tvtropes.org

GJ Club

  • ️Fri Jan 03 2025

GJ Club (Literature)

Kyouya Shinomiya is forced to become a new member of the GJ, an unidentified club that dwells in a room of the former building of a certain school. Here he meets the club leader, Mao, a short girl with a big attitude; Mao's younger sister, Megumi, who has the heart of a bipolar angel; Shion, the recognized genius with a lack of common sense, and the always hungry and mysterious Kirara. Time flies with these unique girls around.

GJ Club (GJ-bu or Good Job Club) is a Japanese light novel series written by Shin Araki and illustrated by Aruya; it was originally published from 2010 to 2012 for 11 volumes, followed by a spinoff series, GJ-bu Chuutou-bu, which was published from 2012 to 2014 for eight volumes. It was adapted into an anime in January 2013.

This light novel series contains examples of:

  • All Girls Want Bad Boys: Kyouya's "Ore Man" persona causes the girls to Squee.
  • Balanced Harem: Kyouya has Ship Tease with the girls of the GJ Club he interacts with and none of them has a lead over the others.
  • Bifauxnen: According to the novels, Moris usually wears male clothing and hence looks more like a butler than a maid.
  • Bridal Carry:
    • Kirara carries Kyouya like this when they have a mock wedding ceremony.
    • Kyouya carries a sleeping Mao like this once.
  • Cartoon Meat: constantly eaten by Kirara in the anime, with other characters even commenting that it's "That sort of meat that only shows up in anime."
  • Childhood Friends: Shion and the Amatsuka sisters have been friends since elementary school.
  • Color Failure:
    • Occurs twice for hilarious reasons in episode 2.
    • Happens twice to Megumi in episode 7; both due to Weight Woe.
  • Comically Missing the Point: The scene with Kyoro's sketchbook in episode 10 takes this to rather absurd lengths.
  • Credits Jukebox: The anime changes the ending theme every two episodes.
  • Curtains Match the Window: Shion and Kasumi have purple hair and eyes. Megumi has pink hair and eyes.
  • Cute Little Fangs: Mao's are on display almost 24/7.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: The sounds the girls make when they get their hair brushed can easily be mistaken for something else entirely.
  • "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: The anime has four ending themes, each performed by the voice actresses of the girls of the GJ Club.
  • Dragged into Drag: Episode 9 features all the girls forcing Kyoro to cross-dress for their amusement. It turns out that Kyoro both looked good in it and got into character rather quickly. The girls weren't so amused anymore. They force him to do it again in episode 11, albeit this time it happens off-screen.
  • Eek, a Mouse!!: The entire club is terrified by a large spider in the first episode, despite Shion identifying it as harmless. Everyone, that is, save Megumi, who actually picks the spider up and releases it outside.
  • Evolving Credits: Tamaki gets added in the opening animation on Episode 7 onwards.
  • Girly Skirt Twirl: Mori does this for Kyouya multiple times much to his delight.
  • Graduate from the Story: Mao, Shion and Kirara graduate from high school in the final episode. At the end, Mao names Kyouya as the new leader of the GJ Club.
  • Group Picture Ending: The final episode's post-credit scene shows a picture of the GJ Club on the graduation day of Mao, Shion and Kirara.
  • Indirect Kiss: Shion lets Kyouya drink from her coffee can to see if he thinks it tastes too sweet. After drinking from it herself, she gets flustered when she realizes it counts as an indirect kiss.
  • Insane Troll Logic:
    • Mao forces Kyoro to give her candy or marshmallows for White Day, but she didn't give any chocolate to him at Valentine's Day (it was Mori).
    • Kasumi hides Kyoro's ecchi novels because she didn't want Kyoro "became a boy", although she spare one volume because it has a little sister as the heroine.
  • In-Series Nickname: Kyouya gets the nickname 'Kyoro' at the very end of the first episode.
  • Intimate Hair Brushing: Kyouya brushes the hair of the girls on some occasions. From the girls' reactions, it's implied to be a very intimate act to them.
  • Massive Numbered Siblings:
    • Shion has several older brothers, with Kyouya wondering just how many she has.
    • Tamaki has two younger brothers and two younger sisters.
  • Meaningful Name: Name order considered, the names of the older two of the Amatsuka sisters can be translated as "Angelic Demon" (Mao) and "Angelic Goddess" (Megumi).
  • Meido: Mori, although according to the novels she doesn't put on a maid uniform as often as in the anime. Megumi also dresses up as one in episode 4.
  • Mum Looks Like a Sister: Mori's mother raher looks like she might as well be her twin sister.
  • Mundane Made Awesome: Kyoro's hair brushing skills. It's also invoked by Mao on multiple occasions.
  • One-Sided Arm-Wrestling: Kyouya effortlessly beats the girls of the club at arm-wrestling. Except Kirara who is strong enough to throw his whole body when he tries challenging her at arm-wrestling.
  • Real Men Hate Sugar: The corollary was used. Kyoro once stated he didn't care for "real coffee" because it was too bitter, and prefers over-swetened canned coffee instead. He was immediately called "little kid" by Mao. On a macroscopic angle Kyoro isn't a "real man" either but a defeatist Nice Guy that the girls found harmless. Hence his occasional Ore-man form when the girls want someone more testosterone poisoned.
  • Running Gag:
    • Mori spins for Kyoro. Kyoro really likes this. Kyoro is later kicked by jealous club members.
    • Shion's obsession with commoner's items.
    • Mao biting Kyoro.
    • Kyoro's "Ore-Man" mode.
  • Short Story: This series calls itself a yonkoma Light Novel, by having all stories four pages long.
  • Shout-Out:
    • In episode 5, Shion believes that Kyoro is anxious because the picture on his wall is off by a few centimeters.
    • The second time Kyoro acts as "Ore Man" resembles JoJo.
    • In the second episode, Megumi holds the box of a game of Twister. On the cover, there are three girls who look a lot like Rei, Asuka and Mari.
    • In episode 6, Kyouya's sister was seen reading Detective Doiru, a thinly veiled spoof of Case Closed.
    • In episode 9, Tama is reading a light novel. The character portraits from Psycho-Pass are on the front cover with different hair colours.
  • Sobriquet Sex Switch: When all the girls in the club crossdress for fun, they all take a masculine alias that's similar to their names. Mao becomes Maou, Shion becomes Shirou, Megumi becomes Kei (which is an Alternate Character Reading of her name), Kirara becomes Kira, and Tamaki becomes Tamao.
  • Strong Family Resemblance:
    • Mori-san and her mom. Then they pull The Reveal in episode 11: Apparently the Mori who had her hair brushed was the mother.
    • When Kyoro cross dresses in episode 9, he looks a lot like his younger sister if she was older.
  • Super-Deformed: The characters turn into chibi mode every now and then.
  • Super-Strength:
    • Kirara effortlessly flips Kyoro on his head during the arm wrestling contest.
    • Episode 11 reveals that her younger sister Geraldine is capable of picking Kirara up and running with her.
  • Talking with Signs: Geraldine communicates by writing on a board since she doesn't know how to speak Japanese too well.
  • Trademark Favorite Food:
    • Sweet potatoes for the girls.
    • Kirara loves meat.
  • Unwanted Harem: This series is basically applying this concept into a Slice of Life rather than Romantic Comedy. Early on in the novels a ramen store owned already noted Kyoro pretty much has a harem.
  • Walking Swimsuit Scene: Episode 8. In lieu of actually going to the pool, the female club members and their respective sisters mess around in their swimsuits in the club room.