SCHOOL-LIVE!
Directed By: Hiroyuki Furukawa
Written By: Norimitsu Kaihō
Produced By : Studio Lerche
Watch it now at Crunchyroll !
SCHOOL-LIVE! is your typical School, Slice of Life, Seinen anime, focusing on a group of four girls that make up the School Living Club, their dog, Taroumaru, and their adviser, Megumi Sakura,The director, Hiroyuki Furukawa, is best known for directing White Album 2 and Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse, althugh has worked on individual episodes of other popular anime. Studio Lerche have, in recent seasons, brought us Re:_Hamatora, and Assassination Classroom, both being personal favourites of mine. This season alone, Lerche are responsible for SCHOOL-LIVE!, Ranpo Kitan: Game of Laplace, and Monster Musume. Considering they have never had three anime in a year before, I am concerned that three concurrent anime could be detrimental to the production quality. In any case, I hope that it isn’t SCHOOL-LIVE!, potentially my favourite of the Summer 2015 season.
The writer, Norimitsu Kaihō, is the creator of the manga from which SCHOOL-LIVE! is adapted, and is also responsible for scripts and series composition, Hopefully, this means we will be treated to a series finale that doesn’t feel like a cop-out, as can happen all too often with anime adaptations. He worked on series composition for Gunslinger Stratos last season, but will probably be better known as the writer of both manga and novel versiosn of Robotics;Notes: Senomiya Misaki no Mihappyou Shuki and the prequel novel for Suisei no Gargantia.
The first episode features introductions to each of the girls in their School Living Club, and we get to see Yuki Takeya attend classes; meanwhile, the other members of her club focus on School Living Club activities. Meals are had within the club room, rather than in the cafeteria, but it’s still the ‘cute girls doing cute things’ type of anime we’ve all come to adore. A large portion of the episode is chasing Taroumaru around the school, after Yuki forgets to walk him. Their club advisor is also present, though not much, with Yuki pointing out that she does not stand out at all. One member of the school living club, Kurumi Ebisuzawa, the almost mandatory twin-tailed character, carries a shovel around with her at all times; she is seemingly involved with horticultural club activities as well. We first meet her on the roof of the school, where we also see water being collected and some food grown. They clearly go to an extraordinary school…
Well, that’s basically everything before the incredible plot twist at the end of the first episode, which I will not spoiler out of consideration. I do, however, implore you to give this anime a try; you’ll be missing out by not doing so. The first episode does provide hints as to what is really going on, but I was completely blind to these; I suppose I just wasn’t looking for more than a generic slice of life school anime. As for the plot twist at the end, it skyrocketed this anime to one of my favourites, and is likely to be the one I look forward to most each week.
The first two episodes are avaialble now on Crunchyroll, with episode 3 due out on Friday.
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