Summary:
Chio is a socially awkward high school girl who constantly stays up late playing video games, leading to her always having to rush to school the next morning. This entire series revolves around Chio’s antics as she tries to get to school on time.
In this episode, Chio decides to walk across her town’s rooftops due to some road construction work. Also in this episode is a segment in which Chio sorta becomes friends with her more popular classmate, Hosokawa.
My Opinion:
I think this series is attempting the “absurd high school comedy” angle, similar to other series such as Sakamoto desu ga and Nichijou. The problem is, the writing and comedy in Chio’s School Road isn’t quite the same quality.
I feel like this series is trying WAY too hard to be funny, to the point where it just falls into the common comedy pitfalls. There’s a lot of shouting, a lot of inner monologuing and self-depreciation from the main character, and a lot of game references are thrown around. It’s like the writer for the series is just putting in every comedic trope they can think of in the hopes that at least some of the jokes will be funny. Instead it ends up being kind of a mess. The “jokes” themselves aren’t terribly original either–there’s quite a bit of slapstick and the usual “misunderstanding” tropes that have appeared in past anime. And, as much as I despise using the word nowadays, a lot of the “comedy” was just… cringe-worthy. Admittedly, I did smile at the segment with the rich man who kept listing off the prices for his suit and suitcase, but that was one rare flash of sorta-cleverness in the show.
Other than the comedy, my biggest criticism about this show is the unnecessary fanservice. Why this. Why did this show need fanservice? Nearly every female character has boob jiggle physics, and an extremely unimportant character in this episode was given huge boobs. There’s supposedly a recurring supporting character who’ll appear later on, who also has gigantic boobs (with boob jiggle physics of course). I’m way more upset about the fanservice in Chio’s School Road compared to How Not to Summon a Demon Lord; because at least the Demon Lord anime was upfront about what it was. I was honestly blindsided by the amount of fanservice in Chio’s School Road because I was not expecting for it to be present at all–it initially appeared to be just a high school comedy anime. Not that there’s an extreme amount of fanservice or anything, but the way it’s portrayed in Chio’s School Road just feels skeevier. It’s like they’re trying to be “coy” about all the fanservice, but when there’s boob jiggle physics on a high school girl, who’s obviously a high school girl, it feels VERY creepy.
I’m sad about the direction this show went, because for a brief moment, the episode was actually quite pleasant to watch. The scene of Chio walking across the rooftops to get to school was strangely serene; and there was a certain charm about it. Unfortunately, it didn’t last long as the series suddenly remembered that it was a comedy series (and shoved in some more cliched gags). But wouldn’t it have been nice for the whole show to have been like that?
Overall, this was a series that is more interesting than what it’s basic plot would imply; but the comedy (in my opinion) still feels lacking. The animation for this first episode was also a little low quality, which doesn’t say good things about the production values for this anime. Some scenes were far better animated, such as the weird teethbrushing segment (it makes sense in context, trust me). But did all the animation budget seriously go into animating all the boob jiggle physics or what??? In the end, the show definitely could have been worse; but it also could have been better, too.
Out of five:
I would have probably given this a 2 and a 1/2 rating if it was just mediocre, but the fanservice made me bring the rating down.
Moeronpan 