;

Go to BluWacky for an synopsis since the first episode’s plot was rather simple anyway. Really, it was all the action and comedy that happened during the episode that made Gokujou Seitokai fun to watch. I’ll like to leave off with one final thought: Puchya going SSJ and becoming the Hero of Justice… PLEASE tell me others also thought of Midori-chan from Mai-HiME at this time! Yukari Tamura even used her Midori-sentai voice too! I can’t be the only one who thought that right!? XD