There’s a genre of anime i like, usually under slice-of-life or iyashikei, where the main character’s dissatisfied with their life and wants to make a change. They want to make friends and stand out from the crowd. With Yura in this series, it’s her first day at a new school, and she’s failing to make an impression. Maybe joining one of the official school clubs is the solution!

The problem is that all the popular clubs are filled with the popular people, and they’re not exactly welcoming. But there’s always one club on the verge of cancellation, because seniors are graduating and there won’t be enough members to continue and get school funding. They’d love to have Yura as a member, and ply her with sweets.

But it’s always a club that does something weird. In this case, it’s a girl’s airsoft club. Airsoft is similar to paintball, but they fire plastic BB’s that are less than half the size of a paintball, and don’t leave paint residue to clean up. Because they don’t leave a mark, players are expected to declare when they’re hit and leave the field, with a strong honor-system ethic. Airsoft players say they’re in it for fun, rather than winning-is-everything.

Of course, Yura flees.

… But she was such a promising weirdo. We couldn’t make her see the fun of mock battles! Your gun goes bam and the bullets whiz past and you run around. It hits you and you drop like a sack of rice. It feels so good!

Airsoft Club post-mortem meeting on Yura’s departure

Yura goes back to her room, imagining herself as Cinderella scrubbing floors while the popular girls in the popular clubs wave their fans and chat.

I’ve always looked up to people who stood out among their friends. The sort who live by their own rules and are still accepted by those around them. What do you have to do to be like that? I don’t think I could do it. I’m afraid of dealing with large groups of people. That’s the star I was born under. I’m sure… Don’t cry- I wanted to make high school the time of my life! But at this rate the time of my life’ll be postponed until judgement day!

Yura, back in her room.

One of the girls manages to lure her with a piece of cake left in her path, and pleads with her to try a mock battle. All of them treat her like royalty and she reluctantly agrees.

It’s scary! It’s exhilarating! but is it…. fun? Maybe! Yura has an active imagination, and she loses herself in the action and imagining she’s in a Hollywood action film. Afterwards, she finally meets her new cool roommate Sonora, and it turns out she’s the president of the club. Wisely, Sonora doesn’t pressure her. She asks Yura if she had fun, and says “well, there are plenty of other clubs too.”

Meanwhile the other girls try increasingly-silly ways to trick Yura into signing a club application form, chasing her all over campus. Yura can’t decide one way or another so the girls propose one final skirmish. She will be protecting unarmed VIP Sonora, to escape the 3rd floor of the old school building. If Yura wins, they won’t bother her anymore, but if the girls win, Yura’s a member.

Sonora’s stuck wearing a dress to be the VIP, and as they play Yura’s imagination kicks into high gear. It would be so easy for Sonora to throw the match and force Yura into the club. But she doesn’t, and helps Yura fire the final shot that wins the game.

Going back, Sonora and Karila, the club ace, chat happily, while the others are dejected, knowing they lost and Yura won’t have to join the group. Yura listens to the two main rivals in the game chatting happily and complimenting each other, and she makes the decision to join the club.

Things proceed from there, with Yura developing friendships with the girls, learning new skills, and competing.

With Yura’s imagination, when she’s playing airsoft, her imagination goes into high gear, and she sees tanks overrunning the trench her team is hiding in, and other battle scenes. When Sonora takes her to the archery range at an Inari shrine for target practice, she forgets her gun, runs back, and meets the spirit of Choujirou of the doomed Taira clan, who offers to teach her True Strength. (see The Heike Story) He pulls her into a scroll-painting world where he’s doomed to reenact the final hour of his death, but maybe Yura can save him. It’s all in her imagination- or is it? You’ll have to watch and decide.

Eventually, Yura slides into a winning-is-everything mindset, which causes a rift with her club. She joins a rival group, but things don’t go as she wishes there, either. Will she figure it out and patch things up with Sonora before she leaves for study in America?

A fun callout to another series is Karila’s FN-P90 submachine gun. If you’ve watched Gunslinger Girl, you’ll recognize it as Henrietta’s weapon of choice. For something so rare, it must be a deliberate quote.

I enjoyed Stella Jogakuin Koutouka C3-bu- which aired in 2010. Yura works towards her goal of making friends and being valued, without becoming an entirely different person. Airsoft battles mover her outside her comfort zone, an experience which will help her later in life.

it’s a good entry in this genre, which is sometimes dismissively called “Cute Girls Doing Cute Things”. But I think these shows are far more than that, being an ideal platform for character development and self-discovery. And you get to learn a little about another hobby or activity. Or if it’s something you know, you can see if they accurately represented it.

Do you have any favorites in the “Geeky Self-Improvement” genre?