3ET: Gifuu Doudou!!: Kanetsugu to Keiji

"Is this honorable manliness?"
"Shut up and drink your sake."

 Studio: Studio DEEN

Director: Shirohata Bob (Gravitation, Hetalia)

Main Cast: Satou Takuya as Maeda Keiji, Namikawa Dasuke as Naoe Kanetsugu

Writer: Imagawa Yasuhiro (Berzerk, Bartender)

Japan loves the Sengoku period the way British people love the Victorian period. They remember how war was fought by honorable men in honorable ways (and women stayed at home where they belonged). They have had the names of the heroes burned into their soul (though most western fans who haven't taken a Japanese history class have no idea what's going on). And of course, they have told the same stories in numerous ways; from the ridiculous to the realistic to the genderbent to the generic. So, let's dive into Gifu Doudou!!: Kengetsu to Keiji and find out if this title has anything new to offer this subgenre of anime.

So, the plot is two guys recounting their stories of being awesome. Seriously, that's it. To be more specific, Maeda Keiji and Naoe Kanegetsu are at a party being held for an old man who just built himself a nice mansion. They use this as a teaching moment to tell the assembled guests about gi, which is described as how one can live beautifully. Which boils down to the same romanticized song and dance about honor and manliness familiar to anyone who has seen any Sengoku period fiction in any form. After their lesson to the party guests, which involves an axe and taking a chunk out of a pillar in the middle of the mansion, the two men sit outside and drink sake and decide to talk about their tales together. Why? Because they are that honorable and manly.

True Japanese honorable manliness is listening to a biwa
under the sakura trees while drinking sake.

The tales themselves leave something to be desired. While the drunken tales of two complete badasses should be ripe for gripping stories, the first three episodes already show a repeating pattern of their exploits. That, and since the narrative structure of the show means that they can never be put in any real danger, there is nothing to make the stories really compelling. Especially since there are no other characters besides Keiji and Kanegetsu. Also, here's a tip, don't have people tell a story when they are supposed to be telling a story. I've never said something like "Hey, remember that time I told you about that thing I did?" It comes off as silly and pretentious.

In fact, that's a good way to describe the show in general. I'm not sure how seriously I'm supposed to take this show, which means it has failed in setting its tone, which means I don't know whether the silliness is intentional or not. And while this may be my American bias showing, the romantic samurai ideal of honor and manliness has its limits before it becomes so pretentious that I just roll my eyes whenever it gets brought up. It's not that campy over-the-top manliness can't work in a show, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure was an entertaining example of that. But, what JoJo's had that Gifu Doudou lacks is characters that I care about. The main two characters could be any two names and it wouldn't register with me at all because they have nothing to them other than being honorable and manly.

LOOK AT THE FACES OF SUPER JAPANESE HONORABLE MANLINESS!
LOOK AT HOW I RUN THIS JOKE INTO THE GROUND!

Perhaps that is my own failing as an idiot American. But, that's all I have to go on, so I have to say the bar to actually enjoy Gifu Doudou is too high. I've even taken a Japanese history class and I couldn't even appreciate it from that perspective. I probably have to chalk up part of my disinterest to not knowing the Sengoku period back and forth like I should, but I do think a big part is that this isn't a very good show. And for that, I have to fail it.