Tag: humour

Ebiten – Ebisugawa Public High School Astronomical Club (Kouritsu Ebisugawa Koukou Tenmonbu)

(10 episodes)

What’s it about ?

High-school slice-of-life comedy show.

Characters

Todoyama, president of the Astronomy Club (and there must be a pun here in Japanese, because the subbers were intent on dubbing it the “Ass-tronomy” club). She’s exactly the kind of obnoxious hyperactive asshole that makes me avoid Kana Asumi in leading roles.

Kanamori, her chewtoy. Subject to tons of abuse, she spends most of the episode half-naked or in bondage, but it’s okay because she’s a dirty yaoi fangirl.

Noya, the first-year newcomer, who for some reason has to participate in a Saint Seiya parody as a trial before joining the club. Why she doesn’t run for the hills once she notices how weird and offputting this bunch is, I have no idea.

There’s also the “charming” vice-president who has to deploy allher social-fu for the club not to get closed down, and the sarcastic girl who deadpans through the whole thing while putting as little effort as possible into it.

Production Values

This is streamed on Niconico in eyebleed-o-vision, but even accounting for that it looks like crap. It also suffers from Seitokai no Ichizon‘s character designer, who manages somehow to turn in designs both stupidly elaborate and terminally generic.

Overall Impression

I can’t find a kind word for this. The premise is dodgy at best (hint: don’t go for “the student council wants to shut the club down” angle if you can’t give a reason to disagree with them), it looks horrible, but the biggest problem is that it’s just not funny at all. Which is worst possible sin for a gag show.

Avoid.

via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2012 – Page 15.

Joshiraku

(13 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Five girls talking about random stuff. Adapted from a manga written by the author of Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei.

Characters

Hey, remember how the girls in SZS often devolved into a generic greek chorus sharing the same snarky personality ? It’s even worse here, where I’m utterly at a loss to remember distinguishing character traits between the five main characters.

Nominally they’re doing one-woman-show comedy routines, but the series focuses their idle talk in their break room.

Production Values

Unlike other adaptations of Kouji Kumeta’s work, this is NOT animated by Shaft, but by JC Staff. As such, it’s perfectly serviceable but utterly boringly directed.

Overall Impression

Duller than dull. Never mind all the barely translatable puns : most of the jokes are just very lame. Also, that they’re already resorting to “why would anyone animate us ?” jokes in the first episode doesn’t fill me with confidence.

I’ll give it one more episode to click, but I’m not hopeful.

via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2012 – Page 12.

Kokoro Connect

(12ish episodes ?)

What’s it about ?

Slice-of-life high school series… with body swaps.

Characters

Taichi, the main dude. Aside from an heavy interest in wrestling, he’s quite generic. Swaps out bodies midway with…

Iori, the fanciful and hyperactive girl. Technically the president of the “Student Culture” club (made from the 5 weirdoes who didn’t fit anywhere else), although she doesn’t act like it.

Himeko, the straight-laced girl who’s constantly annoyed by everyone else’s antics.

Yoshifumi, the casanova, and Yui, the shy girl, swapped bodies last night for a bit, which was very confusing to them both and quite awkward.

So far, nobody has a clue why this is happening or how.

Production Values

This is a lot more restrained than usual for studio Silver Link (BakaTest, CxCxC, Dusk Maiden of Amnesia), who are normally known for more showy directing techniques and artificial colour palettes. It’s still quite good-looking, and I like the effects used for denoting the body swaps.

Also, there’s refreshingly nearly no fanservice.

Overall Impression

This is a fun little series. The main characters have very good chemistry and play well off each other, which is essential for such a premise.

I was already hooked when the first half of the episode was previewed a week ago, but this confirms my initial good impression.

via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2012 – Page 11.

Binbougami ga!

(13 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Comedy about a Misfortune God harassing a high school girl. Or is it the other way around ?

Characters

Momiji, the Poverty God. Well, presumably one of many, as we open with her boss giving her a new assignment. She does not seem to enjoy her job too much, although her new “victim” did strike a nerve. (I say “victim” in the loosest of senses, given how Momiji kinda reminds me of Wile E. Coyote.)

Ichiko, an ultra-rich, ultra-popular, F-chested high-school girl. She knows it, and enjoys it tremendously, thank you. Calling her an entitled jerk would be an understatement. (I have to say I’ve been enjoying Kana Hanazawa’s career twice as much since she started getting those bitchy roles ; her venom tongue is a pleasure to listen to.) The plot here is that she’s actually leeching off the good fortune from everyone around her, hence why she’s got so much. Momiji’s job is to resolve the situation.

Suwano, her butler. He’s mostly there to provide Ichiko with an emotional bond… although even that isn’t taken too seriously by the show.

Some of Ichiko’s classmates are given enough prominence in the OP that they’ll probably be important later on, but not yet.

Production Values

Not very good, but the direction is solid enough to sell the jokes.

Overall Impression

Look, a comedy that’s actually funny ! Okay, it’s not without problems (the random popculture jokes, such as Momiji randomly starting to talk like Lupin III for a couple of sentences, sometimes fall flat), but it’s got enough energy and good comedic timing to work. It helps that the two main voice-actresses have amazing chemistry together and can pull off the rapid-fire jokes and multiple tone changes.

“From the makers of Gintama and Daily Lives of High School Boys” had my hopes up, and I’m glad not to be disappointed.

via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2012 – Page 10.

Humanity Has Declined (Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

The most cheerful post-apocalyptic series you’ll ever watch.

Characters

Our unnamed protagonist lives in a small rural village as a mediator to the fairies, on behalf of the UN. This basically makes her in charge of the female population here, mostly by virtue of having a clue and not being afraid of abusing her authority.

She lives with her grampa, a scientist also studying the fairies. And he’s very obviously calling the shots in the village, for about the same reasons.

The locals seem to suffer from a severe case of the stupids, and are barely able to function anymore. It’s funny until starvation because of their own incompetence becomes a plot point.

Fortunately there’s the fairies… and whoever’s running the mysterious FairyCo that’s been dropping free (awful-tasting) food recently.

Production Values

Well, that’s a good way to make a post-apocalyptic setting very creepy indeed : over-saturated bright colours everywhere, and the more pink the better. And that’s before the headless chicken start showing up, or the action moves to the utterly absurd FairyCo factory.

Overall Impression

Warning : this show doesn’t bother to explain anything about its setting : why has humanity declined ? Is this village typical of the world ? What state is the UN in ? (Our protagonists don’t seem to have access to any technology or outside help.) What’s with the fairies ? Indeed, it seems to revel in the explosive decompression of throwing the viewer into this strange land, even spending a lot of time on pointing out that our heroine just had her hair cut for undisclosed reasons and not being comfortable with it : is there any significance to it ?

Fortunately, we have a strongly-defined central character to latch onto, with enough shrewdness and cynicism to compensate for the braindead villagers. What prevents her from being obnoxious is that she doesn’t really get away with it, thanks to her grandfather’s vigilance.

But what really sets this series apart is the sharp contrast between the sugar-coated presentation and the very black humour at its core (the bleeding bread scene in particular has perfect comedic timing). There’s also a strong sense that it knows exactly where it’s going and the haphazard pacing is deliberate.

Somehow, this looks like one of the most original and refreshing shows of the summer. (Yes, more than that one with the talking yeast.) Very worth checking out.

via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2012 – Page 6.

Moyashimon (“Yeast Monsters”)

(11 episodes, 2007)

My previous exposure

There’s a sequel airing this Summer, and since it’s on noitaminA it’d have gotten on my radar sooner rather than later anyway.

Beyond that and the notion that it’s about cute microbes or something, I knew nothing of it.

What’s it about ?

Sawaki, our protagonist, is a new student attending an agriculture university. He can see microbes (bacteria, fungi, viruses, the whole lot of them), not as what they look like under a microscope, but as cute inch-tall little critters. He’s not too fond of this talent of his, and tends to keep it secret, but it turns out to be quite useful in the world of agriculture (both with the “good” fermenting microbes, and the “bad” toxic microbes).

But this is mostly a background thread, as the core of the series is a slice-of-life story involving the ensemble cast of Sawaki, his best friend Yuuki, Pr Itsuki (an ineffable microbe specialist who takes them under his wing), angry grad-student Hasegawa, never-do-well second-years Kawahama & Misato, and various over recurring characters.

What did I think of it ?

I didn’t expect this at at all. Sure, it’s very educative about how microbes are SERIOUS BUSINESS in agriculture, and the quirky “Sawaki-vision” does a lot to liven up all this exposition… but mostly it’s just a really good college slice-of-life series. Heck, the high point of the series is that hilarious two-parter with the survival challenge, and that had nothing to do with microbes.

This was well worth watching, and I can hardly wait for the second season.

via [LTTP/WIW] Various anime from the 00s and beyond – Page 13.

Spring 2012 capsules

Naruto SD – Rock Lee & His Ninja Friends was better than I expected. It’s thoroughly accessible, providing enough exposition about the setting (“teams of apprentice ninjas get various tasks to perform as part of their training”), the main character’ shtick (“Rock Lee is an apprentice ninja who can’t do any ninjutsu”) or whatever guest star happens to be passing (such as what Naruto can do). For someone like me who barely knows anything about the Naruto universe, this was very welcome.

Now, is this actually worth watching ? Let’s not get carried away. It’s mildly funny, but some of the running gags were getting tired even before the end of the second of the two skits in this episode. (Even Tenten herself is getting bored of always going “there’s no way anyone’s going to fall for Lee’s incredibly stupid plan… wait, it worked ?”) Also, the first skit relies heavily on poo jokes.

One episode was enough for me.

I was pleasantly surprised by Here Comes the Black Witch! (Kuromajo-san ga Toru!!). I’m not a big fan of anime in short formats, but this is a longer one (7 minutes), and properly paced for it. The premise is simple enough (middle-school occult fangirl invokes a demon by mistake, who’s going to teach her how to become a Witch whether she wants it or not), but it manages to get some good jokes out of it (our heroine MUST clean her room everyday… because leaving any hair or skin behind makes malicious voodoo body control possible).

This looks like a fun little gag show (and it’s not like this season promises many of these). I’m willing to give it at least a few more episodes to see whether it stays funny.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2012 – Page 5.

Some thoughts on more short series I won’t be making full reviews of :

Gakkatsu (“Homeroom”) is very bizarre indeed. The abrasive class rep organizes a debate about some inane topic (today : “what’s the name of that bump on your arm that’s equivalent to the ankle ?”), except she discards any argument she doesn’t like. It’s rapid-fire comedy building to an utterly stupid conclusion, but I’m not sure I actually find it funny. I’ll need a couple more episodes to decide.

Yurumates 3Dei has no 3D whatsoever, it’s just that there were two OVAs before this series ; fortunately, this looks like a fresh start. Unfortunately, this takes most of its three minutes to establish the premise (a condo house in the suburbs of Tokyo where former high school students go to prepare another go at college entrance exams ; there’sno privacy whatsoever and the place looks a bit run-down) and the characters don’t get much depth. I was vaguely interested in the subject matter, but it doesn’t look like it’ll be going anywhere interesting (and even Acchi Kocchi looks more satisfying as far as 4-panel gag manga adaptations go).

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2012 – Page 6.

Sequel watch !

As it turns out, I won’t be making a full review of Saki: Achiga-hen – Episode of Side-A. It’s more of the same from the original : cute girls with little personality playing mahjong as though it was calvinball. It makes a stab at building drama around the formation of an underdog club, but it falls flat due to the dullness of the writing. And that’s when it doesn’t just go for utter stupidity (actual dialogue : “wait, you’ve been cleaning this unused club room alone for two years on the vague hope we’d come back ?”). Also, given Saki‘s sluggish pace, I really doubt these people can get to the national level within 12 episodes.

Fate / Zero is back after three months’ break, and jumps straight back to where it left. Frankly, there’s no point in starting watching it now, you’ll want the 13 episodes of setup to have a hope in figuring out what’s going on.

Phi Brain S2 didn’t even take a week’s break, but it does go out of its way to reintroduce the supporting cast, the premise and the first season’s relevant events so that it can be a good jumping on point. Since the evil POG organization has been comprehensively dismantled by now, we’re getting a new set of villains to challenge the cast with more stupidly dangerous puzzles. Since they’re already more personality and charisma (hello, Hiroshi Kamiya and Tomokazu Sugita !) than the POG, I’m not complaining. This looks as fun as ever, so I’m in for the ride.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2012 – Page 7.

Okay, I’ll be using my “no reviews of sequels” escape clause and skip writing a full review of Eureka Seven Ao. Not because I was lost or anything (I didn’t see the original, but that’s no obstacle to understanding the gist of the plot here), but because the first episode bored me to sleep. Neither the flat characters, nor the rather generic events happening to them gave me any reason to care. Sure, it looks good, but I just found it very dull, and thus can’t summon any energy to cover it in any more detail.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2012 – Page 10.

Nyarko-san: Another Crawling Chaos (Haiyore! Nyaruko-san)

(12ish episodes ?)

What’s it about ?

Lovecraft monsters as cute girls ! Except not really.

Characters

Mahiro, our token male protagonist. Mostly there to keep complaining that nothing makes sense. For some reason, he’s targeted by tons of creepy monsters, thus why he’s being protected by…

Nyarlathotep, aka Nyarlko. Except she’s not really a sanity-destroying abomination (unless you want to give this series way too much credit), but an alien agent sent by the Galactic Defense Organization to protect Mahiro. Oh, and the access to Earth entertainment is a nice side-benefit, too. Obviously she’s supposed to be annoying, but they kinda overshoot the mark.

We see a bit of Mahiro’s supporting cast, including a rare non-perverted best friend (who’s just bland), and the inquisitive journalist-type who’s set up to be a regular annoyance. The OP/ED also promises two more of Nyarlko’s kind, but they’ve yet to really show up.

Production Values

Not very good. And no, re-using the same stock monster three times does not become more tolerable if it’s pointed out.

Overall Impression

You know what ? I actually enjoyed somewhat the Flash-made shorts from a little while ago. Sure, they were crudely drawn and some of them were boring, but they did have a good final punchline, and clearly suggested that those were eldritch abominations mindfucking Mahiro (and the audience) in a very convoluted way for the lulz. That was a decent way to make the premise work.

Unfortunately, this new series pretty much throws all of that away. I mean, you can still interpret it that way if you’re so inclined, but that’s probably wishful thinking. Instead, Nyarlko is transformed into a generic superhero who’s bloody annoying in the downtime scenes (I can only stand Kana Asumi in small doses), which is just a waste.

So we’re left with a generic superhero show with an insufferable heroine and tons of 4th-wall-breaking jokes that aren’t funny. I’ll pass.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2012 – Page 8.

Acchi Kocchi

(12ish episodes)

What’s it about ?

Idiot hair, the anime.

Okay, not really, but it’s hard to find any actual premise here. It’s a gag series set in high school, adapted from a 4-panel manga.

Characters

Tsumiki, our central character. She’s short and very shy. Also, utterly improbable hair. She randomly sprouts cat ears whenever the show wants to make her cuter, which just looks a bit weird.

Io, her kinda boyfriend. He’s a boy of few words, and it’s hard to say at this point whether he’s deadpan or just bland.

Mayoi, their insane troll friend. She likes pranks, and the labcoat she’s always wearing makes her a technical genius, which is a dangerous combination.

Hime, their perverted fangirl friend. The kind who always gets nosebleeds when they do something cute. A bit ditzy and clueless.

Sakaki, the mandatory perverted best friend dude. Well, at least he’s more subdued and has more charisma than the norm.

Ms. Sakuragawa, their clumsy teacher with no authority whatsoever.

Production Values

Pretty scene transitions ! It’s almost a shame that these nifty geometric gimmicks don’t bleed more into the actual sketches, because they give the show most of its identity.

Overall Impression

Your token generic 4-panel gag series. Perfectly inoffensive, and most gags do trigger a smile, but the only distinctive thing about it (besides the scene transitions) is that it’s somewhat gender-balanced and centers on a romance subplot (that probably won’t go anywhere).

Eh, it looks like there’s nothing else on Fridays anyway, so I may well stick with it.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2012 – Page 6.

Polar Bear Cafe (Shirokuma Cafe)

What’s it about ?

Gag series set in a world where animals live like (and coexist with) normal people.

Characters

Panda, our protagonist. Your typical teenage boy who spends his time loafing around (eating bamboo). He gets pestered by his mother into getting a part-time job, so off he goes, with little enthusiasm. No, scratch that, the main problem is that he’s too honest. (“Are you actually going to do any work once you’re hired ?” “Probably not.”)

Mr Polar Bear, owner of the next-door café. He’s looking for a part-time waiter ; believe it or not, Panda is the best of the five applicants he gets. He’s got a running gag where he’ll mishear an order and bring something ridiculous to fit a pun ; it just doesn’t work outside of Japanese, and the CR translator appear to have just given up on making sense of it.

Mr Penguin, a regular patron of the Polar Bear Cafe. He’s mostly there to be the straight man penguin in the jokes.

Production Values

Not very high, but it’s got a distinctive artstyle, with all the animals depicted realistically.

Overall Impression

Wait, this is actually quite funny ! It helps that it’s got an incredibly star-heavy cast (Jun Fukuyama, Takahiro Sakurai, Hiroshi Kamiya…) who can pull off deadpan insanity without breaking a sweat. Okay, I could do without the “mistaken order” running gag (which doesn’t have much to do with the rest of the series anyway), but the general setup is a great joke that is executed very well.

Now, the question is “how long can this sustain itself ?” This is a daytime show, so there’s always the possibility it’ll continue going way past its sell-by date. On the other hand, I doubt this kind of humour has more than a niche appeal, so I wouldn’t expect it to last too long before being cancelled.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2012 – Page 6.