Asobi Asobase: More than just a Moe anime

I'm not someone who likes to watch anime, especially of the Moe variety. And neither do my sisters. So my curiosity was piqued when I saw them looking forward to watching Asobi Asobase, with its generic pastel looking opening sequence.

A few minutes into the actual show reveals that the cutesy and carefree opening is just a facade. The show itself was full of crude, mature humor and some of the best reaction faces that can rival Mean Girls and Spongebob Squarepants respectively.

The show centers on three middle schoolers, Hanako, Olivia, and Kasumi, and their lives in an all-girls school. Hanako is smart, rich, and dreams to be part of the popular kids. Olivia is a foreigner that grew up in Japan that pretends to be bad at Japanese, and Olivia is the bespectacled, competitive person in the group that has a fear of men.

From that description alone, it's evident this isn't like your typical slice-of-life anime material. Asobi Asobase's approach to all-girls middle school life is different from its "peers" K-On and Lucky Star, having more in common with Pop Team Epic.

The episodes are divided into "chapters" which are basically bite-sized episodes. The show uses weird "wtf humor" involving topics such as make-up, vulgarity, boredom, and disappointment. The timing of the humor is spot-on, and the show isn't afraid to get dirty and look unappealing at times, which is actually part of its charm.

Once the episode is finally over, you're treated to the end credits of the show which sounds a lot like something Baby Metal came up with, which I'd say reflects the true colors of the show. It's no wonder my sisters enjoyed this show; it's very relatable to them, being from an all-girls school themselves.

So in a nutshell, I'd definitely recommend Asobi Asobase if you're looking for something crude and humorous that breaks the mold. I wouldn't recommend it to fans of the Moe genre that like it in a conventional way.