Kitakubu Katsudou Kiroku

Title:Kitakubu Katsudou Kiroku
Chronicles of the Going Home Club
帰宅部活動記録
Overall:Buy
Keywords: , , , , ,
Notables: AIUCHI Sae
KIDO Ibuki
KOBAYASHI Miharu
SENBONGI Ayaka
YUNA Mitsuki
A 'Going Home Club' is a metaphor for those people who don't belong to any club and do just that at the end of the day. But at this school, just such a club really does exist!

12 episodes
帰宅 ("kitaku") = "returning home", "部" ("-bu") = "department", "活動" ("katsudou") = "action, activity", "記録" ("kiroku") = "record, document".
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Buy Stretch [series:2763#628]
(All episodes watched--three times):

The best comedy of the Summer 2013 season, without a doubt. This was one of those shows which I was reluctant to watch the final episode of, because I didn't want it to end. I wanted to always have a new episode waiting to be watched.

Still, it got off to a slow start. I actually watched this show one day but didn't bother to compile a review until several days later, because it seemed a pretty unremarkable at first with no extreme virtues or flaws. I generally have little or no idea what to expect when I watch the first episode of a new series, and I wasn't sure what to make of this one. A white seal acting as narrator, for example. But it was fairly amusing, and I decided to watch. One thing I have noticed: all five of the principal Seiyuu are newcomers with no previous shows to their credit. Each episode consists of three or four separate little comedy skits, each about a different topic. There isn't much of an ongoing plot. Early on, the jokes seemed OK, but you have to wait a fairly long time for them as the banter progresses. A little knowledge of life in Japan, perhaps gotten from watching a good deal of slice-of-life shows, would be helpful. The obvious comparison is between this show and Love Lab, which is also running in the Summer 2013 season and also has to do with a all-girl school club of sorts. K3 is more sophisticated in its humor, but since you have to mentally 'work' harder for the laughs, and it took awhile to get into it's stride, initially Love Lab seemed easier to watch and perhaps a little more fun. But that would change.

K3 sort of reminded me of Seitokai no Ichizon, what with the girls sitting around and casually discussing the most absurd topics. The makers may have been aware of the similarity, too, judging from the motivational quote with which episode two begins--that was commonplace in Ichizon. One thing I like about K3 is the way it often breaks through the fourth wall. In episode four the girls worry about what will happen if the show hasn't 'caught fire' with viewers yet. They muse that it might be converted into a fighting show, since one of them is a skilled martial artist. But where would that leave the others? In episode nine the girls mention the concurrently running series Watamote. In episode 11 they get sentimental about the series coming to an end--because they think they are in the final episode, when there is actually a twelfth one still to come.

Perhaps you have to get to know these girls before you can 'get' the jokes to full effect; or maybe it just gets steadily better with time and is at it's best at the end. Whereas Love Lab never really took off in a memorable way, K3 expanded in all sorts of different directions as the sub-plots took on all sorts of nutty themes. In episode five the girls compare their distorted memories of traditional Japanese folk tales. The plot just wanders wherever it pleases, but there's always some wit to it. In episode six there's the game of kick-the-can, then a parody of some horror/sci-fi thriller, and finally we meet a similar club from another school. When this show runs out of good jokes on one topic, it simply switches to another and finds fresh ones. I did a good deal of LOLing. Once I had considered this a poor man's Seitokai Ichizon, but now I think that it gives that show a run for it's money. I guess the difference is that the characters aren't developed as much here so things don't get emotionally moving. They are just funny. Still, I got to like the girls to the extent that I was sad to see the show come to an end. I fear that this review does not do justice to this clever and sometimes hilarious show. I'll undoubtedly be rewatching this eventually.

Sure enough, I rewatched the show in 2015. There are countless anime about groups of four or five girls in school, but K3 is one of a handful which is actually funny enough that you don't mind the fact that there's no long running plot. The jokes are good enough, and the characters are lovable as well. I wish this show had gotten a second season, especially since some considerably inferior ones of the same genre have. Somehow I had forgotten about this show but when I stumbled across it in 2021 I rewatched it in its entirety and enjoyed it as much as ever. Not every episode is brilliant; the 'word chain' one was kind of tiresome. But I think K3 might just beat Daily Lives of High School Boys as my favorite anime comedy, period. One thing I noticed yet again was that it routinely made me laugh out loud while most anime comedies only make me smile.

My favorite line: "There's nowhere left to go with this subject, so let's end the episode here!"


Last updated Monday, November 22 2021. Created Thursday, July 11 2013.

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Official page at ntv http://www.ntv.co.jp/kitakubu/

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