Grand Blue


Episodes: 12
Genres: Slice of Life, Comedy, Seinen

Synopsis: Iori Kitahara moves to the coastal town of Izu for his freshman year at its university, taking residence above Grand Blue, his uncle's scuba diving shop. Iori has high hopes and dreams about having the ideal college experience, but when he enters the shop he is sucked into the alcoholic activities of the carefree members of the Diving Club who frequent the place. Persuaded by upperclassmen Shinji Tokita and Ryuujirou Kotobuki, Iori reluctantly joins their bizarre party. His cousin Chisa Kotegawa later walks in and catches him in the act, earning Iori her utter disdain.

Based on Kenji Inoue and Kimitake Yoshioka's popular comedy manga, Grand Blue follows Iori's misadventures with his eccentric new friends as he strives to realize his ideal college dream, while also learning how to scuba dive.

Honest Review: Imagine what you expect when you going to college, we develop a lot of preconceptions about what it would be like i mean New places, new friends, maybe a new girlfriend. Go to some parties, maybe find somewhere I felt like I could really fit in and all that wonderful dreamy thought. Well our main protagonist Imagination is no different than an average student who just entering the college.

After graduating high school, Iori moves to Izu, on the coast, to go to college for mechanical engineering. “I’ll put all my effort into having the best college life possible!” he vows. “I’m going to meet cute girls, fall in love, and enjoy the pinnacle of youth with good friends!”

He moves in with his uncle and, more importantly, his two beautiful cousins: motherly, long-haired Nanaka and tomboyish, short-haired Chisa. All of them work at the uncle’s dive shop, the Grand Blue; unfortunately, so do Tokita and Kotobuki, macho dive bums who pressure Iori into joining the diving club even though he can’t swim. Alas, Iori soon finds himself roped into their social circle, partying with a bunch of goofy jocks who just want to get naked and play all-male drinking games. Will Iori get to enjoy a cool campus life? Will he find love? Will the diving club ever actually get in the water?

Well thats for the introduction part which sounds like an average college based anime
or IS IT!, so let examine in our further review.

Story: (7/10)
Most of the time we see gag anime fail to deliver a proper story line and mostly involved in delivering some random funny events and scenes.
Well Grand Blue is kind of done a decent job in constructing a story line. Sure we can say that its not a story based anime .However, Grand Blue does deserve credit in the sense that it doesn't completely devolve into comedy, as most events take place in a ocean setting, staying true to the foundation that it lay down. The Episodes are also loosely tied together, meaning that there is some degree of continuation. But in all we can say that its main purpose is to make audience laugh.

Art, Animation and sound:(9/10)

Art is beautiful considering how they have utilize the beauty of locations including underwater and seasore and present it in a beautiful and artistic way. Animation is great, studio done a decent job in adapting manga considering manga art style is already top class we sure expect in the hands of a decent studio anime is pleasant to watch.
There are some part i like to focus on which Grand Blue done a tremendous job that is adapting face expression with the scenes. Grand Blue Dreaming is a stunning treasure trove of reaction faces. With influences from hot-blooded fighting anime, horror movie framing, and direct references to other franchises, like this Great Teacher Onizuka and that Evil sarcastic Face which taken from Attack on Titans.
OP and ending is pleasant and beautiful as well as some underwater scenes are eye-catching.

It also done a great job in sound department including beautiful opening and ending sound. There are no characters who unnecessarily shouting everywhere and trying to make audience laugh .Voice actors done excellent job in providing tone which goes exceptionally well with the scene

Characters:(9/10)
Characters are unique and excellent and each have there own funnier side perfectly well fitted for such gags Anime.
We can see from absolute scumbags to a hot and weird otaku , from a shy tomboyish waifu material girl who has its own sadist side to a lewd Onee san including Airheads and some trouble some senpais.
Grand Blue has all to offer what is necessary for a gag anime, characters range from lovable bastards like club senpai Tokki and Bukki to absolute scumbags, with Iori somewhere in the middle. He has a veneer of respectability that gets shattered the moment he takes a sip of beer. Also our fellow dorks like good-looking but skeevy anime fan Kohei (“Why isn’t there a club full of beautiful high school girls to be my harem?”)
The female character are more kind of average than you might expect from this particular strain of comedy, with the exception of Nanaka, who is pretty one note with the unpredictable and Lewd Azusa. Chisa and Aina for me is kind of okay serving as a balance in between all these crazy characters.

So What's Lacking:
Well if you see the Manga, its clearly one of the best comedy manga ever made. For anime I feel it kind of fail to adapt the proper pacing of the Anime and how to give Focus on some particular scene. We can see same kind of thing with some famous anime like Food Wars (after 1st season) and Tokyo Ghoul. On some scenes and some part of the story it feel bit rushed which makes viewers who already familiar with manga kind of disappointed. Other than that I don't find anything which are lackluster in the Anime.

The Bad: The other element that might not work for everyone is all the nudity and fanservice. The most explicit nudity actually comes from the boys in the club, who tend to strip when they get drunk. The women, however, in their skintight wetsuits, bikinis, or the occasional glimpse of underwear, are clearly supposed to be titillating. Well I can say that its not for everyone who don't feel comfortable in such thing like nudity and drinking.

Conclusion: Grand Blue is fundamentally a frat house farce in the vein of something like American Pie or The Hangover in anime version. Its comedy definitely has lot of consistency when it comes to make people laugh. If you want a show who you can watch with your friends with enjoyment and laugh this show deliver all the things you needed. Funny events timing is impeccable, making great use of situations, and even manages to make repeating the same punchline funnier the second time.

Overall its pretty good and satisfying show and definitely one of the best gag anime ever made also the funniest one but again you’ll have to really love booze jokes, funny faces, and gags about guys being caught naked with little censorship marks obscuring their junk. I personally highly suggest that you watch this because believe me you will have absolute pleasure.