Genshiken - Season 1

Genshiken is a slice-of-life comedy about the nerdy members of a college club centering around manga, anime, and video games. This despite the fact the most developed character is a normal girl who claims to only hang around because of her boyfriend, whose physical appearance doesn't fit the part of an otaku. The show, like a lot of anime, is completely character driven instead of plot driven, and if you don't like it when not much actually happens in most episodes, you'll probably get bored. Several characters have annoying voices too, and when so much of the content is their discussions, you have to have some patience. Not to say that the characters themselves aren't good. Some don't really stick out much but you can't really hate any of them. And it's always nice to find an anime that actually allows a romantic relationship to develop instead of having them hem and haw for ages.

What's really interesting about Genshiken is its frank look at the otaku subculture. One of their passions is doujinshi, which are usually pornographic amateur comics using well-known characters. But while their hobby might seem a little weird, you can see that they're not bad people, they just have different things they happen to care about. There are a few interesting and humorous situations that develop as the club makes trips to conventions and tries to keep themselves from being canned by the school. I generally don't find anime to be as funny as American or British comedy, and Genshiken is no exception, but it's a watchable show.