Review provided by Katie and Andrew

Title: Stella Women’s Academy High School Division Class C³: The Complete Collection

Director: Masayoshi Kawajiri

Studio: Gainax

Author: Getsumin Ikoma

U.S. Distributor: Sentai Filmworks, Section 23

U.S. Release Date: September 2, 2014

Format and Length: DVD / 13 Episodes / 325 Minutes

Genre: Action, Comedy, School, Sports, Military, Slice of Life

Industry Age Rating: 14 and up

Overall Personal Rating:C

Similar Series or Titles to Check Out: Girls und Panzer and Upotte!!

Synopsis:

Yura Yamato has just arrived at Stella Women’s Academy. She transferred in wanting to avoid people from her old school, seeking a “new life” because her shy nature has made her a social outcast at her middle school. On her first day she remains shy, but is overwhelmed with requests to join a club called C³, who are lacking members. After finding out her roommate Sonora was also part of the club, she was again extended an invitation to join. It quickly becomes clear that the girls of Stella Women’s Academy are VERY different. She joins C³ (which stands for Command, Control and Communications) whose main afterschool activity is playing survival games! It’s not a typical teenage girl pastime, but Sonora and her trigger-happy friends are seriously into it. The question that puts Yura in the crosshairs of a dilemma is if she has what it takes to join up, stand up, and deliver in the face of friendly fire.

Commentary:

Stella Women’s Academy High School Division Class C³: The Complete Collection on its face looked to be another notch in the belt of the “cute girls doing cute things” slice of life genre, a genre that has had a few successful entries in the last two years. Right off the bat, it wastes no time starting out as a “cute girls doing cute things” series. Cute girls playing war games with airsoft guns. What’s not to like? The main story line revolves around Yura, the quiet newbie that everyone continuously tries to get to come out of her shell. It continues on its way the way all the others did. It looked like it was gonna be a cliché addition to all the rest. At this point you are looking for something to differentiate one series from another. Then out of nowhere it changes. Suddenly it adds a supernatural link. A deity from feudal Japan suddenly joins the story line, to teach someone that they have some special power. The artistry in this portion is quite good. At first it seemed it would be quite an intriguing addition. You are suddenly drawn back in wondering where they may take this. You think of how this could make the series very unique. They focus on it quite strongly… For one episode… Then it returned back to the slice of life it was beforehand completely forgetting that a feudal deity ever even appeared. Then out of nowhere it changes once again. Then it becomes a motivational story line. How with hard work, you can do anything. That lasted for maybe one and a half episodes. After that it quickly becomes completely serious, a lesson teacher. Suddenly morals come into play. It’s now a story about how a character loses sight of what’s really important while chasing a dream and how she works to gain it back. This at least sticks around for a few episodes. Then once again, all is forgotten and returns back to being cute. This discombobulated mess tends to leave you scratching your head. Don’t get me wrong. Individually, they are all good ideas to go with this type of series, to help further expand the normally weak story line. But the problem is that they cannot seem to choose a direction of which they want to go. And this odd range of choices does not go well together, since they can’t seem to pick which one they really want to go with. And they change the idea as quickly as a quack experimental anime. I wish they would have choose one and stuck with it.
The character development was pretty decent. Even at the end you tend to see everyone is likeable, and that each have individual, and maybe a little cliché, but developed personalities. You even tend to like the person you least expected to like. The art was standard. Not anything special, except the details of the supernatural scene, and the weapons. None actually look like airsoft unless you see them loading and charging them. With no differentiating characteristics from the real thing, you would probably be arrested for having one in Japan. The battle background music caught my ear quickly, being a nice higher tempo modern jazz piece. The opening and ending were nothing special either. Overall I had high hopes for this one and they made sure to quash them at every turn.
Extras:

Stella Women’s Academy High School Division Class C³: The Complete Collection includes clean opening and closing animations and Sentai Filmworks trailers as special features. This series was released with only Japanese language with English subtitles.

Overall Grade: C

While I enjoyed watching Stella Women’s Academy High School Division Class C³: The Complete Collection, it fell short of what it could have been.