Reviews for Gakuen Handsome

I watched this at 1am and actually cried laughing. The art is terrible, the story is terrible, the characters make no sense, and I love it. This is the best parody of those generic school yaoi/BL dramas that could ever be conceived. Everyone looks like they were drawn by a not-artistically-gifted 6th grader that just got into anime. The main character has no eyes and his 7 year old sister remembers playing with one of the MCs friends from 7 years ago. They blow up like 3 buildings. A guy dies and comes back to life. Inthe ending song the characters distort into oblivion in time to the music. I felt like I was suffering some kind of trauma-induced shock while watching it.

TLDR: Gakuen Handsome needs to be put in the art museum where it belongs.

To be clear: this is yaoi SATIRE. Unless you've been a weeb since the days of newgrounds, you're not going to get this. ART: Imagine every thirteen year old's deviant art account when they started watching anime. That is the art of this show. And it was intended. The pointy chins, the yaoi hands- all intended. Literally every possible thing is wrong with the art, shading, proportions, perspective, everything. The characters are exaggerated versions of BL art style and the main character has no face which makes it fairly quirky SOUND: Pretty good actually. Goes to show that the animators actually do know what they're doing. Andthat (again) the horrible art is intended.

CHARACTER:

Every trope and stereotype exists in this show. Every line is either super rapey or absolutely stock. It's a perfect parody.

ENJOYMENT:

As someone who grew up on anime, this show brought me into a nostalgic state of when I started started trying to create my own images on MS paint. I laughed to the point of tears while watching this show. I've read quite a few cringeworthy BL manga and I can say that this short animation portrays all the faults you can find there with the perfect satirical touch.

OVERALL:

The type of viewers who will like enjoy this definitely had unironically enjoyed a doujin or something that was probably not much better than this.

I give this Anime a PERFECT 5/7.....here's why....... STORY Well the Story is just definitly a 10 after all it is very very original and not just your daily dose of trash harem. ART The art is sooo damn beautiful and there are sooo many gorgeous pictures of the characters and the surroundings.Thats why i gave it a 10. SOUND The music in this sshow is really something else!!It is kinda relaxing,thought-provoking and full of action at the same time!!So I gave it obviously a 10.CHARACTER

Every character has an other philosophie and motivation. These "Lifestyles" are constantly clashing against each other with the main character as the referee. Because of this process there is really much action going on in this series.My end result is the Characters are a 10/10.

ENJOYMENT

Because of all the aspects that I named in my review so far I can say for sure that the enjoyment-factor in this series is a incredible good 10.

OVERALL-REVIEW

After adding up all the scores that I gave this show and thinking for a while i came to the certainly conclusion that this show, more than ANY OTHER SHOW deserves to be given a PERFECT 5/7!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope that my review was helpfull for all of you. :)

(This review is incomplete and will keep changing throughout the anime. I’m simply writing it now to ensure at least one review is up that somewhat understands this show.) Story: 3 Art: 2 Sound: 3 Character: 2 Enjoyment: 5 Overall: -- TL;DREver wonder how lovecraftian creatures find love?

This anime is about (self insert)’s journey in the scary world of hot, long-chinned boys: Baramon High School. Boiled down, it’s a parody anime about commonly used BL tropes. Imagine if someone in the anime industry decided to create an official abridged series, and then proceeded to air it on TV in hopes that someone out there would get the joke. Basically, you’ll be playing a game of ‘spot the trope’ with every episode. If all that sounds fun to you, this might just be worth checking out.

Story:

The school of Baramon High is where all attractive boys are collected and gender is irrelevant, all seemingly shepherded by their principal Jirou Natsume. Your literal no-faced self insert moved in not too long ago to unexpectedly find himself on a quest for a romantic partner, and is put through one scenario after another to showcase their rather generic quirks. This story is less about a plot, and more about how many tropes can fit into a five minute episode without spitting it in your face too hard. Here’s just a few you’ll encounter in the first few episodes: A ‘cast full of pretty boys’, ‘if it’s you, it’s okay’, ‘chins that can split the moon’, ‘long-haired pretty boy’ and ‘only has same sex admirers’. That’s just the ones I can remember off the top of my head, so keep hunting!

Art:

The art, while clearly an intentional move, is hideous. Simply slowly jiggling your characters while having a mouth flap move feels and looks like it’s a tutorial for learning how to change frames in Flash. Furthermore, these simplistic loops are used throughout with short breaks involving scenes that look like scribbles, focused upon for far too long in what is a five minute show. The saving grace of this is that this IS actually how it’s meant to be shown; most jokes stemming from this child-like style, resulting in the score of 3 above. If you don’t believe me, then feel free to look up the tween animation used in the ED that also looks like it was made by a seven year old messing around with features on Scratch. The OP isn’t much better with quick still frames and a running loop that’s used throughout the whole show so far. The saving grace of artistic talent is the end-of-show stills, but even they can’t save what is eternally and intrinsically broken.

Sound:

The music isn’t the worst, but don’t be holding your breath. The OP is the generic visual novel song with little to no creativity being closely followed by an ED that’s both out of place and hellish spawn in need of purging. The sound design of the actual show is surprisingly decent with atmospheric sounds and some character's themes not sounding quite as bad as you would (or should) expect. Chalk it up to trying to keep matching the clear satire this show is going for, I guess.

Characters:

Expect exactly what it says on the tin: Stereotypes and under-developed jokes of a cast. Our MC is Maeda, a character without much personality aside from being consistently confused at any man's advances. He's essentially designed for you to slip into his shoes with as little friction as possible. This is closely followed by one-dimensional, cliché bishounens who are all the boys we’ve seen so far, along with a headmaster to encourage his scandalous love life, as mentioned above.

-- I don’t have enough details to fully flesh out this section yet. --

Enjoyment:

The situations thus far have been parodies of the generic scenarios shown in BL visuals with the intensity turned up to 11. They hit hard when you know the background behind them, but I fear it'll run dry fast. Anyway, while not having a wide range of jokes to fall back on as far, they’re usually held up their job of being funny. The merry band of hot men willing to die for the MC will hopefully hold up the ridiculousness of the non-existent plot long enough to keep this entertainment for a 12 episode season along with the up-and-coming OVA. Overall, in terms of enjoyment, I’ve been having a pleasurable time with a show whose animators are clearly having a blast.

Overall:

-- To be filled. --

*SKIP TO THE BOTTOM TO READ TO SOMETHING YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE WATCHING* ~ Story (9) ~ Each short, three and a half minute, episode explores a new character in this wonder parody harem. There are episodes about a man who can fly using the rotation powers of his spatulas, invitations to go romantically peeing together, fashionable wearing of sumo wrestler underwear (fundoshi), death by cat cafe and many other ridiculous things. Not much else to say but that each episode will leave you thinking both, "wtf did i just watch" and "i need more". ~ Art (10) ~ To me, aspects of an anime like art, music,plot, etc. should be scored based on if they help the anime or not. That doesn't necessarily mean it has to be good quality. That's why, once again, I will say I'm not joking or exaggerating when I give this a 10. The art is what makes the show for me. It's on the level of shitty drawings by a 10 year-old on Deviant Art. I'm no artist but I'm sure I could do better. But that's not what I care about. The art makes me laugh so hard, I cry. Every. Damn. Episode. I will never forget the iconic first forty seconds of the show when the main character walks into the classroom and his teacher turn around with a chin so long, it easily hangs to his nipples. I laughed for a good ten minutes, something anime has never done to me. Sure I've had my fair share of comedy in plenty of anime, but this one really takes the cake.

~ Sound (9) ~

The first time I saw the OP, I thought I was watching something pretty weird but then I saw the ED and the OP seemed pretty tame after that. This category kinda speaks for itself. If you google the ED for this, you'll see what I mean (or you could just watching the show lol). A hilarious ending to a hilarious show. They couldn't have picked a more perfect ED.

~ Character (9) ~

This is where the whole "parody" thing is most prominent, in my opinion. They have the uptight class president, the delinquent and team captain, the childhood friend and the serious guy with a soft spot. A lot of the characters represented tropes you'd see in other shounen ai. It's healthy to watch a good parody once in a while and this one is perfect. I know this fits more into the "art" section, but the character designs were also pretty clever. They chose the most common cliche designs for male characters.

~ Enjoyment (10) ~

This is easily the funniest anime I've ever seen. The enjoyment category is what really matters when you are watching a comedy and I give this one a 10. It keeps you entertained and just when it can't get any weirder, it finds a way in the most hilarious way possible.

~ Overall (9) ~

This anime tried something brave and unique I've never seen in comedy/parody anime. I applaud the creators for that. The three and a half minute episodes were appropriate for a show that would certainly get tired out otherwise. They did not stick with the orthodox way of presenting humor and thought outside of the box. You could tell that they were having a lot of fun with this one and it made it feel more genuine and refreshing.

*IMPORTANT: If you didn't already know or didn't read before, this is a PARODY and is not to be taken SERIOUSLY. It parodies common cliches and tropes found in shounen ai, romance and school anime. If you have not seen enough anime, this might not be as funny to you as it is to others. I'm not saying that if you're new to anime, you're going to hate it but I think it is highly likely you will enjoy less*

I believe it's the best show I've ever watched in my life The plot is incredible and very unpredictable and the art is just amazing and very unique The characters are diverse, everyone has deep personality and own style, which makes viewer love each of them And in addition they are so handsome fr I understand why main character has such a difficulty deciding which one he likes the most And the most important thing - opening and ending They are just a work of art, I see how much effort was needed to make such amazing art to match the music and to present the full spiritof the show

I think I won't find anything like this ever again and I feel devastated that I can't see more of this wonderful story

But still this experience changed me so much and made my life better and took on meaning

I believe it will remain in my heart forever 💗

Classically acclaimed author Victor Hugo once wrote, "to love an anime is to see the face of God," and I have not only seen the face of God in Gakuen Handsome, but I have strolled together in the gardens of heaven with God and we have shared a warm cup of herbal tea. Never before have I seen an anime of this high caliber, and my expectations for quality anime will never be the same again. I have laughed, I have cried, but most importantly, my heart has been touched by Gakuen Handsome. Few shows deal with deep, serious issues such as internalized homophobia, thefragility of the human body, and how to survive when everyone in your family has eyes except for you. Every episode so far has kept me on the edge of my seat. I want to frame every single screencap and hang them in the National Art Gallery because it truly is a masterpiece in every aspect. I can't wait to learn the ENTIRE ending dance so I can preform it at Otakon 2017!

First of all I'd just like to say, the outro for this show is the greatest masterpiece mankind has gifted this earth. It has beaten out Jujutsu Kaisen as my favorite anime outro. Now its fair to say spoiler warning from this point forward. These boys... MEN... are very handsome. The most handsome I have ever seen in real life. and anime. I dream every night that I can go to this prestigious academy. I cry myself to sleep because I know that I will never EVER get the chance to spend time with my favorite most handsome people. My perception of reality has been destroyedbeyond repair, I can no longer look at real men as now they disgust me... No one can ever EVER EVVVVVERRRR!!!! come close to being this darn fine.

I'm planning on getting plastic surgery in the next coming years to match my chin to those of the characters in this anime.

Overall this anime has been my greatest blessing and my greatest curse. Watch at your own risk. - John Fortnite

This anime is perhaps one of, if not, the best I've even seen. The plot of this story is super unique and interesting and also being served animation so good, it's almost as good as Project No. 9's works. The characters are full of personality and have depth of character. This show is best watched with friends so make sure you don't watch this alone. The amount of hark work put into this anime really shows in multiple aspects like putting half the budget into drawing and animating their hot chins. Overall a 100,000/10 because a 10 isn’t enough. I am now going to spamthe letter v representing the men’s chins because MAL thinks I need to say more things.

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv.

this... i don't think i can fairly rate this anime. it's literally so bad, and i love it. my friends and i watched this over a discord stream in the span of an hour since we kept pausing it to both take mental breaks and gather ourselves because we were laughing so hard. it's a satire, BL, high school anime, and it is quite possibly the worst anime i've ever seen. if you're looking at it from a serious angle. but, looking at it how it was meant to be looked at, it's genius. the art is awful, the story is pathetic, the characters are... mysteries.and that's what makes it so good. if you're looking for a silly anime that will have you WHEEZING with laughter, gakuen handsome is for you.

If it had raunchiness, and vulgarity, heck, I’d even allow creepy sex jokes – it would live up to it’s potential and be a 10/10. It had a certain character who seemed to be that type, but it just didn't happen. Without those, it's not even funny bad, it's just bad. The episodes are 3 minutes each and they are so painfully PG that 3 minutes of it is just enough for the watcher to see what’s up, exhale through their nose (like you would when you see a funny short video on your For You page on that other app) and move on tothe next show. Because every other 3 minutes would just be spent in vain, repeating the same re-clothed, reheated dinner type jokes with little to no flavor to them.

It is pretty clear what this show was trying to do, it’s primarily a parody of the BL genre, harem, high school setting and everything that happens in those shows yada yada. But the issue with it is that IT DIDN’T GO HARD ENOUGH. AT ALL. When they first look at the cover art, what do potential watchers see? This freaky, purposefully made mess created in freaking MS Paint! That’s what drew me in, and I’d assume most of the other people.

It looks completely insane, so why aren't the actual action and story as deranged too? Mind you, it does have some haha hehe wow silliness, funny ED and some predictable shock value elements (can you even call it shock if it’s predictable?) but with what this could've been that's the equivalent of standing in front of a huge buffet with all kinds of delicious and exotic food, and just taking a cracker.

TL;DR: They look like freaks but they aren't freaky at all. :(

My story with this show begins as quickly as it ends. It was a warm summer night, I was feeling especially alone. It was at around 12:30 when a light began to shine in my dark room. 5 godly figures whose brightness exceeded that of every star, and spoke thus. "The pain you've been feeling won't compare to the joy that We shall bless you with." they spoke in unison. "Taste and see that the lords are good; blessed is the one that takes refuge in them." Those words that were spoken unto me, gave me the motivation to continue living. One of theheavenly bodies reached his smooth hand and touched my laptop. "My child," he said in a voice that made me quiver in ecstasy, "I give unto you my greatest blessing." My CRT began to quake with the power of a thousand suns; it wasn't the VCR this time . Once the shaking had ceased I laid mine eyes upon the now holy VHS. "Inscribed upon thine tablet are the holy words of the gods." Those words read thus, "Gakuen Handsome". I placed the Laserdisk upon the golden phonograph; Benjamin Franklin would be mighty proud. After viewing the series of the gods, my Playstation 2 began to rumble. It burst forth, shattering my ear drums with the combined forces of Gordon Ramsey and Simon Cowell in a cacophonous symphony of critique and lamb sauce. The walls within my house gave way to the oncoming explosion, obliterating everything within a mile radius, just as the two weapons which produced this monstrosity. Two nukes was not enough. There will never be enough.

I'll never understand why this series is so poorly rated ITS SO OBVIOUSLY A JOKE AND I LOVE IT. This show is so garbage but loveable. What more could anyone want in a show? It's stupidly hilarious, Anyone who disagrees obviously takes life all to seriously. I will add, it's more funny to people who watch a lot of anime, like it's still enjoyable if you aren't mega into anime, but the clichés and shit are just far too hilarious. The art obviously isn't anything special, but that's only because it's not meant to be, and the animation is pure dog shit. You could finish this showin about an hour, which is good! And the music videos add to how funny this garbage is. I totally recommend.

This show is crap, and I love it! It never fails to make me laugh with how freaken ridiculous it is. The art and animation are so bad it's good. XD The story is ridiculous and all over the place, the art is laughable and over exaggerated, and the characters are basically Shonen-ai/yaoi stereotypes. Overall, this is a "quality" anime that I enjoyed very much. The randomness of it all constantly had me laughing. If you like ridiculous, purposely bad, or so bad it's good stuff, you'll like this.This anime is quality. (I wish it would stop telling me to make this longer, I'm done with it. lol)

"They are not even trying" That's how I would describe this masterpiece, probably the best anime of the year. This show falls into the "So bad it's actually good" trend that other shows have delighted over the years. But, of course, there's that other kind of people who hate fun and are sucking off of Miyazaki's balls that can't enjoy this type of shows. There are some shows that are liked by everyone, and if you dislike them people will unpolitely write you letters about your point of view (aka they will tell you to kill yourself), but I can honestly say that if you don'tenjoy this type of show, I assume you hate fun, allow me to explain:

Art in general, specially video-centric mediums, is about your experience with the piece, how you feel about it. The charm of this show relies exclusively on that impact it has on you, which of course would be laughing at basically everything this show has to offer. The people that don't like this, and other shows that follow this trend, are the ones that say that current anime sucks and the best year was 1998 (although that year had like 3 or 4 good shows), that anime was a mistake and that the industry is dying. My response to that something doesn't have to be good in order to be entertaining, while it may sound kind of obvious, unfortunately there are people that can't wrap their heads around this idea.

Needless to say, I think this show is hilarious, and shows how the simplest of things can be amusing...

Either that or they wanted to be the anime community's meme of the year, in that case this whole thing is pointless.

If you're watching this, I recommend doing it with some friends on a Friday night, with pizza and beer.

Gakuen Handsome is one of the best Memes to date, The Story is shit, the Artwork is shit, The Character designs are unoriginal but you know what? Thats the point! and is what makes this anime so enjoyable I'm honestly surprised the voice acting is brilliant which I'm still not sure if that makes the meme better or worse? Honestly for anyone who goes into this anime to take it seriously isn't going to enjoy themselves but if you're into anime that is a parody of everything that makes BL, Highschool, Yaoi either great or terrible then sit back with your favourite snack and enjoy the wildride that is Gakuen Handsome

This anime is pure gold. Never have I seen such beauty... Yes, I've been enlightend by the power of the CHINS! Such great artstyle, mh~ gotta love that MS Paint's doing :3 Furthermore, each character with their own distinct personality, each their own beauty... Everything is just so magnificent :3 I recommend this to the ones who also, wants to perceive the power of the CHINS! But beware, only the strong hearts will survive to such divinity...Yes, this anime is a joke. Everything is. But that's what makes it so fantastic XD I cried so much while I was laughing :')

Tip : best to watch during midnight ;P

I don't know why I'm writing this, I know no one will read but I just need to tell everybody my feelings towards this anime. I'm a yaoi fangirl since I'm 11 and I felt so nostalgic watching this, It satirizes all "all boys school" BL's ever made, It was so funny and I could relate with every little thing, even the art brings me my deviantart memories and as a brazilian the samba scene made me so proud of my country. If you are bored and have nothing do, just watch it, nothing will change in your life but you will laugh

Honestly, after reading and watching countless yaoi/shounen ai anime and manga for years, I can say that this is indeed the best bl there is. This is truly a masterpiece that can't be attained by any other series. The timing is perfect, the story line is a 10/10, 11/10 if I could rate it higher. The situations and scenarios are well thought out and is something out of the box that you'd never see in any other series. Would recommend it for anybody and everybody. MITSURUGI-SAMA~~ PLEASE TAKE ME AWAYwas high and dreamt up this entire thing. The best way to describe it is, it's like the unholy love child of shitty Deviantart "artists" trying to animate on ms paint combined with 13 years old Wattpad "writers". The creators were probably high at 4 am like me while making this. And this is the masterpiece that you get out of that. Enjoy.

My cousin found out that I had avoided this series and ended up forcing me to watch the the whole series in one go this afternoon. There are some mixed feelings that I have with this series, but it was overall a positive experience. [Story & Characters] The story was alright. I think it was interesting to see all the tv tropes and stereotypes of the characters being displayed and exaggerated in so many different ways. Plus, it was interesting to see the alternate ways that the writers took with cliches and plots that we've become accustomed to. [Art] For one, I know that the artis supposed to be a huge jab at yaoi art styles, but it still bothered me a bit. However, I do know that it was intentional, and that the artists are capable of drawing. It just took a bit of prodding from my cousin to remember that this anime is a piece of work that actually had money put into it to be created and also licensed to be shown on Crunchyroll.

[Sound]

I was pretty surprised that there were actually a few voice actors that I had known from previous works who played some of the characters in this show. It was fun hearing them have fun and also see that they weren't taking this seriously either. Although the art was kinda iffy for me, the sound quality made me laugh more than I expected to.

[Enjoyment]

Despite the fact that I called this a "piece of trash" throughout the whole time that I was watching this, I can't deny that I did have a lot of fun with this series. I won't call this a masterpiece that needs to be on everyone's watch list, but I will say that it won't hurt to check out if you have a bit of time on your hands.