Review: JK Meshi!

Sometimes a show comes along that stands out for the wrong reasons, it could the content, art style or animation. JK Meshi! is a short series that suffers from one of these but can it overcome this to bring some entertainment to those watching or will it follow suit and crumble?

The premise here is simple and effective, three girls sit around discussing all sorts but mainly revising various topics for school. After they have finished revising or they get distracted they get hungry and Reina (mostly) cooks something up from the odds and ends of food she has around the kitchen. That’s it and for the length of the show (3 minutes per episode) it feels just right, the topics of revision never overstay their welcome and the snack preparation parts are short and to the point as well as being rather creative in what you can make.

The food part is where the title comes from. JK meshi being a simple to make food that almost anyone can make. It’s nice that the series focuses on this instead of the more elaborate foods you see in other shows. Sure it may be nice to see these incredibly hard to make dishes in a series like Shokugeki no Soma but they aren’t realistically something you can make. Here it is not the case and whilst some of the dishes may look odd or unappetising they are doable. If I weren’t such a picky eater I would have made some of these myself. It stands out from the pack because of this.

The girls are all a treat, Ruriko is the lax one who does appear to be ditzy, Ryouka is the serious one and Reina is in the middle. Their conversations feel natural as it should since they are all friends and being that it is just those 3 the majority of the time it is more than welcome. Ruriko brings most of the humour to the series, be it thinking she saw a Neanderthal in Germany or mixing up historical figures and modern celebrities and much more. It is genuinely funny to see what they come up with and how the other two react to her comments and it happens almost every episode.

Now to the elephant in the room, I’m not going to beat around the bush or make up excuses here, the animation is incredibly poor, absolutely no doubt about that. It looks like it’s been done in Flash and probably has. It is choppy, the mouth movements barely match up to the voices and there is little to it in general. The last part is not really its fault, you have a series about girls talking to each other then cooking something of course there is going to be limited animation.

In the sea of anime that we have these days it stands out for the wrong reasons because of this which is unfortunate as it will deter viewers. It is the worst animation I have seen this year, only Triggers Uchuu Patrol Luluco comes close. The only positive that I can make in regards to this is that it is only a short series so it won’t bother you too much, hopefully. It feels wrong to say it kind of gets away with it due to that but it does in my eyes.

This cheapness crosses into the art as well, character models look a tad off and the designs basic but it seems it was needed like that for the animation. Thankfully the colour palette is nice and vivid and the foods look okay when they make them. The sound for what it’s worth is bland and forgettable. There is no OP or ED, just part of the soundtrack playing over a very breif credit sequence.

For me this really is a case of content overcoming a poor budget. If you can ignore the very cheap feel to this series I wholeheartedly recommend this, it is very fun to watch and really interesting to see what you can make from what you have left in the cupboard. The conversations are interesting and usually will bring a smile to your face or make you laugh so it does its job.

Studio: Kyotoma

Aired: Autumn 2015 - Winter 2016

Available:Streaming, Amazon, CD Japan

Episodes: 26

8/10