History
Girlstuff/Boystuff, tacky title aside, came out in 2002. It was produced in the UK, Canada and Hong Kong, but only really aired on the second. The show aired on YTV and, both surprisingly and supposedly, on The N. Aside from Daria and As Told by Ginger (I assume) in repeats, The N primarily stuck with live action, though they did stick their toes in twice, though one needs confirmation. Around the same year The N supposedly aired Moville Mysteries, and two years after they released their first original animated show O'Grady, from the same studio behind Home Movies and Dr. Katz. Hello future topic.
The animation was produced in Hong Kong through Agogo Media, a name I recognize from Horrid Henry, but don't take my word on that. Another producer I recognize is Decode Entertainment, aka the second part of what's now DHX Media, a company with an insatiable appetite for corporate acquisitions. As a result, our talent hails from Ontario, but there're only two actors I recognize, Drew Nelson who voiced Duncan in the Total Drama series and Bryn McAuley, who's basically everywhere.
Only other thing I could say about this show is that I have a gut feeling I've seen it before. As you're about to find out, this show could pass as a fever dream.
Premise
Basically a youth-oriented show, detailing life for pre-teens(?) teenagers(?), with stereotypes followed without question. It's like an alien's depiction of human life, well, going by the theme song anyways. The show itself is, sufficed to say, unable to peak its head out of the water. This has been done... better... even when compared to other shows like this. To illustrate, let's go over the characters, not by name but what they are.
Music fan, wannabe, nerd, vague, nature dork, fashionista, and these would be done better in other shows. Now to be fair, maybe the dialogue and structure wouldn't be that big of a turn-off. It could pass for noise or if you want some more slice-of-life stuff when you wore out your other options.
You know how most shows tend to feature those exaggerated fantasies? They occur here, coming as fast as they go, and warrant less than a word of mention. It's not very original from the premise to the structure, once you find another show like it, you'd move on and quick. It tries so hard to focus on minute stereotypes of what pre-teens are into, so if you encountered those things growing up it'd be boring, and if you didn't, you'd probably assume this show was written by a middle-aged pot-bellied man who shares Minions memes on Facebook or a woman who actually knew and watched NickMom.
Also the first episode had no ongoing conflict, did little to properly introduce the mains and I have no interest in seeing any more.
Style/Animation
Now I've seen worse, like I've said a million times. It's best not to judge the style too harshly, otherwise that'd inspire homogenization and living in fear that we'd piss people off over the quality-
 |
| Okay this is not good. |
I'm incredibly mixed on this. On one hand, this looks like the jankiest thing I've seen since High Guardian Spice's announcement. On the other... it's unique. One reason I'm not so harsh on most ugly shows is because they stand out because they're ugly. We remember these shows because they're ugly.
The animation itself is ironically not too bad. Some ambitious transition shots occur and it's pulled off decently. So they knew what they were doing. I guess the art style is meant to be in a similar vein to doodles kids draw in their notebooks, or it's some geometric fashion that was popular at the time, if it's the latter, Bromwell High did something similar, and better, even the slice-of-life schtick. For the background, we have shapes that remind me of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari if someone used crayons to color the negatives. The colors don't clash, admittedly, and aren't the worst part of the style.
(que the obligatory it looks better than Regular Show and Adventure Time quip. Some fans of the former can get real butt-hurt.)
Overall
On the off-chance you're pissed off that all I do is give a borderline summary with some complaints and talk about the animation, look at it like this. For shows like these, that's all you can bring up, whether or not it does its stereotypical portrayals a bit more uniquely than others and how it looks since, hey, it's animation. I don't have the desire to bleach my eyes from looking at this, though I could say that this show resembles the perfect fever dream, I mean just look at it.
If you could stomach the art direction and want a reflection of a time far gone, and you've already finished As Told by Ginger and The Weekenders, you know what? Only watch this if time is not valuable to you.
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