Review of AHO-GIRL

I would've probably skipped this anime had I done what I normally do to decide on what anime to watch, which is checking the reviews and description to see if it's any good. The idea of watching yet another slice-of-life anime surrounding an idiotic female character, (and one with only a 7.1 score) would've been something I would've passed on. Fortunately, I had never seen or heard of Aho Girl before, and only ended up watching it because I randomly clicked on it, after running out of Ace of Diamond episodes to watch during my workout. I'm so glad I did. There are moments in thisanime that were so funny, I will probably remember them for years to come. Some moments had me in literal tears.

The story itself is wildly simplistic. Yoshiko is an idiot. Yoshiko loves Bananas. Yoshiko loves Akkun. That's it. But, the jokes, man the jokes are just absolutely ridiculous. It's interesting that Akkun is voiced by the same voice actor as Gintoki, because the level of hilarity in the gags are Gintama-esque. Now, that's not to say Aho Girl is as excellent as Gintama, it's just that the level of some of the jokes are so high, that they'll have you laughing as hard as Gintama's best gags do.

This is an anime all about setting up those funny moments. There's nothing else it really cares about. There's no drama, there's no real plot, there's nothing but one gag after another. (Probably why this anime is only a 7.1) But, when you gamble it all on the jokes like this, people are either going to love it or hate it. And clearly, for some it works and for others it doesn't. For me? This worked like crazy. I laughed almost the whole way through.

I will say, however, that I'm glad this anime was only 12 minutes an episode. Because this anime relied on two comedic themes: "Perverted jokes" and "Slapstick". And those two kinds of jokes can rarely carry an anime for 12 episodes at 24 minutes for a pure gag anime. Aho Girl was the perfect length. Any longer and the jokes would've probably gotten stale, especially since they just come one after the other with no plot or story building in between.

The last thing I will mention, is that of all of the idiots I've seen in anime, Yoshiko has got to be one of my favorites. The way they used her idiocy was fantastic. At times, she wasn't really even an idiot, she was an idiot savant. And her totally oblivious nature when it came to dealing with other people's love lives, man, that made for some classic moments. Especially behind the school. I will not forget that. I will never forget that confession scene. Or, when Akkun spits. Or, "That's the sluttiest thing I've ever heard.". Which, by the way, Yoshiko's mom was awesome, too and I wish they had more scenes with her in it.

This anime was just great. It's just really, really funny.