Search - Kujibiki Unbalance Vol. 1 with Premium Box on DVD

A Tenuous Balance

Jason C. Ditz | Saginaw, MI United States | 05/17/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Its inevitable that viewers must compare this series to its original, largely fictitious counterpart. Its unfortunate too, because in many ways I prefer the original series to the one that we are actually getting. Chihiro and Tokino have been totally reworked as characters, and while it creates a much more plausible love triangle, it robs the series of some of its originality (ironic since in its original form Kuji-Un was envisioned as something of a parody/homage of general trends in Anime at the time Genshiken was produced).

I really bought into the original Chihiro as a sort of timid, unremarkable boy experiencing a series of absurd situations driven by a bunch of remarkable girls. In this series he's become bolder and a driver of events in his own right. The girls, by contrast, don't appear nearly so remarkable. Maybe it was unreasonable to imagine an actual series where Tokino's sole character traits were unflappable optimism and a psychotic love for mushrooms, but the alternative is a pretty generic childhood friend with unflappable optimism and nary a mushroom in sight.

Not that all the changes were bad: Yamada, though still a periphery character, is amazingly more endearing than she already was. Likewise, turning Renko from an antagonist into a grudging ally really shows a different side to the character. It did push some other characters into the background, but it works quite nicely.

And that's really all you can ask for. What we've got is a very entertaining series that stands on its own two feet, has a gorgeously simple animation style and a delightful penchant for changing tone from episode to episode, keeping the series from becoming predictable. That only conceivable complaint is that its not as good as that other Kuji-Un, but since this one exists and that one doesn't, its a small complaint.

Oh, and we get one another thing: a Genshiken OAV episode. And an amazing one at that. Seriously, the introduction of Ogiue couldn't have been done better. It also shows a side to Ohno that we've never seen before. The long-haired girl who sits on the sidelines and dresses up like Jam Kuradoberi from Guilty Gear from time to time really shines with her new-found, female-Otaku-hating adversary. In defending her Otaku status she unleashes some hilariously deadpan and shockingly profane statements regarding her taste for yaoi doujinshi.

For any fan of Genshiken that episode alone is worth the price of admission: it really is that good. But seriously, don't neglect the Kuji-Un episodes either: they're a very good start to a very promising series.

I'll be buying the rest of this series as soon as it comes out, and God-willing someday Genshiken 2."