Up until last night, I never intended to rant about Gokujou. In all honesty, I try not to think about it too much, because the memory of the time spent watching it is still quite painful to me- if the truth must be known, I broke down and became unable to continue a few minutes into episode twelve. Nonetheless, when I read the news that ADV have licensed Gokujou, or as they call it, Best Student Council, I knew that I could stay silent no longer. For where the other five people who have watched the show would no doubt argue that it is a hidden gem bursting to the brim with hilarity, I must present the opposite view, the opinion of someone who subjected herself to episode upon episode in a vain search for entertainment.
Gokujou Seitokai is the tale of Randou Rino, a typical good-natured but generally dim-witted lead who goes around with a creepy talking puppet on her hand. Through a series of unlikely and most likely engineered circumstances, Rino ends up becoming a member of the student council (the titular Gokujou Seitokai) on her very first day at Miyagami girls secondary school. As it turns out, Gokujou Seitokai is more of an over-the-top special ops team than a regular student council, and now poor, clueless Rino is stuck in the middle of their antics.
Upon first hearing about Gokujou Seitokai, it sounded as if I was onto a winner. The crazy parodical humour of Excel Saga combined with the high school comedy of Azumanga- where could it go wrong? Unfortunately, within the space of a few episodes, it soon became clear that going wrong was something Gokujou had little to no trouble with.
Had Gokujou simply been a case of being completely and utterly clichéd, there would have been little need to rant; it wouldn’t have been a particularly inspiring experience, but at least it would have been an inoffensive way to pass the time on those dull days when you can’t think of anything better to do. Impossible as it seems, however, Gokujou manages to mess up even the standard formula; what should have been the obligatory swimming episode, for example, turns out to be about sixteen minutes of dull council meeting before anyone even goes outside. This kind of council meeting scene seems to permeate the entire series, meaning that before you can even get to the generic storylines and predictable punch lines, you must first wade through endless minutes of utter tedium. Of the episodes I saw, only the cooking competition in episode six offered much in the way of entertainment; episode twenty-two’s Yu-Gi-Oh spoof did look promising, but I simply couldn’t make it that far.
A sub par plot can often be compensated for by interesting characters, but here again Gokujou completely fails to succeed. Instead of developing a more manageable cast, Gokujou simply throws character upon character on the screen (the OP in itself shows about 14-16 named characters), each more bland and stereotypical than the last. Alongside the clueless Rino, the series offers such fascinating personalities as the universally beloved council president (effectively the leader of her own HARD YURI harem), the meganekko, the Engrish-speaking American girl, the hot-headed Assault faction types, the cool and calm Covert faction types, the loli landlady- all-in-all, a group so interesting and well developed that even remembering their names is something of a struggle.
Final Thoughts
Gokujou Seitokai could have been an amusingly over-the-top high school comedy in the vein of Ouran and School Rumble, but instead, it proved to be something far, far less. With ADV releasing the likes of this and Coyote Ragtime Show whilst leaving the excellent Kurau in permanent limbo, hope for the future is slim indeed.
Well, I enjoyed Gokujou Seitokai a lot and found it pretty funny, although a bit repetitive.
Yet, I agree that a lot of shows deserve to be released before this one, and as you say, Kurau is one good example of it.
Sometimes there’s more going on than you think. I’m inclined to agree that Gokujo Seitokai isn’t going to sell, but honestly I don’t think Kurau, while more interesting (and sadly I didn’t get to finish), matters either.
I think more people just need to watch it and judge for themselves. Neither are a particularly bad show, despite what you say.
Ah man, ADV is gonnna release Coyote Ragtime Show? That show was the biggest let down of the summer. The future of licensed shows is bleak.
ugh your opinion is SO BIASED. trust me I watch the show for 4 eps it seemed sorta mediocre that curry episode killed me. and it seemed like so many frickin’ characters but I stuck around to the end and it got funnier and the characters grew on me, improving, and i can safely say it’s a GOOD SHOW. your opinion seeing 12 eps out of 26 is not VALID. this is my opinion seeing 26 out of 26.
haven’t you ever seen an anime where it started out sorta okay or bad but turned into something awesome like school rumble.
like jeez…… like I said your review is BIASED and it’s not FAIR.
and the yu-gi-oh parody ep was awesome as well as the magical girl parody-ish ep…
i can’t believe you think you actually have to analyze so close when you haven’t even see the whole thing…
IDIOT
As I’ve said before, the great thing about OPINIONS is that they do not have to match; for example, you can think the show is good, and I can think it is BAD. Yes, I only watched twelve episodes but the fact is that I found it so DULL that I couldn’t possible face watching FOURTEEN more.
I don’t normally CAPITALISE random words but you seem to act as if it makes your point more valid so I thought I’d give it a TRY.
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like I said your review is BIASED. i guess you’ve never seen a show where it improves along the way like full moon wo sagashite (one of the best roamnce anime) which is like 16 straight filler eps.
not my fault you’re n00b
Hmm, so if someone who has seen around 400 anime series and films is a “n00b”, I guess you must be a super expert who has seen at least 4000 different series from start to finish. I commend you for having the time to watch all that.
no… it amazes me that you’ve never seen an anime where it starts off a little weak but gets good towards the end like full moon wo sagashite. like I said you’re a n00b
Oh dear, did it really take a month to reword your last comment? I’ve approved your comments thus far so that everyone can appreciate the effectiveness of your two sentence argument, but given that I have seen all 52 episodes of your beloved Full Moon you really aren’t very convincing. See you in February for your next comment.
Gokujou Seitokai could have been an amusingly over-the-top high school comedy in the vein of Ouran and School Rumble, but instead, it proved to be something far, far less. With ADV releasing the likes of this and Coyote Ragtime Show whilst leaving the excellent Kurau in permanent limbo, hope for the future is slim indeed.
uh how would you know if it would’ve if you didn’t see all the episodes, if you’ve 26/26 of ouran and 52/52 of school rumble and 6/26 of gokujou seitokai whereevr you stopped there’s no point comparing.
You’ve visited this post god knows how many times and still don’t know how many episodes I watched?
It is clear this post offends you, and I’m sorry that I can’t accommodate my life to your desire of my watching all 26 episodes, but the fact that the series was so tedious and utterly, utterly dull that I could not bring myself to waste any more of my life on it is telling enough for me.
As I see it, your best bet now is to stop displaying your ignorance by trolling this post with repetitive and frankly quite dull flames and go and work on an informed response so we can have an adult debate. Alternatively, if this blog makes you that annoyed, I will not be offended if you do not visit here again. Either way, I have no further wish to sate your desire for attention.