2014-02-01

Gokujo Seitokai

Gokujo Seitokai (Best Student Council) is a 26 episode slice of life school comedy.  The series is based on a manga of the same name and was spun off into a dating sim game for the PS2.

    Miyagami Academy is an exclusive all girls high school.  The student council is the top authority of the school, surpassing the abilities of the schools staff.  The head of the council is the schools founder, Kanade Jinguji.  Hapless orphan Rino Rando has been enrolled into Miyagami Academy by a mysterious benefactor, Mr. Poppit.  Along with her intelligent talking puppet, Pucchan, she heads off to attend the school.  Upon arriving in the town she finds the apartment she was going to be living in burned to the ground and no were else to live.  When her plight is discovered a series of events are put in place to make her a new member of the student council.  The student council members all live in a dorm, rent and food free.  The golden opportunity can’t be passed up for the lost and broke Kanade.  But when she actually gets into the ranks of the esteemed inner circle things aren't as they seem with this powerful group of students.

    At first I was not interested in this series, it seemed pretty banal and boring.  I kept watching it because in some way it reminded me of Ranma ½.  But about half way through it started to grab on to me and ended up being a half way decent series.  The series goes its course and slowly explains the histories of the student council members and what events brought them to join the school.  As the story progresses hints are dropped at the secrets surrounding Rino, the school and its founder Kanade.  While it takes about half of the series that actually start becoming interesting the best part is the lack of fanservice.  There was plenty of opportunity for it and thankfully there really wasn’t any.  This is just a straightforward slice of life comedy about some loveable characters, with little bits of action and drama thrown in and some secrets to reveal along the way.  I enjoyed it more than I thought I would and was glad I watched the entire thing.  Even though I was half tempted to purge it I kept watching it and it ended up somewhat paying off.  If you enjoy nice, saccharine laden high school slice of life stories this is a perfect match for your collection.  It doesn’t get too serious, there is no obnoxious fan service and all the characters are likeable to some degree.

    The series was released in North America on DVD by ADV…so I’m not sure if it’s still in print, but I don’t think it would be too hard to find.  It apparently is streaming too, but I didn’t find it on Crunchyroll, so that information may be outdated.


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