Print Review: Genshiken volumes 1-5

Review Genshiken volumes 1-5Written by WarpshadowRating good/ very good

Anime fans like everybody else like to see stories about themselves but just before you read Genshiken remember that this manga shows the hobbies personality, warts and all.

Kanji Sasahara is a freshman at Seiou university looking for a club to join. He was interested in the anime and manga clubs but was convinced to join a similar club, the society of modern visual culture or Genshiken for short. The Genshiken club is a club where it's members play video games, talk about the anime show Kujibiki Unbalance and not much else. All of it's members are unrepenent otaku except for Saki Kusakabe who only hangs around the club because she is the girlfriend of the single attractive male in the club. Will the Genshiken club ever accomplish anything or will Saki punch them out before they do?Genshiken is one of the more famous examples of the otaku genre of stories and it is also a manga that pulls no punches when it comes to it's subject. To put this another way this is another way this is a comedy about otaku that makes it very clear that the word otaku means obsessive freak in Japanese. The tone of the comedy wry and subdued as opposed to wacky or gag driven so don't expect this manga to be a laugh riot. If you consider yourself to be a big anime fan and are willing to laugh at yourself then you may enjoy Genshiken.