Comic Girls

Overview

Although Love To-LIE-Angle was the first anime of the Spring 2018 season I finished, Comic Girls is the first full-length anime of the season I finished. It’s a slice of life series about four high school girls who live in a dorm for manga artists.

Although I haven’t seen Hidamari Sketch, it’s probably like that series, so if you enjoyed that, you’ll most likely enjoy Comic Girls. There’s not really much else I have to say about the series here since it’s mainly carried by its characters just like any other slice of life series.

Characters

Kaoruko “Kaos” Moeta is the protagonist of the series. Kaos is a small high school girl who’s often mistaken for an elementary schooler due to both her appearance and the way she acts. She’s also fairly introverted and doesn’t know how to interact with other girls her age.

Like Hinako from Hinako Note, Kaos has the ability to attract animals to her, which is used to show her inability to make human friends. However, unlike Hinako, Kaos’ inability to make friends is rooted in her being a hardcore otaku who doesn’t know how what girl her age is “supposed” to like.

Kaos is one of the more entertaining characters of the series due to her reactions to anything and everything that happens, as well as her character being the “lovable failure.” Kaos’ “specialty” is drawing slice of life manga.

Koyume Koizuka is the other new girl at the dorm like Kaos. However, Koyume is Kaos’ opposite in that she’s an attractive, mature looking girl who’s an extrovert and into “girly” things. Because she’s girly, Koyume draws shoujo manga (like Sailor Moon) which are directed towards young girls.

Eating is Koyume’s favorite activity and she has a major sweet tooth. She can be seen with a pastry or other dessert of some time at least once in just about every episode, but often even more frequently. Koyume is also Kaos’ roommate at the dorm.

Tsubasa is Koyume’s love interest, but not because Koyume is attracted to girls in general, just because Tsubasa tends to look androgynous. In fact, apparently most of the other girls at their school have crushes on Tsubasa as well.

She draws shounen manga which are targeted towards younger boys (think Naruto or One Piece). Her personality also fits into what she draws because she likes to dress up as her characters and act out their parts, particularly the scenes where they say “cool” phrases.

However, Tsubasa has to hide her true identity from her fans because it’s expected that the author of shounen series are men, not high school girls. Incidentally, Tsubasa’s homeroom teacher at school is one of her biggest fans.

Ruki Irokawa is the fourth and final of the main characters. While all of the other characters, including Fuura who we’ll get to next, draw manga that fit their personality, this doesn’t apply to Ruki.

She draws ecchi manga despite being embarrassed by it; it turns out that’s just what she’s good at. Further, her pen name is “Big Boobies♥Himeko” despite that not being an accurate description of her appearance. She was talked into using this name by her editor in order to sell more manga.

Ruki is Tsubasa’s roommate, and the two of them were already living in the dorm the previous year. They’ve also known each other since childhood and frequently help each other finish their manga when deadlines are approaching.

The only supporting character I’ll mention is my personal favorite character, Suzu Fuura. Fuura also lived in the dorm the previous year with Tsubasa and Ruki, although neither of them really like having her around. This may sound harsh at first, but there’s a reason for this.

Fuura loves to draw horror manga, and she tends to use the other students living in the dorm as her models. To do this, she frequently scares the other girls so she can see their reactions, something that neither Kaos nor Ruki appreciate.

Fuura’s room is located in the attic of the dorm and she doesn’t have a roommate because the girl who roomed with her the previous year went away on a trip or something (I forget exactly). Her room is decorated exactly as you might expect, with skeletons and other Halloween props scattered around.

She’s not my favorite character because of her appearance or the fact that she draws horror manga, instead, I just find her love of scaring the other girls to be entertaining. Her interactions with Kaos are the best due to her personality mixed with Kaos’ reactions.

Conclusion

Despite how much I enjoyed Comic Girls, I gave it a 6/10 in the end. It’s a good slice of life, comedy, but I don’t think I’d ever watch through it again which is why I don’t want to give it a 7. However, if there’s a second season, I’ll definitely be watching it.

As with every other week this season from week 4 onward, I’ll be doing a short review of the final episode of Comic Girls as part of my Spring 2018 Week 12 post on Sunday.

The OP for Comic Girls is available here.