Girlfriend (Kari)/(Beta) An anime about a large cast of high school girls living out their lives. Yes, it’s very slice of life and yes, the girls are all absolutely adorable. It’s really hard to talk about the cast of girls, in 12 episodes we meet at least 20 different characters, heck it’s probably over 30. There are a lot of girls so it makes it incredibly hard to remember even 1/4th of them. Fortunately for the viewers, there are only a handful of girls that are focused on; such as the beautiful gymnast Kokomi Shiina, or the French transfer student Lemaire Chloe. These two girlsare in most episodes and make it easy to remember who they are. We also have Sakurai Akane, Mochizuki Erena and Murakami Fumio, more girls that appear in most episodes.

The best way to describe Girlfriend (Beta) is to imagine Kiniro Mosaic, take away all the really cute scenes, make the characters look older and slow the pace down; you end up with Girlfriend (Beta) and it’s actually a lot of fun. The episodes are in an episodic form, the stories are all very much drama-free and relaxing, and the girls are adorable and very cute. There are heartwarming episodes and it’s all very much a feel good show.

One of the great things about the anime in general is how all the girls feel different and most of them are cliché free. We don’t have one girl who’s the smartest, the best at sports and is also coveted by both the purest form of love and the boys, things like that don’t exist. Every girl has some type of flaw, though things of that nature are never really explained in-depth either, you have this sense that the girls are multi-faceted, which is an absolute huge + to see in any type of anime. If you watch Girlfriend (Beta), it’s because you really want to slow down time and just enjoy the girls and their antics.

As a note: there are no ecchi scenes and no skin is unnecessarily exposed, it’s safe for kids to watch! Another note: The cast consists entirely of girls, no male exists; well they do, but they never talk and are just drawn in the background to give “life” to the school, but it’s about girls and the show is probably aimed for girls too; which makes the title for the anime weird, you assume Girlfriend (Beta) will consist of dating and things like that, but nope, the title comes from a mobile dating sim game; just using the source for the characters for the anime.

The art style, well it’s very simple, I guess bland even. The colors are cute though, and the girls are drawn in a way that makes them look extra cute, blemishes and all, so very attractive. In-fact, even with the simple backgrounds, the girls alone make up for it entirely, which I think is really important, since there are so many of them too. The animation is of decent quality too I believe; once again, because there is no focus on the background art, it’s all about the girls and as such, works really well. I can’t say I had any issues with the animation while I was watching.

Music: I’d go with average - good. I can’t say I remember much of the music that was played, aside from the OP and ED, and when the OP is used mid episode. There is BGM involved, but I think most scenes can live without it and none of the scenes required much either, it’s a really slow anime so…. music could have taken a back seat and I’d still enjoy what I watched. Though it doesn’t mean the music is bad either, just that I didn’t notice it as much as I probably should.

Overall I really enjoyed Girlfriend (Beta). It reminded me of Kiniro Mosaic, we have a student who speaks in broken Japanese (Still one of the cutest things ever) and the slow pace of the show in a high school setting was really nice and relaxing. The cast of characters are great and because they’re not full of clichés, makes it easy to appreciate them all. I also liked the variety included; there was even an android girl! How cool is that? (Very)