(26 episodes)
What’s it about ?
Hare is a normal boy living in a quirky jungle community… and then an albino girl called Guu crashes into his life. Cue SAN loss.
Characters
Hare, our 10-year-old protagonist. He’s got a tendency to ramble endlessly at times… but considering the constant assault on his sanity in this episode, that’s a normal reaction.
Weda, his single mother. (And my, doesn’t she look a bit young to have a 10-year-old kid ? Oh dear…) Routinely comes back drunk from village parties, and overall ascribes to the “tough love” school of child-raising.
Guu, the albino girl Weda came back with one night (“she’s got no parents”, which should have raised some warning flags). At first she looks diabetes-inducingly cute… but from the next morning on she drops the façade in front of Hare. But she’s not merely sarcastic : her shtick involves eating stuff whole (including Hare himself twice). Her stomach is a bizarre fantasy land with tons of weird stuff… including two perfectly normal high school students who don’t bat an eyelid about being there.
Of the rest of the jungle community, we only see the one neighbour yet. This is obviously the present day with modern technology (Hare plays videogames in an hilarious RPG spoof sequence), but on the other hand there are some very weird local fauna and flora. Also, “shopping” apparently involves picking bananas directly from trees, and Weda’s “work” seems to be hunting.
Production Values
While the budget’s not through the roof, it makes some nice use of it, with appropriately psychedelic visuals. The background music’s a bit MIDI-ish, but surprisingly effective (there’s some awesome comedic timing there).
The OP is a thing to behold, with a very catchy tune and even the vegetation dancing to it.
There’s a weird prologue sequence, as a pregnant Weda melodramatically leaves a mansion under the rain. It’s a complete mood clash with everything else (especially the OP just after).
Overall Impression
Well, that’s certainly different. The sheer weirdness of it all is overpowering and makes it a compelling watch. (It helps that I share some of its sense of humour.)
I’ll be honest : I’ve already seen the whole series and the first set of OVAs (I need to track down the second set at some point). While it never really goes anywhere (the more serious turn it takes with the eventual disclosure of Weda’s background doesn’t feel like much of a climax), it’s still a pretty good gag series that understands perfectly well that it should never explain Guu.
