Category: WWW.Working!!

WWW.Working!! – Episode 3

by K-Off, posted in Currently Watching:, WWW.Working!!

A-1 Pictures is a studio that created a lot of my favorite comedies, which have always been hit or misses. Yet they seem to have fallen off the deep-end on comedies recently, as they haven’t put out anything worthwhile (excluding sequels) since Silver Spoon in 2013. Maybe Zveda if I’m feeling generous…Either way, this one doesn’t seem to break that trend strong enough. What I said about episode 2 still stands, and on top of that, I can summarize my problem with episode three in two words: So. Flat.

Now, I love flat humor as evident in my review of Gugure Kokkuri-San awhile back, but there’s such thing as too much of a good thing. It only works for me when it’s contrasted with high energy to sort of highlight its silliness, but here, a majority of the cast are too dull, soft spoken, and deadpan.

That won’t be a problem for long if the characters don’t stay so one dimensional, so I’ll have to see how the show progresses, but it isn’t looking very good. The issue right now really is the cast itself. There are too many characters that are the quiet, soft-spoken “deadpan” type for there to be much variety in the delivery of the jokes. Delivery is really important for me. But Muranushi, Kondou, Kamakura, Shindou, and the MC don’t look like they’re going to stop their flat acting anytime soon. This episode doesn’t get much more than a small chuckle out of me, with Miyakoshi still being the only character that isn’t completely dull.

I really do want to find bigger things to praise this episode for, but I’d be grasping at straws. The way we’re already being loaded with Shindou’s uninteresting background story (continuing since the last episode) confuses the tone, and like I mentioned previously, the pacing is still an issue. I feel like this show already revealed everything it had to offer way too quickly, and even then what I saw wasn’t very interesting. 

However as I stated earlier, I have enough faith in Karino and A-1 to hope for the best. A weak start doesn’t mean anything, and if nothing else, the show has charm. The point is, this show has problems that can easily go away once it can vary up its comedic voice and create dynamic characters. Also, please let character interactions be more than just two or three talking amongst each other. That gets old really quickly, I’d love to feel like all the characters could actually exist next to each other.

WWW.Working!! – Episode 2

by K-Off, posted in Currently Watching:, WWW.Working!!

So…I’ve gone ahead and rewatched this episode twice because I wanted to be sure, but the pacing is definitely moving at breakneck speed compared to Wagnaria. This episode so far has a bunch of the qualities that I rather dislike. I mean, the characters break off into twos or threes and do their own thing without interacting with nearly anyone else, and by that I mean the kitchen staff, servers, and the MC do their own thing without building up everyone as a whole. That’s why the pacing must feel so fast, because the episode keeps jumping between a handful of people each doing their own thing.

This will be the last time I make the comparison to Wagnaria, but it really is a change. Episode 2 of Wagnaria made it the most entertaining show of its season because it created a cohesive cast by its second episode, creating scenarios where all of the staff could interact with each other. Contrary to this episode, it was only later into its season when it let the characters split off and do their own thing. It’s worthwhile to be a little cautious with any spin-off and it looks like I can’t let my guard down yet. Especially after seeing that the characterization isn’t anything to write about, and the variety of humor isn’t all exactly there yet either.

I suppose it’s easier to find what doesn’t work comedically than to do otherwise. So to its credit, Miyakoshi is the best part of this episode. I especially like her interaction with Daisuke and her acting is easily the most enthusiastic out of all the cast, who’re rather mostly…average. She brought the most energy into the episode, and her showing up at Higashida’s house worked really well.

In any case, what makes the show from being yet another average slice of life is that it works off character quirks to spice up every episode, most of the side characters still play off amusing traits if they aren’t very developed yet. So in the end, I personally prefer the tighter approach to comedy (with closely-knit character interactions), it creates more personality. It also makes them more relatable.

The music is alright, the opening is good but the ending song is pretty generic, I loved the soundtrack toWagnaria and Servant x Service so it’s somewhat of a letdown to hear some standard fare background music in this episode. I’d look forward to seeing the show crank up the energy more, so far Miyakoshi is the only one with any kind of real enthusiasm in her character.