And here I am back again for a new Tuesday of talk about anime. Since last week I have bought the French collector version of the Blue Exorcist movie and I think it is worth the price for one of those artbook alone. I think I have also gotten the virus of collector versions. Be sad for my wallet with me!
Anyways, Stella Jougakuin Koutou-ka C3-bu is a series that talks about girls being cute while playing airsoft. That is pretty much what it is all about.
I am usually not much of a fan of such shows, you know, putting cute girls and firearms together is moe bait at best, so it is hard to make something good out of it. In fact, this is actually the first anime of the “cute girls with guns” genre I have ever watched so I cannot really compare, but, what drew me to this show is the whole club element. Besides, I have friends who play airsoft so I was somewhat familiar with it.
Ever since K-On! I go by the motto, “never underestimate cute girls in clubs”, and it proves right yet again. (Well, sometimes it does not but that is another story.) I think using an airsoft club was a pretty good idea to make the whole anime acceptable to watch. I think more people would be drawn to watch such a show if it presents itself as a school life anime, I also think that is what happened.
But to be honest, nothing much happens in this anime. It is only about cute girls playing airsoft. Our little heroine named Yura goes nuts at some point and we have had the arrival of the supernatural but overall it is mostly about airsoft. I rather enjoyed following the girls around in their training. Some other sports anime (I also find you can define it as a sports anime, right?) are a bit heavy on the whole explaining of the rules part. C3-Bu does not. And it does not for a very simple reason: airsoft is easy to get. No matter what kind of play you go for, it is simple. That really helped give the show a light feeling and focus on the characters. As I said the main one is Yura. She is a young shy girl who tries to change herself and feel better in her skin. That kind of character is easy to relate to. She is also totally not the kind of girl you would think was playing airsoft in her free-time. Except I cannot say many positive things about her as she is pretty bland.
Many of the characters in this show are actually pretty bland.
Maybe Sonora is not but she is a stereotypical tomboy and her back story is pretty ridiculous. Same goes for Rin but Rin at the very least has her looks to make up for it. Sadly, the characters are not the ones who will save this anime.
The plot neither. It is nothing special, not at all. The whole anime is nothing special, I cannot even particularly praise the seiyuu, the animation or the music. Everything is average. It does not mean I did not enjoy myself, seeing cute girls playing airsoft was entertaining, but it is definitely not the first title that comes to mind when asked for recommendation.