Shoujo-tachi wa Kouya o Mezasu (Shoujo-tachi for short) is an anime made to promote a visual novel by the same name. The anime is about six high school students forming a group (called Rokuhara) to make a visual novel. This anime's plot shares a lot with the one in Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata (Saekano). This anime isn’t a rip-off of Saekano though, it’s just a different take on a similar plot. There are many roadblocks in the way of the development of their game, many of them that also get in the way of the viewer liking the anime. I'll explain what I mean later, for now, I’ll introduce the characters:
Buntarou Houjou
Buntarou Houjou (more commonly called Bunta) is the main character of the anime. He ends up being the writer for Rokuhara after Kuroda sees his talents as a scriptwriter for the school’s Drama Club. He often gets writer’s block, but nevertheless is a hard worker.Sayuki Kuroda
Sayuki Kuroda is the leader and producer for Rokuhara. Kuroda is the person who comes up with the plan to make a visual novel, recruiting Bunta (who recruits the others to join). She’s quite socially inept, leading her to be overly frank and condescending when she shouldn’t be. Kuroda is into Bishoujo games and is an otaku. She develops feelings for Bunta in the anime as the episodes go on.Yuuka Kobayakawa
Yuuka Kobayakawa is Bunta’s childhood friend and the Voice Actress for Rokuhara. She is in the Drama Club and is generally known as a great actress in that circle. She’s very bubbly and the most outgoing of all of Rokuhara. She also expresses feelings for Bunta later in the anime, perhaps noticing the threat of Kuroda or the other girls.Teruha Andou
Teruha Andou is the programmer for Rokuhara. She also works part-time at a maid café and helps on her family’s fishing ship. She’s a loud person and often thinks before saying or doing, causing friction between her and others in Rokuhara. She’s open about her obsession with anything BL, which creeps out everybody else in the group at least once.Uguisu Yuuki
Uguisu Yuuki is the artist for Rokuhara. She’s one of the top artists on Pixi(v) and is probably the most talented of all of the people in Rokuhara. She’s very shy and has problems speaking up as a result. She has the tendency to overwork herself to the point of becoming sick.Atomu Kai
Atomu Kai is the assistant director for Rokuhara and the only other male in the group and is also Bunta's other childhood friend. He has the appearance of a ‘nice guy’, but hates the term because being one has been his downfall with women in the past. He has an intense hate for ‘normies’ which fuels his passion to make a visual novel. He doesn't have a specific talent, so he mostly does busywork.As I was saying earlier, Shoujo-tachi is an anime that has a lot of melodramatic points. I'm not going to spoil any of them, but a lot of them were unnecessary in my opinion. Of course, an anime needs to have some conflict to make it interesting, but the way that Shoujo-tachi does it is poorly executed. It also makes some of the supporting characters unlikable in some parts of the anime. It’s difficult to fit the plot of a 20-30 hour long visual novel to a 4 hour long anime, but I think there has to be a better way of doing it. A lot of these plot points come off as ‘forced drama’, as much as I hate to use that term. It’s drama for the sake of it. Most of the drama (especially towards the end) isn't really resolved in a good way either. Guess you'll have to buy the visual novel to have an actual conclusion to it.
The characters themselves are alright. As I said above, there are some points in the anime that made me slightly dislike characters (at least for a bit). I know that characters shouldn’t be perfect, but the way that these characters are shown to have imperfections is very annoying. A lot of this anime, especially the latter half, is annoying. That being said, I didn't hate any of the characters I do like some of them, like Kuroda. I'm sure there are enough characters for you to find at least one that you like the most.
Shoujo-tachi wa Kouya o Mezasu isn’t a bad anime, but it isn’t a good one either. I’m sort of mixed on what to think of it since I believe that the anime had a great potential to be better. The anime had too much unnecessary drama in it. Perhaps that drama is better explained and brought out in the visual novel, but it’s just drama for the sake of drama in the anime. It seriously hinders the plot as time goes on. Between this anime and Saekano, I would rather watch Saekano since I like the characters better than the ones in Shoujo-tachi. That being said, this anime isn’t unwatchable, so if you’re into Saekano, I would recommend you this.