Director: Nobuaki Nakanishi
Screenplay: Masahiro Yokotani and Reiko Yoshida
Based on a manga by Kagari Tamaoka
Voice Cast: Ayaka Ohashi as Ringo Nishijima; Kanako Miyamoto as Hana Sasayama; Moemi Otaka as Tsugumi Haraki; Yuri Komagata as Aki Torii
Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles
Another micro-series, thirteen episodes around three minutes each, and yet sadly Mangirl out of all of them feels one of the least rewarding for me at all. So much so I feared this would become a micro review itself.
Mangirl's premise is enticing. Four young women, with no real experience baring one of them working in the doujinshi (fan made and self published work) field, decide to create a manga publication without previous knowledge of being editors or publishers. This will include the stress of trying to figure out how to do this professionally, which is far harder than they anticipated before you factor in de facto leader Hana is head strong and not always the best person to coordinate elaborate plans. You need to find talent to create work for said manga publication, create the aesthetic of each volume each month or so, and if you do actually get off the starting gate, deadlines alongside the additional complications of compiled manga volumes will be in your way.
Truthfully, when Mangirl does occasionally decide to be about the world of manga publication, the briefest of titbit are interesting. An entire passage, with jokes, about there being a variety of fonts you have to choose between to find one appropriate for the genre and tone of the work was fascinating. The tools used to help amend and work on getting your work to look good and be properly collected are too when occasionally shown. This is however a very brief amount of the show, short as it is, which clearly feels like it just wanted to be cute girls being cute.
Which sucks as, even if you sugar coat it a little and include a ska soundtrack, I think of Animation Runner Kuromi (2000 & 2004), both parts an hour or so long work altogether, which in little time did a lot of fascinating storytelling about the nuts and bolts of a tiny animation studio having to work. It did lightly soften the pain of working for such an industry, and played it for comedy, but those laughs could be grim ones and did not hide the stress. Mangirl, brutally, has no interest in this and comes off as a stereotype, also as negative, of an anime being entirely about cute female characters to appeal to a viewer with little under the surface. It really is not that interested in being a story about the manga industry even from this perspective, with episodes entirely off to the side of the subject, such as holding onto the animals and plants of employees whilst they are away.
The worst part of this is that, as a result, these characters do not even stand out as archetypes. Our lead Hana is the figure whose lofty ambitions are contrasted by many mistakes, but she is not given a lot of time to stand out. One likes food, the other I openly admit did not stick out. The one who was interesting is Aki Torii, as the calm collected figure who has to usually steer the ship of this manga publishing company to some success. She is also the one who in back-story who was a popular doujinshi creator who wishes her old persona was kept a secret, likely due to lewder work she may have worked on, but as much a good joke that she wishes to just keep the two sides away from each other. The one episode that stands out, where they go to a manga convention, is funnier as it leads to the one highlight of Mangirl, where she returns to said old persona, effectively becoming the magical girl whose mission is to provide the tired and dehydrated bottle water, actually a good moment and something of progress.
My meanness is entirely in this review because of how little it taken with the premise, three minutes per episode a really tight and difficult length to work with. Mangirl is a light hearted comedy about these characters bumbling through this insane goal, which means there is not a lot that really stands out. My Sister, the Writer (2018), a misguided and notorious misfire that was much about a light novel writer and the world surrounding this, is not going to be evoked as having greater insight on an industry, as it was an incest themed show where infamously the staff wrote coded distress signals in the credits as the animation dipped further and further early on, but the length of that show of full length episodes around twelve episode was probably a wiser idea to make a show about the world of manga publication. Even Animation Runner Kuromi's shorter length and focus on the process was a better structure. Mangirl just wants to be sweet, and sadly, that is not a rewarding result for me personally.
Even when this show abruptly gets meta, as the anime adaptation is not for one of their titles but of themselves, it has not a lot to make this work baring an odd coda. With male characters merely bystanders and readers, even these female characters do not really get to have a lot to stand out even as wacky archetypes or as figures to like straining through this hard work. The manga author trapped in her apartment, which will fill with garbage bags up to the ceiling if her assistant is not there, is someone we could have had a lot more insight and playfulness with. You could have actually gotten darker, and real, even if with a happy conclusion if you showed how bloody difficult this work was. Showing the creation of manga and its publication, especially with the tight deadlines the medium has, had enough potential to be more rewarding without losing the cuddly nature the micro-series desires.
There was also a bonus. For the anime's Blu-ray Disc release, they included an unaired 14th episode called Asobu Henshū Girl for the Japanese audience. Sadly, whilst the longest at nine minutes long, this piece set at a beach is the swimsuit episode, which means it would not add any extended detail. It is does have more of "White Autumn", the doujinshi persona of Aki, but as it says on the tin, it is entirely about the characters being in swimsuits
Even if not a feminist work, at least a show about young women succeeding this task of creating a manga publication would have been great if it had even more time to work with, or focused in the little they had. Eve in their heightened multi-colour, and cute pop song opening with the requisite shots of the cast jumping in the air and dancing, Mangirl would have been better if you had more time to work with. The length here is the Achilles heel for this title to work, but also that the show is far less interested in its premise then you presume.
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1) HERE.