Here Is Greenwood

Welcome to Ryokuto Academy's home of the odd and inexplicable, Ryukurin Hall! But everyone just calls it "Greenwood." This is the home of two hundred students of the all-boys academy, many of them strange, all of them unique, and every one of them sweet and loveable. Here Is Greenwood is one of the cutest, funniest anime you're likely to come across.

Greenwood is a six-episode series about the residents of Greenwood Hall, focused on Kazuya Hasukawa, his roommate, and the upperclassmen who live next door. In the first episode, Kazuya arrives at Ryokuto Academy a month late, having been in the hospital due to stress-related ulcers. It seems that poor Kazuya had to watch his first love get married to his older brother, whom he lives with, and now he can't stand to go home. He's determined to stay at Greenwood until he graduates, but he doesn't know what he's in for!

As soon as Kazuya arrives, he is greeted by upperclassmen Shinobu and Mitsuru, who will be his next-door neighbors. Shinobu is the quiet, soft-spoken, slightly creepy student council president, while Mitsuru is the sly, scheming, popular dorm president. First they torture Kazuya by pretending to almost kiss in front of him, and then they introduce him to his roommate, Shun. Shun is adorably cute, with long pink hair and girlish mannerisms, and at first, Shinobu and Mitsuru tell Kazuya that he actually is a girl, and Kazuya has to live with him! It's all a joke, but this is how the relationships between the four main characters go on: the upperclassmen enjoy yanking Kazuya's chain, and Shun smilingly goes along with it while still being kind to Kazuya.

The second episode involves Shun's younger brother -- who looks even more like a girl than Shun -- being kidnapped by Shinobu's jealous older sister. In the third, the dorm is making a film starring Mitsuru and Kazuya, and in the fourth episode, a teenage female ghost comes to haunt Shinobu. The fifth and sixth episodes both deal with Kazuya finally finding a girl that he likes and what he goes through to try and win her -- with the help of his friends at Greenwood, of course!

Art style, script and characters all come together to make Greenwood one of the funniest little anime I've ever seen. The silly situations and offbeat humor had me giggling the whole time. Every episode has its fair share of yaoi/gender-bending humor, most of it serving to embarass Kazuya adorably. Shun isn't afraid to teasingly flirt with "Suka-chan," as he calls Kazuya, while Mitsuru and Shinobu seem happy to make innuendo about their relationship, to a point. As an extra fanservice bonus, there's several scenes with Kazuya and Shun talking together in the bath, naked. All of the characters are drawn cutely, with the big eyes, fluffy hair and pastel hair colors popular during the early 1990's when this OAV was made. The style and the humor is sure to have fangirls alternately cooing and giggling through all three hours of the OAV.

Here is Greenwood was only available on VHS for a long time, and was very difficult to find. Luckily, though, a DVD version was released in 2004 and is available at any video store or online retailer. If you have the chance, check it out! The world deserves to know Greenwood.