DENKI-GAI Anime Review
Now you too can see what it's like to work at Toranoana in Akihabara!
PRODUCTION INFO
DENKI-GAI, known as Denki-Gai no Honya-san in Japanese, began as a manga series by writer and illustrator Asato Mizu, and is currently ongoing at 8 volumes. The manga was first published in in July of 2011, and got an anime adaption which aired October 2014 and stopped at 12 episodes. The anime was animated by studio Shin-Ei Animation and is currently available on Crunchyroll in English.
STORY
DENKI-GAI takes place in a manga store at an electric town, most likely referencing Akihabara in Tokyo. The story follows the employees who work at the store, Umanohone, which is a play on the real life manga store, Toranoana. As we look at the perspective of each employee, we learn their quirks, romances, and even their taste in hentai.
WHAT TO EXPECT
This show is full of laughs and geeky otaku culture, but it also has a tendency to stuff filler in some of the episodes. While it is a slice-of-life with hardly any point, the filler tends to waste the viewer's time especially by dragging out long jokes. The parts of DENKI-GAI that are funny, however, really can be hilarious. This show isn't ecchi, but there is a bit of dirty humour in it.
MAIN CHARACTERS
There are seven main characters in DENKI-GAI who all work at the manga store Umanohone. They each have their own nicknames for each other: Kantoku, Sensei, Fu Girl, Sommelier, Hio-tan, Umio, and Kameko. Each character also has their own unique quality, such as Fu Girl's obsession with zombies and Sensei's ultimate lack of girliness. Most characters have crushes on each other too, though they are mostly shy about it.
OPINIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS
I thought DENKI-GAI was pretty funny, except for whenever it dragged out a long joke I didn't really care for. There's a lot of adult humour although the show itself is not even ecchi. I liked some of the characters while others rubbed me the wrong way. Probably my favourite jokes in the entire series were the hentai ones. I didn't care much for the romance aspect since it is a comedy first and foremost. I felt that just made it a little hard to take the show seriously.
RATING
6/10
