This was (and is) a difficult show to review, as it is full of ‘Gotcha!’ moments and secrets that if I tell too much, it will take away those moments of discovery when you watch “Gakkōu Gurashi! (“School-Live!” or “Living at School!“). At the very least, I can run down the cast for you, right to left:

Miki Naoki
Kurumi Ebisuzawa
Yuki Takeya
Yūri Wakasa
Megumi Sakura, sometimes called Megu-nee, the teacher. (PS, this is the closest you’ll get to fan service for the show)

Yuki, so very cheerful, along with her friends Kurumi Yūri and Miki, is a member of the Megurigaoka Private High School’s School Living Club. As Yuki seeks out fun school activities every day while living at school, the other girls work to keep her safe, because in reality……………..

Yup, that is where I have to stop things. You need to find out for yourself what goes on in this world and learn the way I did. I will give this show strong marks in how it unspools everything. You will learn the truth by the end of the first episode and venture forth from there to learn even more. I can say there are some genuinely heart-breaking moments in it and even the conclusion does not make a solid promise about the future. The ending episode arc (where I normally make a snarky comment that the plot finally showed up) is actually the logical conclusion for this show, although it did get a touch maudlin.

Please, I realize how hard it is to do a blind buy on things, but this gets a strong recommendation that you honestly should check out. Yes, you can go to some other location and get all the information about this show, but you are going to lose a lot in the process. This isn’t like some giant fighting robot show, where the plot is more or less the same and I can tell you that the hero of the show is looked upon as a traitor or a moron or a philatelist and must prove himself in battle. Huge amounts of the show hinge of that learning of things and learning of things by you, so you comprehend the dynamics and physics of this world. I don’t feel you’ll be disappointed, as I wasn’t and I can get easily disappointed by anime. I didn’t read the full treatise on what genres this covered and it might have scared me away if I did, but this is a well-executed show.

On a scale of 1 to 10:

Artwork           7 (Good designs hampered by the eyes)
Plot                  8 (Fine reworking of a standard trope)
Pacing              8 (You find yourself riveted)
Effectiveness   8 (Despite some mawkish sentiment)
Conclusion      7 (It reaches a ‘coupler point’, but hasn’t ended)
Fan Service     2 (A similar show would be “Okamisan”)

Overall            8 (Never saw a lot of things)

And remember, it’s first run until you’ve seen it. Time for school already?