As a video game developer and publisher, Nippon Ichi Software (and in turn their international NIS America wing) have delivered several games which are more quirky and entertaining than they are serious – with the Makai Senki Disgaea franchise being a clear example of this.
Since entering the anime industry several years ago, NIS America have released a number of mainstream (Cardcaptor Sakura, Toradora) and storyline-oriented (Bunny Drop, Anohana) anime series. However, the publisher have also stuck with one of their strengths and licensed a number of genuinely entertaining series which are heavily comedy oriented (Ghastly Prince Enma Burning Up, Daily Lives of High School Boys, Nyaruko: Crawling With Love!). Their most recent release, Chronicles of the Going Home Club, falls within the scope of the latter category as a school-life comedy. But with many other comedies available from NIS America and other publishers in the North American anime market…. is there anything that makes Chronicles of the Going Home Club stand out amongst the crowd? Unfortunately… aside from the incredibly adorable mascot…. not really.
The “Going Home Club” is a common term used by people who don’t partake in school club activities and decide to go directly home or otherwise hang out off-campus after classes. But after telling fellow classmate Karin Tono that she would be joining the “Going Home Club” with her, Natsuki Ando is shocked to discover that the school actually has club under that name. Joined by upperclassmen Sakura Domyoji, Botan Oohagi and Clair Kokonoe whom each have their own distinct personalities, the group of five spend their afternoons getting up to all sorts of random events and comical discussions.
© NTV, VAP
Chronicles of the Going Home Club makes it perfectly clear that it is purely a comedy anime rather than something which should be taken too seriously. Episodes are broken down into smaller chapters, each involving the characters sitting around a table chatting about a particular topic or partaking in an activity. With there being little in the way of overarching plot, the topics of each episode are very spontaneous, although often work quite well with the genre and effectively exploit each characters respective personality as much as possible. The characters themselves don’t have any qualms with regularly breaking the fourth wall or running with recurring gags of its own – from prematurely cutting to the ending credits to a whole section dedicated to discussing the anime’s direction itself.
Asides from that, it is quite difficult to say too much about this anime, as the series comes down to a lot of smaller events which have been compiled into 12 episodes. The characters are interesting, there is only minimal fanservice and the comedy is above-par… but at the end of the day, that is all there really was. While it was a competent comedy series with a few genuine laughs across each episode, there was nothing particularly memorable about Chronicles of the Going Home Club to give me a reason to re-watch it a second or third time around. This is compared to other comedy anime from NIS America such as Wagnaria!!, Arakawa Under the Bridge and Ground Control to Psychoelectric Girl; which were more structured and offered character development and a storyline. It was these elements which have, over the years, compelled me to watch them all several times (Well, that an Australian releases for the latter two).
In terms of production values, Chronicles of the Going Home Club is about average for a normal school-life comedy nowadays, and this is okay to me. With little justification for extravagant animation and the same sorts of locales regularly used, the animation provided by Nomad (Of Rozen Maiden and Kämpfer acclaim) was appropriate for the genre and presented competently – although nothing remarkable. Extra marks go to the adorable “mascot character” who regularly appears in each episode…. the seal was so damn adorable! Music was also of a decent standard, although didn’t stand out.
With school-life comedies involving a lot of interaction between characters, having good voice actresses was critical. Fortunately, the Japanese voice cast all did a strong performance of matching the personalities and temperament of their respective character – with special mention going to Ibuki Kido as Natsuki Ando. As with most NIS America anime releases, this anime is only available with the original Japanese dub.
As with almost every other NIS America anime release, Chronicles of the Going Home Club is only available as part of a pricier Premium Edition set. Currently listed on their online store for $51.99, this set includes the entire series over two Blu-ray discs (No DVD option available), a premium hardcover slipcase, a 64-page full colour hardcover artbook (Containing character information, interviews, localized goodies and full-colour illustrations) and a small assortment of on-disc features. As with all other Premium Edition sets published by NIS America over the years, this is a nice collectible set with some interesting additional content to peruse after watching the series. While there will likely be a Standard Edition set at some point, no confirmation or release date has been confirmed as of this review.
Overall, Chronicles of the Going Home Club isn’t a stand out anime, and those looking for a comedy anime have several better options available on the market. That being said, it still proved to be a fairly enjoyable anime overall, with the fourth wall breaking humour in particular being comparable to similar efforts in NIS America’s own video game localizations.
Acknowledgements: NIS America for providing a review copy of this anime.
Images: © Kuroha/SQUARE ENIX © NTV, VAP
