Series Review: Yuru Yuri (8/10)

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Funniest scene in the entire season. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Did I mention that Yuru Yuri is one of my favourites this season? I must have, because I'm always raving about what a surprise hit this is. The show wasn't even high on my priority list when the season started, and watching a Yuri series featuring middle school girls sounds like something that could get you arrested (in Japan, anyway). The overly cute commercial sequences aren't doing it any favors either. But what the heck, I'm glad I gave it a try.

The lesbian themes aside, the comedy is gold in the show. Most of it leans towards the slice-of-life kind of humor you would expect in K-ON or Working, but the yuri twist makes it all the more better. More than often it sets off my moé alarms too. Don't let the yuri theme scare you; the show is relatively tame, and it doesn't go beyond the hilarious kissing scene in the final episode. Most of them are simply delusions of Chitose (and sometimes Chizuru), and contains little more than suggestive lines. While a lot of the jokes are repetitive or overdone, it isn't really an issue because the show hardly ever takes itself seriously.

The touching scenes in the show are like a bonus. It's lovely to see the bickering duo Sakurako and Himawari acting really close to each other unconsciously, even though their normal actions might make people think they loathe each other. Kyoko's thoughtfulness for Yui is a really nice touch too, although her actions made her look like a spoiled kid at first.

The characters might be the weakness for the show. Most of the characters have specific attributes that easily allows them to be a baseline for a specific joke, but their character depth doesn't extend beyond that. Kyouko might be the most interesting character out of the cast, but personally her character's a little hard to like. Man, I want to see more of my favourite Akarin-chan, but unfortunately her primary gimmick is her lack of existence on screen. Aww...

The animation is actually rather poor, I guess they can't really get a good budget for this kind of show. The better (ie more expensive) voice actors took the roles of the supporting characters, so the VA lineup for the main characters isn't too impressive. Both the OP and ED songs are awesome though, and as energetic as hell.

I can't wipe the stupid smile off my face when I watch this. Also, Akarin~!
Plot/Concept: Great!
Style: Very Good
Audio/Visual: Good
Value: 8