Grisaia no Kajitsu - First Impressions

Studio: 8bit

Genre(s): Drama, Romance, School, Psychological

OP: "Rakuen no Tsubasa" By Maon Kurosaki

ED: "Anata no Aishita Sekai" By Yoshino Nanjo

Summary: Mihama Academy—on the surface, a closed learning environment established to nurture students who find themselves at odds with the world around them; in actuality, an orchard-cum-prison built to preserve fruit that has fallen too far from its tree.

Whatever the circumstances behind its establishment, Mihama Academy is at present home to five female students, all with their own reasons for "enrollment." For better or worse, each girl has established a routine obliging of her current situation; life moves at an idle, yet accommodating pace within the walls of Mihama.

Yet with the arrival of the institute's first male student, the nearly preposterously opaque Kazami Yuuji, the students at Mihama begin to fall out of step with their predetermined rhythms. Will Yuuji prove to be the element the girls around him needed to take hold of their lives once more, or will the weight of their pasts prove too steep a wall to overcome?

And in the first place, just who is Kazami Yuuji? While the true nature of the "job" he is wont to alight to at the most haphazard of moments remains shrouded in secrecy, one thing is for certain—his encroachment upon the quiet orchard known as Mihama Academy will prove itself momentous in one way or another. And of course, one cannot discount the possibility that perhaps Yuuji himself carries the weightiest past of any of the students...

(Source: VNDB)

I honestly didn't know what to expect going into Grisaia no Kajitsu, but the most prominent thing that drew me in was it is a psychological romance. With that in my mind, I was hoping for something that was more than likely a mature in nature anime. So when the first scene with the listing of the five girl's "sins" in life, I was interested in seeing where this anime was going.

Oddly enough, it switched quite quickly into to this very stern looking male character being interrogated by the police. With these two scenes, I almost immediately had the thought that Grisaia no Kajitsu had the feeling of the characters might seem somewhat normal but there is something off about them. This continues when we enter the so-called "ordinary school" known as Mihama Academy.

The first thing I noticed as our main character, Kazami Yuuji, and Tachibana Chizuru pulled up to the school is the cameras. I some normal schools you might see a few cameras here and there, but in Mihama Academy there seems to be a sizable amount outside the perimeter which continues this eerie feeling about the anime. The other was how bare the school grounds was, which is basically step up for a harem situation of five females to one male.

From this point on their it was mostly normal interaction of introducing the new female characters into the story. The one thing I do want to note is how analytical and snarky Yuuji is when interacting with people. With a male protagonist so boring looking, there had to be somewhere for the audience to relate with him, and that snark seemed to do the trick -- at least for me.

Many of the females are very high energy, so having that balanced out with the cool as ice Yuuji make both funny and interesting conversation of these polar opposites. And the overall nature of each conversation almost made me forget about this lurking darkness the anime first presented. However, what followed after meeting all the cheerful characters, was a very quick and sharp snap right back into the reality of this anime.

When Yuuji stayed to meet the last student -- who doesn't show to school until later in the day -- he was met with hostility quite quickly. Sakaki Yumiko is probably the only girl who doesn't hide her dark side and ended up baring her claws at our male protagonist instantly. And that scene was the turning point for the curtains being lifting about the academy.

Not going to lie, I am personally drawn to female characters who are considered "roses"; on the surface they seem so beautiful and harmless, but go down a bit further you might get cut by their thorns. So many of these characters do show these types of characteristics but right from the first episode alone, I'm interested in Suou Amane -- the sizable women -- and Sakaki Yumiko -- Ms. Quick-to-Stab.

So with just this one episode, I'm interesting in seeing what to come from Grisaia no Kajitsu. The fact that some of the girl seem like they are ready to kill Yuuji for something he did in the past is something I can't wait to see. And getting into the different personalities of each character seems like an entertaining journey to take.

Orginally posted to the now shutdown sekijitsu.com: Archived Page