During a beautiful spring day in Kyoto, Aya and Miki follow
the student council president Midori to a board game shop.
The three students end up discovering a German board game
that causes them to realize their shared passion for games.
In the coming days, many more board games will be found and
played!
(Source: Crunchyroll)
Over the last decade in the wake of K-ON!'s massive financial and critical success, many "cute girls doing cute things" manga and anime series have adopted gimmicks, particularly involving school clubs, in an effort to distinguish themselves. In most cases, for better or for worse, the gimmick is just a pretext to get all the characters in one place (this is arguably a major reason for the overwhelming prevalence of high school anime). LIDENFILMS' Houkago Saikoro Club, about an after-school club where a group of girls (and usually a guest or two) play board games, adapted from the manga by Hiroo Nakamichi, is precisely the opposite of this. As a connoisseur of cute anime girls, I was lured into watching an anime that really _is_ about board games, and I hardly mind. Miki, a shy first-year, and her energetic airhead friend Aya catch another girl, Midori, entering a mysterious building well after curfew hours. What they find is a specialty shop that sell imported (particularly German) board games, nearly all of which are actual copyrighted titles. Midori quickly ropes them into playing, and soon the Dice Club is founded at their high school. Emilia, a German exchange student, is introduced about halfway through the anime series. None of these characters are outstanding but they all receive decent characterization over the course of the series, and more importantly bounce off of each other very well, something which is important when they're actually shown playing board games. The secondary characters also work well in this format, and one of the best episodes features Miki regaining her memories of a bullying incident from when she was a child as she plays a board game with who she thinks was the bully in that incident. Taken purely as a slice of life anime, Houkago Saikoro Club is average-to-decent in most regards, and at its worst can feel very procedural when characters are explaining the rules of each game featured. But along with an enjoyable, relaxing soundtrack (albeit having one of the most generic OPs ever) Houkago Saikoro Club is ultimately saved by its central theme. Never in any "themed" slice of life anime have I seen an author with the level of passion and knowledge for the topic at hand. Every board game featured (except, of course, the one being developed by Midori, whose aspiring career is followed throughout the course of the anime and helps emphasize the show's passion for its topic) is real, and most of them are fairly niche, at least compared to the big brand name American board games like Monopoly or Sorry!. The show also openly laments the niche status of board games in Japan, particularly in comparison to their relative popularity in Europe. Even if you're not particularly enthusiastic about board games, it's hard not to appreciate the amount of detail placed into the topic at hand. The coverage of the board games themselves, as well as how the main characters interact with each other through these games, makes Houkago Saikoro Club an anime worth watching. P.S.: Blockus is infuriating.
My impression after watching episode 1: _this is an
interesting premise I want to see more of, with the __most
annoying__ characters I would like to see all struck from
the face of the earth._ My impression after watching episode
2: _I will put up with obnoxious high school girls only so I
can see more cool board games._ Premise is simple: two 10th
graders discover their classmate works at a small board game
store, she teaches them to play a game, and they are
introduced to the amazing world of board games, which
apparently are not super popular in Japan (or so this should
would lead you to believe, no idea if that’s correct or just
convenient for the plot). One of the first things you’ll
notice when the game shop is shown for the first time is
they’re not just drawing generic boxes. No, they’re
beautifully illustrated actual real-life games you could
play right now.
A game gets played in every episode–I can honestly say I now
want a chance to play __Marrakech,__ a game in episode one
that involves strategically moving a rug merchant around and
trying to cover more of the board with your rugs than
another player’s.
The games are the reason to watch. Each episode is a
different game, and no game is played in more than one
episode. Also going on my list of games to obtain is __Kaker
Laken Poker/Cockroach Poker,__ a card bluffing game, and I’m
also interested in playing __Incan Gold,__ a strategy game,
and __The Island/Survive: Escape from Atlantis,__ where
players try to move pieces off a sinking island. The games
get a basic explanation—probably not enough that I could
play right away, but enough that I think I got a decent
understanding of whether I’d enjoy the game, at least. It
was also fun spotting games in the shop and wondering if
they’d make an appearance (after yelling “PLAY BLOKUS PLAY
BLOKUS PLAY THE FRIKKIN BLOKUS” at the beginning of every
episode, they did, in fact, finally play the __Blokus__ game
I’d seen sitting in the background at the beginning, in
episode 10). (I own Blokus. Good game.) The downside of the
show is…the main characters. Blue-haired Miki is terminally
shy and I just can’t like her as a character. Pigtailed Aya
is a Manic Pixie [Childish] Girl. Rules-loving Midori is
pretty inflexible, but is mostly a nice character, actually.
But my gosh, are the first two annoying. Later, a
part-German girl shows up and I was like _is there an
epidemic of bad German accents going around this season
because FIRST MOMIJI SOHMA and NOW THIS_ but it turns out
they’re voiced by the same American voice actress, so that
explains it. But it certainly didn’t help. (Her dad also has
a not-super-great German accent, so.) ___Verdict___ _English
dub?_ Yes, and it’s OK. Actually, most of the voices are
fine, but blue-haired Miki has a thin, high-pitched voice
(that fits her character, but her character is wimpy), and
part-German Emmy has the same pseudo-German accent that
drove me nuts with Momiji in _Fruits Basket._ (How nuts? I
spent half an hour searching Youtube for actual Germans
speaking English just to remind me what it actually sounds
like.) _Visuals:_ Characters a fine, nothing flashy. But the
backgrounds are beautiful, and show many real spots around
Kyoto, where it’s set (Crunchyroll has a blog post
HERE
comparing the anime visuals with real spots), and as noted
above, the games themselves get beautifully illustrated.
_Worth watching?_ Yes if interested in board games and you
can stand a really whiny, wimpy 10th grader. (Miki does
improve for at least half the episodes, but she’s often
plagued by self-doubt or bad memories that slow everything
down.) Even with the obnoxious characters, I don’t regret
watching. Plus, it’s only 12 episodes.