Chronicles of the Going Home Club is a 12 episode anime based upon the manga series. It’s a slice of life, following Natsuki who has just entered high school and needs to join a club. She originally intends to join the “going home club”, which basically means not joining a club and go straight off. To her shock, there is an actual Going Home Club, and she is kind of peer pressured into joining along with Karin, another freshman.
The Going Home Club eagerly accepts them and upon meeting the original trio of the club, you’ll get an idea of the tone of the anime. The president is Sakura, an ordinary person for all means. She’s joined by Claire, someone of rich background, to the point of being unrealistic in her views of the world giving just how much money her family has. And finally, Botan, a girl of extraordinary strength.
The common thing that unites all the characters? Their sheer craziness. The goal of the club is just to have fun, doing whatever they like, as they live out their youth, given that they’ll only experience this once. The difference is, the things they do is completely random. They are fully serious about the most stupid of things, and there is a lot of slapstick humor, as well as breaking the fourth wall. The result is an anime that’s loud, full-on, and full of sheer madness, in a good way.
There’s no complex plot or even a plot. Yes, we learn about the background of the characters, but only just enough to pin a stereotype to each of them. Their personalities get along well with each other, and every episode (and every segment within that episode) is full of randomness. You cannot guess what they are going to do next, and they can make even the most mundane of topics into something that can be discussed for five minutes, while keeping it entertaining.
You’ll soon realize that the driving force of the group is Sakura. She is the one that comes up with all the random ideas and activities, and the one that has exaggerated reactions while taking things seriously. The others are along for the ride. Although it’s not a home run every time, there are times where the activities are just that bit too mundane, so even with all the bantering, it doesn’t quite become engaging enough.
There are many smaller segments in each episode, and they each have a different gag. These gags vary in quality. Sometimes they are great, sometimes they’re a bit underwhelming. They are consistent in that Sakura is usually the weird one, and Natsuki is the sane one yelling at whatever craziness is currently going on. It does reuse gags often, adding onto it, but can still be tiring.
Overall, Chronicles of the Going Home Club is an easygoing slice of life gag anime. It’s not over the top hilarious, although it has over the top reactions. There are some gems within its writing, while other times there is a lot of boredom or what they’re attempting to achieve doesn’t quite work. The characters frequently break the fourth wall which is one of its charms.
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