WARNING POSSIBLE SPOILERS!
Genre: Comedy, School Life
Rated: PG 13+
Studio: WAO World
Episodes: 12
Original Run: Autumn 2017
Languages Available: Japanese, English
Subtitles Available (via Crunchyroll): English, Spanish and Portuguese
Manga Series: No
Anime-Gataris is a series based around a high school girl named Asagaya Minoa who is new to the anime world. Minoa’s (extremely) rich friend Kamiigusa Arisu forces her to help her create the anime club even though she is still a total anime noob. Arisu as well as her other new anime loving friends help her discover her love of anime. But their new club is threatened by the student council and their determination to shut the anime club down for good.
When I first started this series back at the beginning of the autumn season I was very excited and had high hopes for the series. This series started of a fun comedic slice of life show all about anime. What could be better than an anime ABOUT anime? Perfect right? The otaku related humour and the cleverly done references really struck a chord with me and I looked forward to each new episode. For example they included humour and discussions about god rays, shipping and visited the meccas of anime which made me smile and I could definitely relate to and appreciate what they were talking about. Verbal references such as Yuri!! On Nice, Ru:Zero, and Fresh Prince of Tennis as well as the cleverly thrown in Lucky Star reference at the end of episode 8 really made me love this show even more. I’m a sucker for parodies in anime because they amuse me to no end.
The relatable and passionate characters really caught my attention. Well, it did at first.
Then this anime seemed to fall apart at the seams leaving me feeling very lost and questioning as to what happened. Around about episode 7 the club decides to make an anime for their school festival so the student council will get off their back and stop trying to shut down the club which my brain was already questioning to begin with. I mean anime costs millions to make and so if a high school club expects to knock one out they are going to be in for a shock. I know the power of anime can make anything happen but it started out as a slice of life show where things are supposed to be fairly realistic hence the name slice of life. But somehow the club manages to pull it off whilst bringing in a massive crowed in the school to watch their masterpiece and keep their club alive. This was the tipping point in terms of crazy.
It had so much potential too…
Anime then turns into this super power for everyone at school and everyone starts to use and embrace the power of anime in order to create these absolutely ridiculous ideas and scenarios. For example one club builds a giant robot and all the sports clubs get all riled up Haikyuu style and start training in the most anime like ways possible. It just started to make no sense to me whatsoever. Then the end became even more ridiculous and you discover that Aurora is a bad guy and betrays the anime club (Huh?! When did it turn into an anime that can have actual villans?!) and him and Neko-senpai are actually from the anime universe and it just turned into this stupid mess as if it was trying to be clever but it just looked like an amateur wrote it.
I came for anime talk and slice of life not this.
Yes, I know that the actual anime recognised that it was turning into a mess and they would get canceled. I think they took what shows like Gintama do well with it’s parodies, self awareness and general stupidity and tried to mimic it. But instead of doing that from the very beginning its like creators had a change of heart on the direction of the show half way through and decided to turn it from slice of life to whatever the end of Anime-Gataris was. It was messy. It was poorly done and it should have just stuck to what the anime set off as.
This anime is what’s weird.
The thing is if the show had started off as completely ridiculous and unrealistic I would have loved it! I love shows like that as they always make for good entertainment but the fact that they decided to change things up part way through was just irritating because personally it didn’t make sense or flow properly.
Plot: 4/10
Art Style: 7/10
Characters: 6/10
Overall Rating: 5/10
When I set out to review this series I had such a positive look on it. I’m disappointed it ended the way it did. I know my review is negative but I had a lot to say and felt the need to share my thoughts about this show and it’s interesting plot twist. Did you guys enjoy this series? Do you agree with me or do you have your own spin on it?
Hope you are all having a great day!
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All images are not my own and are sourced from Google Images
A Nerdy Perspective 
They spent way too much time focusing on the club closing, when they should have added more of the sillier elements as the story went on. Like, after the first time they save their club there could have been slight mentions of other clubs embracing anime a bit. Not to the extremes, but slowly. As the series go on, the more the world starts breaking the laws of physics and stuff until we get to the ep 11/12.
I think it would have been a lot better if they did it like that, instead of how it actually happened.
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Yeah exactly! If they had eased it in instead of just going from one extreme to the other I think it would have worked much better.
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