Girlish Number

Girlish Number is a strange anime. Not in the "WoW, jApAn Is So KoOkY!” type of way, but in the way that it was conceived. Its creator, Wataru Watari, is also the creator of my favorite anime series, Oregairu, started this series right after its second season ended, and when the (at the time) penultimate volume of the light novel was released. One can say that Girlish Number was a temporary escape from the grind of the Oregairu series--one where he wrote 14 volumes and oversaw two seasons within five years. Others might say that Watari only wrote Girlish Number to try to prove to himself that he can have more than one popular series. Either way, Girlish Number did not live up to the hype in the end. Does this mean that Girlish Number sucks? Definitely not, but it’s no Oregairu.

Girlish Number stars Chitose Karasuma, a college-aged newbie seiyuu, through her journey of having a leading role in an anime. The only problem is that Chitose has a giant ego and terrible work-ethic. On top of that, the anime she’s leading in is horribly managed, with awful animation and unreliable people residing over the project. While her fellow seiyuu seem to be getting more work, Chitose is stuck with her one main role in a bad anime series and mob roles for other projects.

As expected from Watari Wataru, Girlish Number is a more cynical take on the production of an anime than an anime of similar nature like Shirobako. Since Watari had experience from anime production with Oregairu having two seasons at that point, some points of this series could be considered personal from him. Like Oregairu, the characters in Girlish Number are more interesting than characters from a typical anime series. They aren’t fleshed out enough compared to his other work though, which drags away from having any personal connection to them. Chitose isn’t as relatable as Hachiman is either--maybe I would think differently is I was a woman though.

Girlish Number also explores the lives of seiyuu that Chitose works with, especially Koto Katakura and Momoka Sono, who are already established voice actresses, with issues dealing with their families and work. This anime bounces around a lot with plot points, most of them unfortunately being left unresolved at the end. The main problem with this anime is that it is directionless when it’s not dealing with Chitose’s attitude problems and narcissistic delusions. I think part of this is due to only two volumes of the light novel being out during the airing of the anime (the second one being released during the anime’s airing.) With not that much source material out yet, it would be unwise for the anime to go that far ahead of the light novels. Not that it would have mattered that much in the first case, since the light novel ended prematurely the year after the anime.

I don’t know what the sales numbers were for the light novel, but the Girlish Number anime was a flop. The first volume of the anime only sold 1,008 blu-ray copies, well below the (arbitrary) breaking even point of 2,899 sold copies. While that doesn’t tell us anything about how popular the light novel is, the fact that it was stopped, along with all other Girlish Number related projects, in July 2017 probably means it wasn’t as popular as they wanted it to be. The fact that Wataru Watari already had a hit series in Oregairu that he was ignoring while writing Girlish Number was probably the reason that it was dropped eventually. There’s no need to write another series that performs well below expectations, especially when your other series is one of the most well-liked light novel series of the decade. Was Girlish Number as good as Oregairu? Definitely not. But it really never got the chance to prove itself. We might never know the full intention behind this series. Did Watari start this series because he was sick of Oregairu at this point? Did he do it to try to prove it to himself that he wasn’t a one-hit-wonder? Was he running away from having to write a conclusion to Oregairu? Since I don’t know Japanese well enough to dive deep into the history of the Girlish Number series, speculation will have to do for now.

Girlish Number is a fascinating anime for reasons that have little to do with the actual anime itself. It’s sad to say that this series was canceled before it had a chance to prove itself. Maybe it was for the better good, since Oregairu wasn’t going to write its own ending. But it's also sad to see a series like this one to get abandoned. At least it got a full anime season for what it's worth. While it definitely is an unfinished product, Girlish Number still is a decent anime that is fun to watch. You could also read the three light novel volumes if you become fluent in Japanese. We’ll have to wait to see if Watari ever comes back to this series, or if he thinks he would be better off starting a new series.