I’ll preface this up front by saying that I went into the premiere of Grand Blue in a fairly sour mood. After all the preposterous shit that’s come down with Hi Score Girl, for the anime to have no streamers (or as yet, subbers) is beyond galling. I hadn’t even picked up on the announcement that Netflix Japan had snatched it, which from my perspective is pretty much the worst possible news. No stream and no dump until after the season ends – the worst of both worlds, as it were. To be dependent on fansubbers in the age of streaming is not a position you want to be in, but even after all the trials and tribulations HSG fans have already suffered, that’s where we find ourselves.
But this post is about Grand Blue, and as you might have guessed from my staying O/T for so long, I’m not that anxious to talk about it. To be honest, I kind of hated this premiere – which is a shame, as this series was highly placed in the second tier of expectations for me this season. The manga has ridiculously high aggregator scores, which while by no means an ironclad guarantor of quality can often be a positive sign. And I always support the idea of more anime set in a college environment, as it offers so much possibility that the medium has largely left untapped.
What struck me most in hindsight is that Grand Blue is pretty much like every terrible high school comedy built around bad tropes and cliches, except the tropes and cliches are leveled up for the setting. The same tired distorted face crap over and over. Nudity. The same drinking gags (sometimes literally) on perma-loop. Siscon and cousin-con “romance”. I like lowbrow humor, and Takamatsu Shinji is certainly a director whose work has often been appealing to me. But seriously – this stuff isn’t that funny. A lot of it isn’t even funny the first time, never mind the 10th.
Another thing that annoys the fuck out of me is that it looks like the premise, such as it is, is basically going to be the main character being tortured over and over for comic effect. Not that he’s likeable or anything, but it’s still not funny. There was a major warning sign for me with this series actually, if I’d chosen to take heed of it. My reaction to the mangaka Inoue Kenji’s (who’s really a light novelist, for the record) first big series, Baka Test, was quite unique for me. I loved the first season of the anime, and absolutely hated the second. I mean, loathed with white-hot passion – and the mean-spiritidness of the comedy was a huge reason why. I wondered if there might have been adaptation problems, but I think it just took that long before I caught on to what the series was really like.
So I guess my question with Grand Blue after one episode would be – is that all there is? I will give this another ep or two based on the hype, but if this is a WYSIWYG premiere, there’s no reason for me to stick around because only bad karma can come from it. I have no doubt this series is going to be popular and rack up huge review scores at the usual places, but unless there’s a lot more than what we’ve seen so far, it’s just going to be another case of my tastes being hopelessly out of step with the consensus of anime fandom.
Dauntingoverlord
July 13, 2018 at 6:51 pmI was wondering where Hi Score Girl was. That totally stinks, ugh. Yeah, going to give Grand Blue the skip.
leongsh
July 14, 2018 at 2:09 amMove on, Guardian Enzo. The manga is mostly about endless drinking and hijinks in university life. My nickname for the manga is “The Hapless Univeristy Nighmare Life of Kitahara Iori”. That said, there’s some diving but there’s little of it in the beginning.
Guardian Enzo
July 14, 2018 at 2:19 amThat seems to be the general consensus.
leongsh
July 14, 2018 at 3:57 amThat all said, if you are looking for Animal House hijinks in anime form, Grand Blue is it.
cheverino
July 14, 2018 at 6:07 amYeah Grand blue is mostly hijinks even when it tries to be serious with diving, love and other stuff. Mainly because Iori is cool being dragged (he knows that they bring trouble but he is into it anyway) by the usual characters trope, he have to navigate through the misunderstanding, troubles and alcohol that this characters bring before he do something reasonable or be put on another ordeal for the next trope he have to deal with.
Sam
July 14, 2018 at 7:24 pmHa, knew that Grand Blue would be hated here – I share the sentiment as I’ve written in the season preview post.
About having to rely on free streaming w/ fansubbers, it may not be my business to assume, but I’d have guessed that knowing the plots and dialog from the manga (a big factor IMO), along with being exposed to the anime (i.e. not dubbed) for a few years and having experience of living in Japan might’ve been enough, guess not.
I do understand that knowing/understanding 70-80% of dialog is probably still not the same. It’s not like I catch every single line while watching, even films in English, as it’s easy to get distracted and miss here and there (with BGM or other things), but that’s probably a bit different as well.
GC
July 14, 2018 at 8:39 pmWhat is the deal with distorted faces?
Over the years you hardly ever saw it unless a villian finally lost it towards the end of the series and made crazy faces. Then last season on Golden Kamuy whenever Asirpa smelled Miso she made distorted faces and so far this season I’ve lost count of the number of new shows doing that. Its an annoying trend that needs to stop. .
Guardian Enzo
July 14, 2018 at 9:29 pmI don’t mind if it’s done in moderation like Golden Kamuy did it. Hinamatsuri and Chio-san are right on the edge of excess. With Grand Blue it’s straight up irritating.
donhumberto
July 15, 2018 at 3:45 am@ GC. Absolutely. Distorted faces almost managed to ruin Golden Kamuy for me so you can guess what my opinion about Grand Blue is…Jeez, this makes American Pie look like The Godfather. And it’s being praised everywhere… Definitely my disconect with the anime fandom grows bigger every day. Glad to see I’m not the only one around here who thought this was crap.
Guardian Enzo
July 15, 2018 at 5:34 amYeah, the disconnect is strong with this one.
zeroyuki92
July 15, 2018 at 1:27 amNot surprised that Enzo didn’t like it. The main reason for why the mean spirited comedy of Grand Blue works is because the characters never get upset by them, and instead get with the flow and tried to ‘pay it back’. Definitely stupid and I can see why Enzo hated it, but it’s perfectly okay.
I don’t even expect that Enzo will even write a second post since while the variety of comedy is high, the tone will generally stay the same (one of the potential pairing is even all about out-trolling the other one, although there’s also a pretty vanilla crush and some actual diving in there)
Jarvis
November 24, 2018 at 2:54 pmI don’t watch anime regularly but I came across grand blue on youtube and it really caught my attention because it reminded my of danshi koukousei no nichijou; which I assume the original poster doesn’t like either, of course I could be wrong. But yes, shows like grand blue and danshi koukousei are what catch my attention most of the time because of the light-hearted comedy and how short they usually are. I just finished watching grand blue and I have to say I enjoyed it a lot. Even though it might be a little bit cliche, it really did spark an interest in diving for me. Unlike other sports/athletic anime I like how grand blue didn’t exaggerate the experience and instead made it very informing and realistic (well I know nothing about diving therefore I can’t confirm how accurate it is in the show). But my point is as realistic (for the diving part at least) as it is, it’s not boring at all but instead very enjoyable because of the comedy. I think grand blue does have it down sides such as the cliche and perhaps the overuse of distorted expressions (which I quite liked to be honest) as mentioned by the author, but it also sets itself aside from similar anime by taking a sport/activity realistically and seriously; which, I think is the best thing that came out of the anime.
Prity
May 29, 2019 at 7:22 amThe anime is awesome and I love it from my deepest hearth. I can’t understand any of your statement!