第七女子会彷徨

DAINANA JOSHIKAI HOUKOU

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
10
RELEASE
April 19, 2016
CHAPTERS
91

DESCRIPTION

Takagi and Kanemura are two normal high-school students in a near-future Japan where many things are different but taken in stride. Technology has evolved to the point where items like face-blurring necklaces, sleep-control devices, and Willy Wonkaish meal-flavored gum are treated as fads. New services also dot the landscape, such as businesses that can help you reclaim memories and places that can upload dead people to the internet to continue living their lives in virtual reality. The two girls also treat encounters with androids, strange monsters, and aliens as somewhat normal occurences. Dainana Joshikai Houkou is a fantastical slice of futuristic life that proves that while society can change, people seem to stay the same.

Note: Includes 14 extra chapters.

CAST

Takagi
Machiko Kanemura
Saki Tsuboi
Photon 77

CHAPTERS

REVIEWS

planetJane
80/100
Surreal, funny, and occasionally thought-provoking, *Girls' Group 7* is a standout entry in a growing subgenre.
The below review contains spoilers.

The below review is for an incomplete or currently-running manga.

"Dainana Joshikai Houkou is a fantastical slice of futuristic life that proves that while society can change, people seem to stay the same.", so concludes Dainana Joshikai Houkou's (english: The Wandering of Girls' Group 7, GG7 from here on out) description on scanlation website Batoto, and it's true, GG7 really does seem to fixate a good deal on the idea that no matter what the future may bring, human problems on a person to person scale remain essentially the same.

So what is GG7? As the above description implies, it's a twist on the usual high school slice of life premise. Our setting is in the near future, not so far as to be unrecognizable, but far enough that human life is dominated by an array of weird, fantastical gadgets. To name just a few; there are clip-on headbands that induce instant sleep and wakefulness, personal climate control sticks that adhere to one's head and change their internal body temperature, gum that can substitute for entire meals (hello Willy Wonka!), a character who is a robot from the future, and most important to the overall plot, Digital Heaven, an artificial afterlife where the dead live on as computer-stored phantoms (and later in the series, gain the ability to manifest in the real world via the use of projectors). One might think that the manga would spend most of its pages exploring the ramifications of these, but smartly, the technology itself is rarely dwelled on except to propel the plot forward. More focus is given to the interpersonal relationships between the two protagonists (sensible and smart Machiko Kanemura and the dimwitted, hyperactive, and apparently mononymous Takagi), and later a slightly wider cast of characters that includes the aforementioned robot, a dead classmate (Tsuboi) who lives on via Digital Heaven and eventually starts attending school again, a technically-17 boy who recently came out of cryostasis, and more.

GG7 begins quite gag-focused but it really comes into its own around the start of the second volume, where Kanemura and Takagi's relationship is focused on more, and furthermore, marginally more serious elements are introduced to the book (though it never stops being lighthearted, which works to its benefit). Really the contrast between the sometimes melancholy and occasionally plainly horrific goings-on of the world and the mostly normal relationships the girls maintain (with each other and others) is one of the things that really makes the manga work. GG7 isn't unique here, as this particular sub-strain of the slice of life / comedy manga has been quietly brewing for over a decade now (most of Douman Seiman's work, Sumire16 and its sequel, Terrarium in Drawer, Daidai wa, Hantoumei ni Nidone suru, and on the more mainstream end of the scale, the recently-adapted A Centaur's Life, all fall under this same broad umbrella), but it's one of the less overtly gonzo entries into the field and as such it's one of the more accessible.

That shouldn't be confused for a lack of quality though, GG7's comparative emotional "realism" (the term is used here very loosely) means that when it decides to get philosophical, it matters more. Volume 3 story "G-psy Kings" is one of the least fantastic of the entire series, and builds a backstory for the goofy screwball Takagi. Her behavior (which mind you, elsewhere in the manga is pinned on an invisible monster influencing her, and later on a cursed doll) is shown to be a pretty mundane consequence of a childhood spent moving all over the world because of her father's job. This backstory provides context for her clinginess to the smarter Kanemura. Here too the manga calls back to earlier stories, quite early on we learn that Kanemura and Takagi met via a "friendship program", a sort of buddy system that their school does. When we're first introduced to this it seems vaguely creepy or dystopian (and at the end of that first arc it's essentially played for a gag), but we find out here, much later in the manga, that Takagi actually worked hard to get into her high school specifically because of the friend system, hoping it would remedy her friendless upbringing and allay her social awkwardness.

These moments are where GG7 truly shines, but it never really dips in quality either. Even the more straightforward jokes (and the occasional Twilight Zone-esque narrative thud, such as "A River Full of What Might Be Cans" wherein Takagi accidentally thwarts an alien invasion) are never anything less than enjoyable. Provided you're not offput by its strangeness, it's hard not to recommend GG7, being it is as close as this particular niche of the manga market gets to an easy read.
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Boreduser
100/100
People are people are people after all
The Wandering of Girls' Pair No. 7

It should be obvious to most that sci-fi is my favorite genre. My favorite manga of all time is Battle Angel Alita, I adore the game Final Fantasy 4, and my favorite movie is Everything Everywhere All At Once. When it comes to manga specifically, I've read most of the heavy hitters for sci-fi. Ghost in the Shell, Eden, it's an Endless World. I also love comedy and slice of life manga. Asobi Asobase, Gintama, Sore Machi, Genshiken. I love a huge futuristic world and also something that can make me laugh. So, color me surprised when this little gem of a series finds its way to me. A sci-fi, slice of life, comedy.

I've said before that most slice of life manga don't allow for the passage of time. This manga, like Sore Machi, is the exception to that oft portrayed "rule." Just like there, time passes in this manga, and just because it's set in a futuristic society doesn't mean that's something that can be forgotten or ignored. You can have sleep aids that give you perfect sleep and wake you up exactly on time, but you're still going to have to think about your life path. Now, let's discuss the two titular girls' pair in this manga.

Nana Takagi is a girl who moved a lot as a result of her father's work. She's pretty socially awkward because of this and doesn't make friends very easily. She decided when going to high school that she would stay where she is now in Japan and stay at that one high school for the full 3 years. Her first choice was a high school with a peculiar course, a "friendship" course where 2 students are paired together and must remain friends for the duration of their high school careers. I'm sure it's obvious why Takagi wants to enroll in this high school. She wants a friend. Takagi, however, is a bundle of pure mess. She's unreliable, doesn't study, is pretty cowardly, and very dumb. Most people wouldn't tolerate her for very long even after getting to know her. It would take a very special person to stay friends with her. Takagi, for all of her faults, knows this very well about herself. Her friend needs to be patient and kind and able to keep up with her nonsense. Takagi knows that whoever could be her friend despite her faults, she'll love them dearly. She's one half of a pair of 7s.

Machiko Kanemura is, as expected for a comedy series, the stark opposite of Takagi. Smart, clever, generally gives an air of being well put together. She was paired with Takagi in the friendship course and is unafraid to tell Takagi her faults. She also accepts Takagi for who she is and doesn't try to change her in any way. Kanemura is a little mean to Takagi at times. She'll only buy her gross drinks in vending machines, won't share her lunch often, and doesn't help Takagi study almost ever. Kanemura knows, however, that Takagi doesn't mind these things. She would speak her mind about it, and to her the little things like being able to walk with Kanemura to school are what makes her happy. These two have the strange and wacky event happen to them, but it doesn't matter how odd or scary it is because they're together when it happens. Kanemura loves her friend Takagi as much as Takagi loves her. She'll admit as much too openly. Despite these two being so opposite of each other, they attract and balance out each other's weak points. Despite the odd mirror dimension failing, or alien kidnapping, or anything else, these two are still human and experience a human relationship. Kanemura may be mean to Takagi a little, but it's clearly because she likes her. She's the other half of this pair of 7s.

You may have noticed that i actually haven't talked about the sci-fi in this manga much. That's because it encompasses the actual story, and since this is a spoiler free review, i won't be discussing it beyond the broad strokes. The sci-fi elements of this manga are used to great effect. It makes the world feel unreal and uncanny. Familiar and yet so distant. The biggest component of this is the friendship course i mentioned before. It's as if, in this future, friendship is something that needs to be learned and studied. Yet the characters here are anything but. Just two normal girls living through their high school lives. The odd thing will happen, but that doesn't change the core. People are still people at the end of the day. I love a story that touches on being human. What it means and how that can change depending on our environment. The Wandering of Girls' Pair No. 7 asks, "If the future is going to change how people view and do things, can normal human relationships still occur?" What if people didn't die but were turned into data. What if you had a way to skip the boring parts of each day and extend the fun parts. What if you had a device that erased idle thoughts and allowed you to focus perfectly at all times. What if you were forced to pair with someone as a friend for 3 years of your most important years of life. What would change? Would anything change at all? That, i think, is the most important question of all. Takagi and Kanemura are friends despite the odd future. So it is true, at the end of the day, we are still people.
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