First Impressions: Double J

At long last, the first available series of summer 2011!

Plot Synopsis:
In a school where after school activities are mandatory among all students, Hajime and her friend Sayo come across a new club that they have never seen before. The club is called "The Cultural Activity Preservation Club." The two enter the room to find all kinds of analog jobs and activities, such as handcrafting mats and toothpicks. This is a unique cultural manga mixed with comedy so as not to bore you, this is Double J!

Before viewing: It's based on a manga by Eiji Nonoka, who wrote Cromartie High School, a gag manga satirizing those ridiculous "delinquent high school series". Judging by this, and the artwork, it seems like it'll be a gag series poking fun at moe archetypes.

After viewing: Well, that was...short. The entire episode was only four minutes long, including the ending theme. And yet, despite the fact that it was only four minutes long, I was still just waiting for it to end. It was extremely boring. Not a single moment was funny, or even cute. Just four minutes of girls blandly talking about toothpicks. The only time I kinda chuckled was when the club president was introduced, and that's only because the way he was drawn was so out of place that it took me by surprise.

The character designs are bland, typical moe fare. The only interesting thing about the art is that the backgrounds aren't animated. They appear to just be photographs. There doesn't seem to be a point to it; it's just randomly there, so I'm chalking it up to extreme laziness.

In conclusion, not a single thing about this episode was memorable or entertaining. The only people I can think of to recommend this to at this point are people who like toothpicks. A lot. Otherwise, don't bother. There are much better short gag series out there than this one.