Buntarou Hojo is your typical Ordinary High-School Student with a knack for writing scripts for the drama club. One day he is approached by Sayuki Kuroda, president of the Marketing Research Club, who proposes that they make a Dating Sim. Together with some of his friends and fellow students, they set out to create their first game.
Created by Minato-Soft, the creators behind Majikoi! Love Me Seriously!, Girls Beyond the Wasteland (Shoujotachi Wa Kouya O Mezasu note ) was released as an Anime First, airing in the winter of 2016. A Visual Novel is scheduled to be released on March 25, 2016.
Compare with How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend, which shares similar themes with this show, albeit at a much faster pace.
This show contains examples of:
- A-Cup Angst: Uguisu doesn't seem too happy about her small bust when the other girls are talking about breast sizes in episode six.
- And the Adventure Continues: The anime ends with the Rokuhara group meeting up to work on their next game.
- Apologizes a Lot: Uguisu has a tendency to do this, even when the situation doesn't call for it, such as being praised for her artwork.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The CEO for the Typhoon game company, who released a demo for their game on the same day the Rokuhara members released theirs. She is at first very flirty and friendly when meeting the group. However, after she gets water thrown on her due to her incessant poaching attempts to recruit the club members for her game company, she immediately changes her tone of voice, and forces them to enter a contest to see who can sell more games on their launch day. She then says she's going to win, and then she's going to force Buntarou to work for her, and promises to work him like a dog.
- Berserk Button: Atomu hates being called a Nice Guy. His last relationship went sour because the girl claimed he was too nice.
- Breaking the Fellowship: Every single person leaves Sayuki's side in episode eleven after her brother accidentally reveals her true motive for making the game. They find out that Sayuki was essentially asking them to make the game for free, so that she could use the money to support help her brother's failing game company. Even Buntarou calls her out on her selfishness.
- Cannot Spit It Out: Yuuka starts to realize that she likes Buntarou, but can never bring herself to tell him directly, either due to fear of rejection, or because she doesn't want to screw up the group dynamic in the event they started dating.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Yuuka shows shades of this once she has a Love Epiphany, getting mad at him for no apparent reason and hitting him from time to time when he's with the other girls.
- Development Hell: An In-Universe example. The club hits snags regularly that causes delays, such as Buntarou having Writer's Block, Uguisu getting sick from overwork due to drawing artwork for the game, and Yuuka messing up her dialogue or shuffling the script enough that the microphone picks up the noise.
- 15 Minutes of Fame: Hosokawa, the Large Ham writer Buntarou meets early on, ends up writing for a game that sells a really well, and gets a lot of writing gigs. Unfortunately he takes on too many at once, and goes into hiding, with Buntarou getting calls from various companies asking if Hosokawa was with him. He later notes that Hosokawa's fame disappears just as quickly as it showed up.
- The Glomp: Yuuka does this to Buntarou when visiting his apartment with Atomu. Combined with a Dynamic Entry as she's hiding behind Atomu and isn't visible until right before she leaps at him.
- Heroic BSoD: Every single Rokuhara member goes through one in episode eleven after the Breaking the Fellowship event. Fortunately it doesn't last too long.
- Hotter and Sexier: Inverted. This is one of few Minato Soft and associates works that is rated All Ages. There are few fanservice-y arts, but that's that.
- Jumped at the Call: Teruha immediately volunteers to program the game for them after hearing about it. Since she doesn't know anyone else, Sayuki agrees to it.
- Large Ham: Hosokawa, the professional writer that Sayuki has Buntarou meet when he has Writer's Block talks in this manner, very loudly and often moving his arms around as well.
- Maid Cafe: Teruha works in one, as Buntarou finds out when he visits one while in Akihabara.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The Typhoon CEO challenges the Rokuhara club to a contest to see who can sell more games on their launch date after being splashed in the face with a glass of water due to her aggressive recruiting attempts of various club members.
- Overshadowed by Awesome: Done a few times:
- Yuuka watches another voice actress perform some lines, and feels inadequate as a result. She ends up flubbing a lot of her dialogue, and takes so much time on retakes that they run out of time at the recording studio. She suffers a Heroic BSoD after this, but fortunately Buntarou and Sayuki snap her out of this later on.
- Though they're getting mostly positive feedback on their demo game, the club tries out a demo from a game company who released a demo of their game on the same day. As each member plays it, they notice how much more professional their competitor's game is, and begin to doubt themselves. Sayuki then reassures them that both of the games are marketed towards different audiences, so shouldn't be compared side by side.
- Race Against the Clock: Sayuki has to bring the finished game and master discs to the game printing factory near the end of episode eleven. Unfortunately they hit a snag when some of the wrong art was accidentally transferred. Buntarou tells her to wait for them at the train station, and he barely makes it in time with the reprinted disc.
- Refusal of the Call: Uguisu tries this at first. But she is eventually convinced to do the artwork after the others praise the drawings she's posted online.
- Serious Business:
- Atomu is initially rejected since he doesn't have any particular talents. He then starts ranting about how some girl turned him down after asking to meet him, and develops a dark Battle Aura. Sayuki then decides to let him manage the club.
- Sayuki telling Buntarou that she's putting him on lockdown, complete with a helicopter flying behind her as she calls him over the phone to tell him.
- Shrinking Violet: Uguisu is very timid and minimizes how much interaction she has with anyone at first. And if anyone greets her a little too aggressively, she starts to get uncomfortable around them, looking away while attempting to apologize.
- Sick Episode: Uguisu overworks herself drawing art for the game so much in episode three that she gets sick. Despite that, she even comes to school, though the others quickly have her rest and recover.
- Skinship Grope: Done to Sayuki in episode six when she asks the girls about their thoughts on breast size.
- Sore Loser: The Typhoon CEO flying into rage after losing.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Almost every single club member in episode ten claims they're not surfing the net to read reviews on the demo game for their various specialties, such as Uguisu claiming she doesn't want to know what people thought of her artwork in the game.
- Wham Line: Sayuki's brother shows up near the end of episode ten to thank them for helping her out. He then mentions that she was developing this game to help him with a debt, something she never mentioned to any of them before.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Done a few times:
- Teruha is criticized for changing Buntarou's lines, and altering Uguisu's artwork without their permission. Though she claims she's just fine-tuning some of it, she's told to stop doing that. Teruha gets upset enough that she ends up quitting. Buntarou then has to go out and convince her to come back.
- Played for Laughs when Buntarou is going through a bad case of Writer's Block. So much so that the other club members spend a few days in his apartment, preventing him from leaving or distracting himself with internet.
- The Typhoon CEO gets water tossed on her after her aggressive attempts to poach club members to come work for her. Interestingly, while Sayuki lifted her glass to throw water at her face in disgust, Buntarou does this before she can, as he's also put off by her attitude.
- Sayuki's brother greets the Rokuhara members at the end of episode ten and the beginning of episode eleven. He then thanks them for all their hard work and effort in helping her to create the game. They then find out that they were working for free on a game that Sayuki was intending to sell to help her brother's failing game company with, since he was unable to get any funding to develop games with. None of them take this very well however, and they angrily storm out of the club room.
- Writer's Block: Buntarou suffers this a few times. The first time he's told to just write, and eventually manages to write enough material for the others to work with. Later on he goes through another bout, which then forces the others to lock him in his room and preventing him from escaping through the window, or distracting himself with internet. He gets through this after Yuuka talks to him a little bit while he's in the bath.
- Yaoi Fangirl: Teruha is obsessed with this initially. She attempts to have them make this type of game, but later settles for obsessing over the female game characters as if they were in this genre.
