Hi-sCool! Seha Girls Impressions

Hi-sCool! Seha Girls is an anime adaptation of the Sega Hard Girls series, featuring moe anthropomorphized Sega consoles. The series started as light novels and character cameos for games like Samurai and Dragons and Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax. While each of Sega’s consoles and their revisions have been transformed into a character, only Dreamcast, Saturn and Mega Drive appear in the anime (thus far of my 5 episode recap). Sorry Genesis fans, the outrageous American-Texas dressed heroine will have to show up another time.

The debut episode begins with Dreamcast, Saturn and Mega Drive’s first day at Sehagaga Academy. The lobby is full of massive controllers on display and Opa-Opa and NiGHTS hovering around like a ceiling fan. The CG animation looks like a cut scene from a video game, with cel shaded characters and what could pass as pre-rendered backgrounds. The group’s first conversation talks about what kind of guys Saturn is into, Mega Drive takes a guess with Golden Axe and Outrun characters but Saturn is interested in neither.

The classroom has arcade cabinets and advertising posters, it’s fun to pause and see what Sega games you can identify. We’re introduced to Center-Sensei, the girls’ teacher, who appears only as an avatar on a monitor. Sega couldn’t have picked a better avatar. It is none other than Professor Asobin. For those who don’t know (and I had to look him up as well) he is one of the first unofficial mascots for Sega who only appears in SG-1000 manuals. He explains how classes are taught at Sehagaga Academy. Students have to earn 100 credit medals by completing tasks inside of video games. The first lesson is Virtua Fighter. Center-Sensei goes into lecturing the history of the game before explaining the actual task.

The team’s first task in Virtua Fighter is to win a hundred matches in a row. This is quite a daunting feat; the girls have to fight inside the world of Virtua Fighter and and each girl only has one main move copied from the game. After the first couple matches against Akira and Jeffry, the team learns that Dreamcast’s move (a diving headbutt) has been proven to be a little too powerful. As they progress each round gets more and more absurd with tweaking of the opponent’s health or the stage. Somehow Virtua Fighter turns into a Fighters Megamix of sorts throwing characters like Bruno Delinger and Alex Kidd into the mix. I absolutely love the visuals here. Virtua Fighter is preserved in its iconic Model 1 look and sound. Each of these cameos are in their original sprites or models. In the end, and I won’t spoil everything, the final opponent is an absolutely perfect choice. It involves a series we cover I’ll tell you that much. The battle even plays the theme song.

Saturn is the only one who earned credit medals, as she is the only one who survived while following the rules of Virtua Fighter. It’s okay, there are many more opportunities after all. Maybe the gang can do well in Space Channel 5, featured in Episode 3. Episode 3 only adds character development; the girls get into a long discussion about their future after they graduate from the academy, leading to Saturn practicing being a weather girl. This leads us to the next game the girls have to enter, which turns out to be Space Channel 5. The girls’ task there is to rescue two of Center-Sensei’s friends who have been captured by an alien race called the Morolians. Just like in the game itself, the girls need to dance to defeat the Morolians. The better they dance, the higher the channel’s viewer ratings.

Dreamcast and Saturn are excited to dance with Ulala to save two captives. Mega Drive on the other hand is not a good dancer and bashful. Despite their best efforts, the viewer ratings for Space Channel 5 start to drop. This isn’t entirely their fault however, seeing how the World Cup is being aired at the same time. Eventually we learn that Center-Sensei’s two friends are also characters from Sega games. The first who appeared, Jeffry from Virtual Fighter, caused the ratings to spike just by showing up. The eager Dreamcast thinks of another way to raise ratings further, and slips Saturn into a bikini on-air (first fanservice too). The second captive is Gillius Thunderhead from Golden Axe and he looks confused swinging his axe around. After calming him down and promising Saturn to marry him, he gets with the program. The final battle is against an army of Morolians and one giant Morolian. Saturn saves the day using her handy-dandy Twin Sticks. Not that everything turns out well for her unfortunately. Both Dreamcast and Mega Drive get five medals for completing their task, but Saturn doesn’t because the Space PTA disapproved of her use of sex appeal to increase the viewer ratings.

The fifth episode deals with Puyo Puyo. Rather than entering the game and stacking puyo pieces, they have to come up with new ideas for the franchise. A good idea earns the girls one medal, but a bad idea will deduct a medal. Dreamcast and Mega Drive have no trouble coming up with new ideas by adding Puyo Puyos to existing franchises like Fantasy Zone and Phantasy Star Online but Center-Sensei didn’t like Saturn’s idea of a Virtua Fighter featuring Puyo Puyos. Oh the luck she has in this series. She eventually wins her medal with an actual original idea.

I’m about halfway into the series and everything is cute, funny and peppered with some clever use of Sega references and video game logic. Some references can go over the heads of Western and/or casual Sega fans. Show of hands: who cares about Roommania #203 or recognizes the 16t weight in the classroom? Nothing feels too out of the loop for video gamers in general, but if you played games on Sega consoles you will obviously get the most mileage out of this anime. The characters are well designed, I still learn something about them all before everything becomes a chain of gags.

You can check out the series right now at Crunchyroll. Hi-sCool! Seha Girls is only going to be around for 13 quarter hour episodes. What misadventures will the three get into later? I did spy Jet Set Radio in the opening and in the classroom…