Ganbare Douki-chan

I don't watch explicitly ecchi titles all that often, because usually they have something lacking about them, be it story, sound, or something else that it's attempting to hide behind scantily-clad anime girls. However, that is not the case with Ganbare Douki-chan. This anime is a raunchy little romantic comedy that somehow feels wholesome, even with all its cleavage, upskirts, and borderline workplace harassment directed at our faceless protagonist by his three eager suitresses, one younger, one older, and one his age, all competing for his affections at every opportunity. The story is the strongest aspect of this anime, as it manages to explore this ... rather complicated situation in a way that is not only relatively believable, but also fairly mature and tender, as each girl reckons with her feelings for the man that has each of their affections.

The art is strong, with good character designs and subtle cues as to who's who, skillfully illustrating the aspects of the younger, older, and main girls through the way they dress, act, and hold themselves. Obviously, it is also important to consider that this is a tiddy anime at the end of the day, so if the art was bad the show itself would have a lot of trouble, too. Even so, I am impressed with the amount of nuance on display here, especially with the subtle expressions of nervous affection from the titular girl, Douki-chan.

The sound is good, meeting all the basic standards of quality, though the voice work deserves particular praise, able to convey joy, hesitation, and emotional dialogue at a breath.

The characters are also strong, but of them my favorites are of course the main ship, Douki-chan and Douki-kun. She deserves him the most, I believe, since the two of them reflect each other's honest, somewhat anxious, yet distinctly good-hearted attitudes about life and even the prospect of each other being in love. It is just so wholesome and grounded in such a way that is surprising from a vanishingly short ecchi title. Overall, Ganbare Douki-chan stands out among the ecchi crowd as something with a little more to offer, that I believe is well worth your time.

It follows the same template: One MC who is shy, awkward and kinda likes another MC whose feelings are not revealed to the first MC until the very end, after which the story gets over.

Other common plot points are: beach fan service episodes, new year/shrine episodes, christmas episodes, scene where some random people try to harass FMC and MMC comes to protect like a hero, love competition side characters etc etc.


Other Animes which follow similar moments are : My tiny Senpai, My annoying Senpai, Wotakoi, Servant x Service and to some extent they all seem to be inspired by the ... OG RomCom Maison Ikkoku.

I have recently started watching Animes and I somewhat like stories like these as these are in workplace environment and show a Japanese culture as slice of life comedy.

However unlike others it has some unnecessary echhi moments and all 3 female characters behave like a bunch of horn dogs ready to hump The MMC. Manga author/ Animation designers also decided to rarely show MMC's face which alongside previous point, makes me wonder if this conic was more towards serving fetishes than being a fun story.

Either way,I felt these points to be odd only after reading other reviews, so you should also not worry much about it and enjoy it if you like similar stories/themes.

This was disappointing and frustrating to watch. It is a short series with even shorter episodes. You would think there would be some real development, but it fails to meet the smallest of expectations. No development. No story. No character building. Every situation had predictable endings.

All it has going is the artwork for the female characters. Why in hell, does the ML not have a face and no one has names?!. It’s like the writer couldn’t be bothered with it.

My Tiny Senpai was waaaaaay better. I say don’t waste your time on this and watch My Tiny Senpai instead.