Yuyushiki

What’s the ‘gayest thing’ you’ve ever seen? Something gayer than ‘gay porn’, which might seem gay at first, but is actually quite straight when it comes to the spectrum of gayness (in my theory anyway). In the realm of anime, one might say yuri anime like Citrus, Sakura Trick, and Bloom Into You. These answers are getting very warm, and are very gay indeed, but are still wrong. I’m prepared to state that Yuyushiki, an anime that isn’t a shoujo-ai anime like the three listed above, is the gayest thing I’ve ever seen. It isn’t what makes Yuyushiki a good anime (in my opinion), but its ‘gayness’ along with its comedic routines have made it a favorite for several ‘gay friends’ of mine. Yuyushiki is a hilarious and grossly underrated anime.

Yuyushiki revolves around the lives of the three main characters: Yuzuko, Yui, and Yukari. Unlike 99% of anime, the main characters have been friends for several years at the starting point, with the only change being that they’re now in high school, which allows us to skip the ‘becoming friends’ phase (with that being said, there are some flashback scenes with how they met and became friends later on). They decide to join the Data Processing Club, a club dedicated to the ‘researching and collecting of information from the internet’. Basically, they decide on a theme, Google (or “HooYa” in this case) it, and then write a summary of what they’ve learned on the whiteboard inside their small club room. That is, if they don’t decide to riff and do bits with each other instead. Their advisor, referred to as ‘Okaa-san’, is lenient on them, which allows them to get away with not taking the Data Processing Club that seriously. Other characters include Aikawa, Kei, and Fumi, who are a fellow friend group within the same class that occasionally interact with the main three (Aikawa mainly).

Yui is the closest thing we have to a ‘main character’, mainly due to her being the tsukkomi to Yuzuko and Yukari’s boke. She’s often the target of Yuzuko and Yukari due to her straightforwardness. Yuzuko is what I like to call ‘The Genius Dumbass’. She often is the instigator of whatever they’re talking about, and is quick to make situations weird for her (and Yukari’s) enjoyment. While Yuzuko is ‘The Genius Dumbass’ due to her making great grades, Yukari is just ‘The Dumbass’ due to her absentmindedness. While she also jumps in on teasing Yui most of the time, she’s the most wholesome one of the three by a mile.

What makes Yuyushiki so enjoyable to watch is that it’s genuinely a funny show. Yui, Yuzuko, and Yukari all have great chemistry. It’s not my wheelhouse to explain how or why they do, so just trust me when I say they do. They remind me of back when I was in high school, talking to my friends in class and such, albeit our conversations were a lot cruder and probably less funny. Out of all the ‘cute girls doing cute things’ shows I’ve watched, Yuyushiki is the most ‘These girls should have a podcast’ type out of all of them.

Trying to write a review for an anime like Yuyushiki is difficult to do, mostly because there isn’t much to critique. There is no plot to Yuyushiki, the progression of time only has an effect on whether they go to the beach or hang out on New Years Day, and no new characters are introduced after Aikawa and her friend group are early in the anime. While a year and a quarter does pass in the anime, there isn’t a ‘K-On! Dilemma’ going on, with them having to backload the majority of episodes during their third year so they don’t run out the clock so quickly. Technically, the show could never end, due to its plotless nature. It could work like Yuru Yuri, where the school year never changes. I haven’t had the pleasure to read the Yuyushiki 4koma, but I can’t imagine the girls graduating being a huge issue until it becomes time to end the series.

Watching this anime made me think about ways of categorizing ‘cute girls doing cute things’ anime. While this is a CGDCT (not typing out the whole thing each time) anime, it isn’t a ‘healing anime’ by any means. Yuyushiki is way too chaotic to be one. CGDCT anime like Yuru Camp and Non Non Biyori occupy that spot. An example of a CGDCT anime that would be even more chaotic would be something like Asobi Asobase. If ‘Healing’ and ‘Chaotic’ are the left-right axis on the CGDCT anime chart, then ‘Gay’ and ‘“Just Friends”’ are the top-down axis. As I said earlier, Yuyushiki is a very 'gay' anime, so of course it would be included on the ‘Gay’ side. The top-down axis would be a little more disputed, since there are people who classify any CGDCT anime as ‘gay’, due to external reasons. I don’t care about whether an anime is ‘gay’ or not, but it would be dishonest to assume that every CGDCT anime is ‘gay’. A ‘“Just Friends”’ example would be Chuuibyou or Oreshura, both of which are horrendously straight. This way of categorizing CGDCT anime is still only theoretical, since this is the first time I’ve written or even expanded the idea. I’ll have to get back to anyone who cares later about this at a later date.

At the end of the day, Yuyushiki is a simple yet hilarious anime about the various hijinks and goofs that the three main girls (mainly Yuzuko) get into. As you can expect, it’s hard to write a review on an anime on this since the way you would rate this is different from anything else. The only thing a CGDCT anime has to do is to leave you feeling better about yourself. In that aspect, Yuyushiki knocks it out of the park, due to its fast-paced humor and refreshingly loveable characters. Even the jokes that revolve around breasts get a laugh (compared to a sigh and/or groan when poorly executed (and mostly for eye candy) in other anime). Even if you’re homophobic, you would most likely enjoy this anime. Yuyushiki is criminally underappreciated in the wider CGDCT market. I can only guess this is due to the relatively dull art style that Yuyushiki has, the fact that there are so many other CGDCT anime out there, and the fact that CGDCT anime are only a small and niche sector of the wider anime industry (K-On!, the most popular CGDCT anime, is only the 102nd most popular anime on AniList, believe it or not). The Yuyushiki 4koma is still running, and the series has a small, but dedicated, fanbase. By all means, watch Yuyushiki. It’s a hoot and a holler, as they say.