Hi-sCoool Seha Girls (Sega Hard Girls) Episode 1 Review

Are you ready for your Sega history lesson? Well class is now in session.

Presenting Hi-sCoool Seha Girls

This cg/anime series produced by ACSII Media and Sega aims to tug your nostalgia heart strings with the adventures of the Sega Hard Girls (I'm guess the name is a play on "hardware") as they learn about Sega's past at some kind of Sega University.

The story begins on Sega Saturn's first day of school where she is introduced to her two classmates, Dreamcast and Mega Drive.

After their introductions we're given some awkward, eye-rolling banter mainly centered around what kind of guys Sega Saturn is into. Thankfully there were enough nods to the original hardware and some of their faults to keep me going, particularly when Dreamcast attempted to access the internet via dial up, and the school's anthem. To me the girl's personalities cleverly match their consoles, if your consoles were to transform into living beings that is. That is except for Mega Drive, who is represented as a cool headed information sponge that takes her work serious and matter-of-factly, which doesn't really say Sega does what Nintendon't to me. Then again, this is the Japanese Mega Drive, so this must be how they envisioned the console in their country.

The series begins to show progress when they are finally called forward by their instructor and are told they must complete a series of challenges in order to graduate. Their first task is to enter the world of Virtua Fighter to learn about its history and probably how to fight. The episode wraps up when they are confronted by Akira Yuki of Virtua Fighter fame. From the looks of the preview of the next episode they're going to be doing some Virtua Fighting themselves.

The show is done entirely in cg, which I find a little off putting personally.  In the real or "school" world they are represented as super deformed or chibi versions of themselves. In these scenes the animation seems a bit lazy to me and the backgrounds are pretty bland. Laziness or art style aside, there are enough examples of Sega characters and memorabilia scattered about to keep your eyes exploring the environment with them.

Upon entering a game world we are treated to a transformation sequence reminiscent of Sailor Moon where the girls become fully grown and sport more detailed character models. I feel like the game sequences are where the show is really going to shine as clear efforts were made to recreate the Virtua Fighter backgrounds and characters as close to the original as possible without making the girls stick out. It's enough to make you want to follow the series to see when they might tackle your own favorite Sega game.

I can really only recommend the series to Sega fans, or at least to those who have an interest in learning more about Sega's past. Long time fans will enjoy all the easter eggs, cameos, and console specific sound effects, while those new to the Sega scene will be learning about these titles of old right along side the girls. If you're not interested in Sega though the series will likely come off as a generic anime experience as it's too early to say if these history lessons will be enough to hold the attention of those outside of the fandom.

Edit:

Upon doing some further research into the series, I learned that the Genesis will be represented as her own separate character from Mega Drive.

That seems a bit more like it. Murica!

Stereotypical American design aside, it's nice to see they recognize Genesis would likely have a much different personality than Mega Drive. I'm anxious to see her Welcome the other girls To The Next Level, Sega screams and all.