Girlfriend Beta

Summary: >

There are these girls at a school, and... um, yeah.

Thoughts: >

Girlfriend Beta could be described as cute and harmless, or dull and pointless. For me it was a little of both. It's hard to give a beaming recommendation to a show which is basically a collection of girls frolicking around a school, but wouldn't say it's bad. Can it hold your interest? Hard to say, but I was surprised I liked it as much as I did, so perhaps it's worth giving a chance.

Girlfriend Beta is a Japanese date-sim game for smartphones, featuring over 100 girls to choose from in the game. The anime concentrates on 5 of them, and maybe 20 or so more as regular faces, and the rest making small appearances. It avoids the big pitfall of choking itself trying to give all the girls airtime. I wouldn't say I liked everyone, but the ones in the spotlight I mostly did. The stories are tame, involving girls doing "stuff", so don't expect anything deep.

If there's a reason to watch Girlfriend Beta, it's for Chloe: the quirky French foreign exchange student, voiced by Sakura Tanga; although this will likely only be of interest to language enthusiasts, to whom Japanese (accents) don't all sound the same. Anime has a variety of foreigner accents, but the way it's done with Chloe sounds somewhat unique. Her pronunciation is correct, but used with a consistently long tempo, like reading words unfamiliar. This is combined with a highly melodic tone, which I loved listening to. Typical for foreigners are the added misunderstandings, botched phrases and so forth, making Chloe absolutely adorable.

[+] Would anyone sound like that?

Worth checking into? Stronger than slice of life stuff at times, but often kind of dull. I was in the mood for something light and fluffy, and some episodes really delivered - episode 3 being my favorite. The first episode is among the weakest, so I'd give the first three a shot before dropping if not your thing. You might be surprised how it can charm you at times.

Screen Caps: >