Girl 1: I'm not going to pretend to be friends with someone who has no ambition to improve! If we're doing this, we're going to try to be the best in Japan! Are you ready for that?! Girl 2 (tearing up): I just wanna have fun competing in the Olympics with everyone… Have you ever seen an anime that is so generic and by-the-numbers, it loops backs to being a unique experience, because nothing else is so close to the platonic ideal of genericness? Rifle Is Beautiful starts as that show. The “sad puppy with a bunny-ears ribbon” face of the MC that permanently looks off-model evenwhen it isn’t ends up being distinct and memorable. The running gag of her being completely flat in clothes and suddenly having massive honkers when stripping is such an awkward and half-assed attempt at sexual pandering, you want to fake being enticed out of pity. Two out of four main girls being literally Rei and Asuka effectively lets this show be an impromptu comedic spin-off of Eva a la Carnival Phantasm - taking the established characters from a drama story and letting them interact in a light-hearted setting. Originality plays a major role in me enjoying a show, and, well, this one is unique one way or another.

Also, there is a reason I used the words “starts as that show.” It’s because this is one of the astronomically rare cases where a series actually gets better later. In the end, Rifle Is Beautiful succeeds in being a show about competitive rifle shooting, which apparently is a sport that exists. I should emphasise it for clarity: this is A SPORTS SERIES ABOUT COMPETITIVE RIFLE SHOOTING, as opposed to a show about girls drinking tea or some other literal nothing. There is this common dimwitted sentiment that being generic automatically makes a show bad. No, it doesn’t. Actual flaws make a show bad. A lack of distinct identity, or, speaking marketing, of any distinct selling point is probably the worst flaw a CGDCT series can have - and is not the case here.
It has almost no flaws in general. Characters (simple as they are) behave in sensible ways. Dialogues sound like they were written by someone who goes outside and talks to people. The writing doesn’t insult human logic and intelligence. The jokes (like the one used as the epigraph) are funny. Art, animation and music don’t make my earballs bleed. The reason I was inspired to review a “generic” series like this in the first place is that it makes for a good case study of how to do a low bar show right.
I knew literally nothing about competitive shooting before watching this, and, although I don’t find the sport itself interesting (no one does, as the show acknowledges), I’ve been presented with a compelling depiction of why certain people would commit themselves to this and what kind of fulfillment they’d be getting out of it.

Incidentally, if you’re wondering why this particular generic sports club CGDCT is rated much lower than all the other similar shows - surprisingly many people were angry and disappointed about the fact that they’re using “fake” rifles, instead of …idk, shooting live ammo in a school gym? Shooting their classmates with the customized AR-15s? Yeah, sorry folks, if you were expecting this kind of school shooting anime then the show isn’t the one with problems.

9/10 for “Huh, competitive shooting is a thing. Cool."