Grisaia no Kajitsu

Thread for both the anime and manga adaptation of Grisaia no Kajitsu

Manga is drawn by Hirose Shuu and seems to compress some events but is more blatant in dropping hints about the characters' pasts. So far, 3 chapters have been translated including the spoilerific prologue

Anime will be handled by 8-bit (Infinite Stratos and Tokyo Ravens) with Tanaka Motoki (Golden Mosaic) for director and Kurata Hideyuki (Tokyo Ravens and Ore no Imouto) for series composition

Synopsis here. While it seems to be another one guy in an all girls setting like IS, for what it's worth, it will get worse

Personally, since it will have the director for Golden Mosaic, I am hoping for a happy slice of life anime despite suffering plotwise. Manga is taking the darker route anyway

New manga chapter: This is shaping up to be less of an adaptation and more of a side-material. They rushed through the common route badly. It took me 20 hours in the VN just to get where the manga is now. Hopefully the anime will spend more time with the common route

Personally I'm hoping the anime is just the common route or something.

I mean, as long as Juicy Yuuji is juicy it's all good, but I just ain't confident in the anime's ability to be good beyond being light fun for the people who already played the VN. Imagine if the anime's just a straight adaption of the beginning all the way to Yumiko's route. Would be shit.

At least Yumiko is a fun character.

If they had to go with one route and only one route I imagine they'd go for Amane, though. Though I imagine they'll do what they always do and just show every single route's events while making no romantic commitment. That would normally irritate me, but I guess it's appropriate given the sequel.

edited 19th Aug '14 5:11:18 PM by Arha

There's nothing wrong with Yumiko herself(If I somehow implied that, cuz I do like her a lot), but frankly I can see them adapting just the common route and her route for a single, straight adaption. Grisaia was definitely fun as a VN but I'm not sure adapting it into an anime would have the same charm.

Worst comes to worst, they do it like Amagami(Which was actually fine) and give each route a few episodes while massively cutting out things(Which is not fine).

Come to think of it, how long is this going to be? I don't think they could fit the entire thing into 13 episodes, but not going for any particular route probably be the smartest way to do it.

edited 9th Sep '14 11:02:11 PM by Arha

Finally, a clearer version of the PV and not much else

Episode out.

They skipped most of the first scene, which is a little disappointing. That was a good chance to establish Yuuji's obnoxious character, which they also failed to do in Sachi's introduction, though they eventually got around to it. The pacing continued to be too fast from there, presumably because they wanted to introduce all five girls in the first episode. Two panty shots and a gainax in about five seconds. Panty shot from Michiru. Panty shot from Sachi just walking down the hall. There were some positive signs in the second half though.

Well, seems like they're going for Amane's route. I don't like how unsubtle about it they were even if I'd like to see it. And apparently she can pick locks now rather than just having a spare key. I guess the only question is whether they'll be doing all of the routes or just hers. Ending moments gave some rather skewed views of the characters, especially Sachi.

In conclusion, not sure if this will be good or not.

IMO, way too many panty shots but thankfully, there's MANSERVICE

It actually seems to be following the manga, which is not good for the common route

The lack of subtlety is also disappointing. It kinda ruins the surprise but I guess it gets attention and at least makes it clear that they're not holding back. Which makes me glad for the censorship.

WTF at Sachi at the end indeed. Where did that even come from? The sequels? Admittedly though I liked the use of different eye colors to differentiate the Michirus

No, that Sachi stuff came out of nowhere for the most part even taking into account Meikyuu and Rakuen. I mean, yeah, she does have a gas mask but the rest of it kind of came out of nowhere. If I were to speculate (Sachi route spoilers) I might say that she's supposed to be building explosives given that she blows up the school, but that would be a contradiction given that Yuuji provides the plastic explosives and she just pulls the trigger.

edited 5th Oct '14 1:05:03 PM by Arha

Episode 1. In which there is an "ordinary" school.

Typical protagonist name.

Good driver. Oh, she's also the principal.

Ordinary school. Six students. Sure.

Naïve, talks a lot, and eager to please. Somewhat odd. Probably not what I just said.

To be fair, he did says she could call him whatever she wanted. Seems she does have her own will, at least.

Fanservice isn't light. Either gender.

Amane seems nice and playful. And Makina's the kid.

Drama club girl seems dramatic. And somewhat tripolar. And I recognise her voice. And I find her funny enough all by herself. Calling her a Tsundere would be falling short of a few sides.

I think this is one instance where a one teacher school seems justified. Don't want the teachers to outnumber the students.

Yumi gets a very dramatic introduction. Probably just a minor character of no importance.

Yeah, students totally do nothing but study and masturbate.

Not embarrassed. At all.

And then it got dark.

So, anyway, so far I've gone into this dark because it popped up as a new series on Crunchy and it seemed interesting. Can't say it's less interesting after the episode, and most of the characters seem at least decent.

I wonder, though, which adaptation would probably be best to begin with?

edited 5th Oct '14 4:59:55 PM by AnotherDuck

There actually are more teachers, but they don't matter and I doubt they'll appear. I don't think they even got names.

Best adaptation to begin with? Do you mean which route would it be best to start with?

I assume that means there is no adaptation other than the VN that's gotten more than the start. But yeah, that's kinda what I meant. Still not sure about it, but I do currently have a fair bit of time to spare.

If you want to check out Grisaia, I'd recommend the visual novel. It's fully translated, though the sequels aren't. There's apparently a manga that adapts Amane's route, but I've never bothered to check it out. Especially since I think it ends with her bad end.

The visual novel is significantly funnier than what we just got, though future episodes might be better. We'll be getting Amane's route for sure and I'd put about even odds on getting all of them, which depends on whether this is a one or two cour series. Otherwise a lot of the ending visuals were entirely pointless as well as being misleading.

edited 5th Oct '14 5:51:45 PM by Arha

Thanks. Usually me checking stuff out means ignoring all reviews and stuff to avoid spoilers, downloading what I can find, and then buy it if I actually stick with it long enough to outlast a normal demo. Unless it's got an official English version, in which case I usually buy it anyway.

Amane does seem main-characterish. And looks the part. And doesn't seem to be one of those character archetypes that are included just to have that type of character.

She's not the main heroine. There is no main heroine. She just seems that way because she got more focus this episode than anyone else did, which is pretty much just because her route is popular and it's the only place you can see one of the most popular characters in the whole story. Hopefully the other girls will get their chance too, though adapting some of it without romance could be kind of awkward.

Anyway, she's probably the best heroine after Yumiko so I don't really mind. And yeah, for the most part I don't think she's one of your standard anime stock characters.

edited 5th Oct '14 6:12:39 PM by Arha

Well, most Visual Novels tend to have no real main character among the route characters. Sometimes there is, like Clannad, but I find them to be the exception rather than the norm. And anime adaptations tend to go for a generic story involving all routes somewhat half-assed with no real resolution.

In other words, I rarely have high expectations of VN animes in terms of getting a resolution, or in-depth character exploration.

This was... weirdly entertaining.

The whole episode I was waiting for things to go badly for Yuuji, like it usually happens when a guy moves into a location full of girls... except nothing happened, even when he run into Amane changing in his room. Weird feeling.

Yuuji is weird. Like he was an alien who learned about human behavior from a manual. Like yeah, technically he's taking correct actions but it's as if he's just going through the motions because he was told that's what a person would do. I'm getting definitive Raisedby Wolves vibes from him.

This could be annoying, but it just works so well when put together with how odd the girls are. I mean, training to be Tsundere? Who does that?! I especially like Amane and how nonpulsed she was about being naked in front of Yuuji. Nice subversion of how it usually goes.

Everyone seems to be harboring some dark secrets, well I guessed as much from the opening scene.

@Arha - be careful with spoilers, ok?

edited 5th Oct '14 6:32:31 PM by Shlugo_the_great

They're ramping the drama up way too high way too fast for a simple straight adaption of the visual novel, even if they were trying to cover just Amane's route. The VN didn't do anything more than hint at the various character arcs until you were comfortably locked-in to a heroine's route, so the sudden "this is the source of her major malfunction" bit was jarring.

Other than that, it's mostly wait and see for the next few episodes I guess.

Eh, I'd say a fair amount of them do. Anything by Key, Ever17, GSNM and SNK, Da Capo etc. However, as far as Grisaia goes, I have to say that for once I actually don't mind the idea of them going through all the routes without committing to any of the romances. After all, that's the canon ending as far as the sequels are concerned. Sort of interested as to how that actually works.

Anyway, Kajitsu screwing up the character exploration would probably make me drop the series pretty quickly given that it's basically the premise of the story.

Oh, I just remembered something. The black cat in the background is an indication we might be getting Michiru route too. If two routes then probably all five.

Shlugo: Yeah, I don't intend to give anything away. Well, I guess I noted that the cat is linked to Michiru, but I don't think that counts as a spoiler because it doesn't really matter.

edited 5th Oct '14 6:41:19 PM by Arha

I gotta agree. I get that the first episode is supposed to grab attention but they need to learn subtlety. They're putting effort to show the drama without really preparing for it like the aforementioned Sachi scene.

IIRC, the cat gets introduced in the common route which means they could allot one episode for it and that's it

If only we know how many episodes this will be

The first episode tried to skip everything it could though, so if it went out of its way to include the cat in multiple scenes it seems like it'll be getting focus later rather than just appearing once or twice.

But yeah, not as conclusive as the Amane route foreshadowing being crammed down our throats.

I read few chapter of manga and I can say, I realy hate Amane guts (that's why I droped it as soon as I realised she is heroine), I don't mindy flirty characters, but it looks fake (she is clearly more intersted in MC sister than himself) and I wouldn't be suprised if she were most damaged character out of all.

She looks like heroine who require lot of effort and trouble but who doesn't have anything to give in return.

It would be nice if it went with Sakaki(?) route, she looks like nice girl when she stops try kill you.

I think it's going to be okay as long as he keeps trolling Michiru. She's hilarious.

I don't mind people being fake, though, as long as it's in the beginning/middle, since it does allow for character development.

^^ Spoilers.