Arakawa Under The Bridge seems to be this season’s random gag anime. The name is fitting because it’s basically about a dude who’s constantly getting trolled. Aaaand that’s about it.
Ichinomiya is heir to a corporate dynasty who lives by the rule: don’t owe anyone anything. Apparently this doctrine is such a heavy part of the family that being in debt to someone actually causes Ichinomiya to get sick. I guess that means he doesn’t carry a credit card either. Anyway, his live is saved by a random girl named Nino. Because he has to make his debt up to her, Ichinomiya agrees to do whatever she wants. This includes living under a bridge with her and putting up with other wackiness like being renamed by the Kappa guy in the river.
Arakawa seems to be a gag anime. Ichinomiya is the straight man and the other characters are the ones who do insane things that Ichinomiya points out, only to find that no one else thinks they’re insane. When done correctly, this kind of show is hilarious. After watching the first episode, I feel as though the writers and/or director really aren’t going into it full force. Maybe I’ve been spoiled watching shows like Sexy Commando and Cromartie, but this show just seems a bit too reasonable. No weird humming, martial arts moves involving unzipping one’s fly or a badass robot. Though there was some ahoge movement.
If I’m going to watch a WTF anime, I want some really WTF moments. I haven’t gotten that in the first episode of Arakawa, though maybe it’ll appear eventually. I may check other blogs in lieu of watching the next episode.
The other anime series of Spring 2010 that I’ve watched so far is B Gata H Kei. It’s the one about the girl who wants 100 sex-buddies by the time she gets out of high school. Like the saying goes: “Aim for the Moon; Even if you miss you’ll probably end up with like a dozen STDs!”
So yeah, that’s the basic premise behind this one. Yamada has just joined High School, which apparently means it’s time for her to pick up guys and score! I’m not sure how she got this idea since her friend thinks she’s kind of crazy and no one else seems to be on board with her. I partly suspect that the Japanese Government is behind her motivation in an attempt to increase the faltering Japanese birth rate! She picks a random plain-looking guy because she happened to fall on him, which denotes fate. In anime terms I actually think that is a good predictor of relationship compatibility.
Yamada goes full force on the guy, Kosuda. Because she’s so results oriented, she ends up scaring him more than winning his heart (or at the very least, his attention). Yamada’s complete disconnect between reality and her fantasies make for some really humorous situations, like when she realizes people usually kiss before moving to the next stage. In baseball terms, she wants to head directly to home base. Oh wait, I guess that’s not a good analogy because you start at the home plate when you go up to bat… She also realizes at the last minute that she forgot to stock up on prophylactics before cornering Kosuda alone in his room. Wasn’t she paying attention during health class!?
I like B Gata H Kei because, as raunchy as the premise sounds, it’s really an innocent story about some high school kids trying to figure out what relationships and sex are about. It’s very apparent that both of the lead characters are so inexperienced that they’ll probably never end up doing the deed. That’d kill the series anyway. So hopefully the rest of the series will be a bunch of fun missteps with small milestones along the way (like Yamada getting over Kosuda’s pitched tent so she can kiss him). There is also something really endearing about the character designs. They seem like they’re about 10 years back or so, dont’ they?
I literally watched B Gata H Kei without any idea of what it was about. I was pleasantly surprised and I’m looking forward to watching more.
I found a bit of free time so I figured I’d check out the new Spring Anime for 2010. Working!! has gotten a lot of attention so I started by checking out the first episode.
Working!! follows the wacky staff at a Japanese Family Restaurant. Taneshima Poplar is the highschool senior who looks like she’s 12. Takanashi Souta is Poplar’s underclassman, who likes small, cute things. There’s also the girl who’s afraid of men and the manager who seems to have Yakuza ties, and the waitress who carries around a sword on her belt. Oh, and some other male characters, but who cares about them?
The first episode gives you a feel for who the characters are and the quirks that they’ll probably carry throughout the series. Takanashi joined the restaurant because Poplar asked him to, probably because he thought it’d be fun to work with a small cute girl. He denies being a lolicon, though. He likes kittens and puppies and mites and other small things in the same way! This begs the question: if he’s not into Poplar, then which kind of girl is he into?
The scenes in Working!! are short, and I had suspected that the source material was a 4-koma before looking it up. This gives a sort of feeling of discontinuity. It was revealed during the middle of the episode that Takanashi had already been working at the restaurant for a few weeks (without a break). I suppose this means that there won’t be a lot of character development, as it seemed the relationships between characters hardly changed at all given the time jump.
I think Working!! was funny at some points, but I’m not sure if it’s funny enough to keep me watching. It was sort of chuckle inducing, I guess. I want to watch that Arakawa Under The Bridge show because I heard it’s sort of more WTF, which is closer to my brand of humor. Even so, I’ll probably give Working!! another episode because I like Poplar (her eyelashes are cute).
While there is so, so much wrong with this anime, I think this screenshot pretty much sums it up.
I just finished watching the first episode of K-ON! I guess they forgot to add the “ROC” to the first part of the title. Yes, I am going through my anime backlog by just picking the most popular (according to Anime Nano) series. I knew I invented that popularity cloud for a reason!
First impressions: Mio is hot. Too bad she doesn’t wear glasses. Might have to watch some more in case she eventually does.
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