Hougaku Saikoro Club First Impressions

“I’ve always been bad at playing.”

This might be the first time I’ve decided to review a show purely due to my circle of friends. If I told them there was an anime about board games, but wasn’t able to follow that up with an accounting of the show’s quality, I think I’d find myself exiled like this was a game of Dead of Winter. Honestly, the idea of an anime about various board games seems like a rather messy idea, and this premiere hasn’t changed my mind on that yet. It isn’t hard to imagine Hougaku Saikoro Club turning into a prolonged series of infomercials for various games. Plenty of anime construct narratives around game mechanics, but usually it’s in the context of a singular game, whether it be a preexisting one or one developed solely for the show. In the case of this series, it appears that we will be learning about the general mechanics of a wide swath of games, possibly at a rate of one per episode or maybe even more. My problem with this idea is that the connective tissue holding together these forays into the world of tabletop gaming just isn’t very strong. There are only 4 characters of note in this first episode and none of them exhibit anything more than stock personality traits. I’m curious as to whether a show with this premise can actually work, but this first episode doesn’t do much to convince me.

This first episode follows Takekasa Miki, a withdrawn and detached high school girl who has a part-time job as the male protagonist of Assassination Classroom. I joke, but that blue hair of hers gets on my nerves. No other character shown in this episode has an unnatural hair color like that. Anime has a history of bizarre hair colors, but it always bugs me when it’s isolated to a single character and there is no explanation for the irregularity. Despite her best efforts, Miki ends up befriending an eccentric classmate named Aya whose bombastic, grab-life-by-the-horns approach serves to draw Miki out of her shell. The two of them go on to encounter their class rep. who works part-time at a store devoted to board games. And then they spend the rest of the episode playing the board game Marrakech… I think what irks me about this first episode is that it relies on a notably heavy-handed approach. Miki is extremely introverted and comes across as a crybaby, so her opening up to Aya feels rushed and forced. Aya is abrasively precocious, and the show presents her flippant observations as if they were poignant philosophical revelations. Finally, the class rep., Midori, is a calculating stickler. It’s all very pat.

The production is passable, but it feels a little below average. Liden Films is handling production on this, and, while I’ve been impressed with some of their recent works, not everything they put out can boast the same level of quality. I will concede that the shots of the game store are well realized, and a lot of effort was put into detailing the game boxes. I’m curious as to what relationship needs to exist between the studio and the games publishers for this to work. While I’ve never played it, Marrakech is a real game, as are the others that are shown off in the store. I even spotted one or two that I’ve played. Frankly, the nature of this relationship between the show and the copyright for the games is what I’m most curious about. Are they paying Fantasy Flight Games for the right to show Descent? Or is it the other way around? Or does neither company need to pay the other? Aside from the detail put into the games, the animation is just okay. On the Liden Films spectrum, it’s better than Phantom in the Twilight, but weaker than Hanebado! or Killing Bites.

Before I wrap up, a few Notes and Nitpicks:

• I noticed two games in the background of the store that I’ve played. The first is Descent, which I believe I’ve played only once. The second is Codenames which I played just last month.
• You know what might sell me on this show? An episode devoted to the girls playing Cards Against Humanity… or the Jeopardy! board game. Caveman jokes that I’m not allowed to play the Jeopardy! board game with the group anymore.
• It occurs to me that most of the board games I play with the group are tied closely with the Cthulhu mythos. I’m not sure this show would be willing to go in that direction.
• I know I said there were 4 characters of note in my opening paragraph, but I just didn’t have much to add about the store owner. He’s that buff, bald, sunglasses-wearing guy that you’ve seen in a dozen different anime.