"Want to eat dinner with me? I'm free until morning!" - Kouhai-chan
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| The cute Douki-chan and the bane(s) of her existence |
Binge-watching an anime series, or any series for that matter, can be challenging for working adults. Professional and personal responsibilities take up a lot of time. Ganbare, Douki-chan understands that and packs a surprising amount of comedy and cute moments into its short six minute episodes.
Ganbare, Douki-chan is a romantic comedy about the cute Douki-chan, a single office lady who lives with a cat, and her crush on Douki-kun, her colleague with a face straight out of your favorite hentai anime.
And don't let Douki-kun's face—or lack thereof—deceive you. This is not hentai.
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| A faceless Douki-kun stuck in an elevator with Douki-chan |
Douki-kun's character design is deliberate. His faceless appearance forces us viewers to focus on Douki-chan and the other girls. Though, reading that back, it sounds like something straight out of a typical hentai flick! I promise it isn't!
Ganbare, Douki-chan is anchored by the three girls: the eponymous Douki-chan, Kouhai-chan, and an onee-san who is apparently named Maiko, according to Wikipedia—her name was not mentioned once in the anime.
Douki-chan seems to be highly regarded in the office. She instructs people to revise reports, goes to out-of-town meetings, and meets with clients and business partners. She seems like a typical go-getter type. However, what she has in professional experience, she lacks on the romantic side of life.
Douki-chan spends the whole show crushing on Douki-kun, looking for ways to progress their relationship, and getting Dikembe Mutombo'd by the bane(s) of her existence.
Kouhai-chan, on the other hand, is the opposite of the meek Douki-chan. There is no doubt about her intentions of pursuing Douki-kun. I counted three instances where she wanted to turn the show into a full-blown hentai instead of the sweet, fluffy show that it is! And I love her for it.
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| Kouhai-chan! Stop making the show hentai! |
Now, Maiko is a senior of Douki-kun from college. There may have been a past between the two. She is introduced in the middle of the show as a business partner of our MC's company. She is a sly, sexy woman who delights in bringing out that chibi, frustrated expression on Douki-chan.
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| DOUKI-KUN!! YOU DIRTY DOG! |
Ganbare, Douki-chan does not start off hot. The first episode only features Douki-chan and Douki-kun. Though the episode shows the two on a business trip sharing a hotel room, à la some Japanese AV, having this happen in the first episode softens its impact. It actually hurts the show because the ecchi moments that the first episode gives us do not really match the tone of the rest of the show.
The tone and comedy of the show really start from the second episode. Douki-kun and Douki-chan give us some cute moments, we get introduced to a very perky and touchy Kouhai-chan, and we also get to meet cockblocked Douki-chan.
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| The first time we see Douki-chan Mutombo'd |
The show is limited in a lot of ways, from the animation quality to the lack of music to enhance the story. But for a show with a runtime of six minutes per episode, you can't expect anything big.
The strength of Ganbare, Douki-chan is its three girls bouncing off each other and Douki-kun. Each of the girls has her own distinct characteristics, and each of them stays true to that characterization. Douki-chan excels in the cutesy moments and in her reactions to the chaos induced by Kouhai-chan, while Maiko is there to create opportunities to put the cast in comedic situations or simply tease her kouhais.
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| The three girls go out for a drink... Douki-kun with them I guess... |
Ganbare, Douki-chan is really geared toward anime fans in their twenties to thirties. There may be a will-they, won't-they dynamic, but subject matter like Douki-chan hoping for something sexual to happen in the first episode and the cast getting blackout drunk are relatable to people in that demographic.
It's not a groundbreaking romantic comedy, but Ganbare, Douki-chan is a fun, short anime worth watching if you enjoy cute romantic comedies with a bit of ecchi humor. Its six-minute episodes make it easy to binge, and the entire series takes only about an hour to finish.
Just like Apocalypse Bringer Mynoghra, which I previously wrote about, Ganbare, Douki-chan is available for free on Muse Asia's YouTube channel for people in Southeast Asia.
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