Category: Finished Series: Comedy

Mitsudomoe Zouryouchuu! – 08

by psgels, posted in Mitsudomoe



Okay, so the next episode is supposed to be not part of the second season, but instead it’s something like “the deleted scenes of season one”. I’m really not sure what the creators meant by that, but it looks like it’s going to be new content. Because of that I’m going to wait till reviewing this series until next week.

In any case, for the official last episode, this was an excellent one to close off the series with. Perhaps it wasn’t the funniest, but I almost have no complaints about it either. There was just one minute that didn’t work, the rest of this episode left a great aftertaste behind. I really enjoyed this series much more than I originally thought I would.

The first sketch interestingly actually fixed one of the annoying subplots of the first season: the endless misunderstandings between Hitoha and Yabecchi about the Gachi rangers, which was one of the most dragged out jokes of the entire first season. Finally Hitoha actually cleared up this misunderstanding.

Sketch two was pure comedy gold. It again made use of a lot of different characters in its jokes as the characters practiced for and participated in the relay race at their sports festival. Even here the creators still combined some of the things we already knew about the characters with new jokes. Chiba especially was on fire in this part.

Sketch three suddenly brought in a new character: a sweet potato seller. This also was quite fun, especially in the way that Hitoha mind-screwed him. It did go on for a bit too long, though. The sketch should have ended when the kids left. There was no need to get this guy to ask the ages of two more teachers. Especially since the latter gave the annoying female teacher more screentime. She by far was the worst character of the entire season.

Finally, the final part of this series wasn’t meant to be funny, but instead showed how the triplets and their father changed from when they were still four years old. A really great way to technically end this series with.

As for next week, I think that it’s all going to depend on what exactly got cut during the first season, and whether or not it was written in the production of the first season or the second season. Like, did they animate a bunch of sketches and were they redeemed inappropriate, or are they some manga chapters that were originally left unanimated? I mean, the series changed significantly between the two seasons, so it all depends on whether it’s going to be like the first season, or the much more balanced second season.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka? – 07

by psgels, posted in Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka?



Yes guys. If you gripe and kiss a girl you only met five minutes before, you will totally get away with it and she’ll even fall in love with you. I mean, I know that this episode provided a reason for it but it nevertheless was a really flimsy one that has been used to death by now.

Zombie’s episodes are either great, or boring cliche-fests. This was a clear example of the latter. This episode had some decent chemistry, which prevented it from being a complete disaster, but still the largest part was pretty boring. I mean, in the previous episode I didn’t complain about the fanservice because of the way it was used. This time it was just tasteless, especially when the X-Ray glasses popped up.

Still, this episode did have some good points, like being able to kill Megalos with noodle soup, or the various things that were written on the Tanabata-notes. The math explanations and weird theories about some demonic Santa Claus showing up at Tanabata also were pretty fun. Those were all mere details, though.
Rating: – (Disappointing)

Level E – 07

by psgels, posted in Level E



Perhaps not the funniest episode of the series, but this episode still is excellent in the way that it completely went against my expectations. Just about everything about it was unpredictable, and it turned the rules of your average RPG completely upside down, multiple times.

The best part was without a doubt the way the creators trolled us with the expectations that were built up in the previous episode. I was really looking forward to seeing the crushes of these five characters pop up in the RPG world…. and instead we got a cross-dressing prince. The teacher meanwhile kept saying that she should do something about the prince, and yet never showed up.

The ending was also brilliant. Virtually every RPG has an end with some ultimate villain who is ridiculously powerful and wants to destroy the world for whatever reasons. This one is completely different and instead just asks the five characters to not turn off the game. At first I also thought that Ouji was being a bit stupid by getting himself caught and all, but the punchline at the end of the episode explained it all: he really isn’t going to let go of these kids until he gets bored.

On a side-note: how far are we exactly into the manga at this point? I know that the manga only has sixteen chapters. Are we about halfway through them right now, or are the creators going to run out of time at this pace?
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Mitsudomoe – 07

by psgels, posted in Mitsudomoe



The Christmas sketch at the beginning of this episode may very well have been the best sketch of Mitsudomoe yet. It was just absolutely hilarious to see the different kids try and pretend to be Santa Claus in front of Miku’s younger brother. Every time when I thought that things couldn’t get any worse, they went even further. The punchline was in true Mitsudomoe fashion completely wrong, but the funniest part of the entire thing. If the creators are indeed saving the best for last, I’m really looking forward to the next episode. Just don’t ask me why we’re already back at Christmas again when we just had that episode a month ago. That makes three Christmases in 20 episodes…

Anyway, the second part was all about the interplay between Miyashita and Hitoha. Especially Hitoha’s deadpan humour was wonderful, but Miyashita also had her moments near the end when she got overly excited. The same excitement got taken too far in the next too sketches, though. The third had the typical Mitsudomoe problem of making characters artificially stupid for the sake of a joke that doesn’t fall. It was mostly about a teacher who was standing in for Yabecchi (who was sick), her chemistry between Futaba and her lack of speech was just too forced. At the same time though, her worries about her age made up for it: those were quite funny.

After that we got a sweaty Mitsuba getting worked up over how hot it is. This was the weakest of this week’s episode, because it’s just Mitsuba overacting and screaming the entire time. That one-sidedness is not what makes Mitsudomoe funny. It’s instead the interplay between the different characters and their constantly changing emotions. This was just forced and went on for too long.

Finally, the show gets quite creative when everyone ends up playing human curling while cleaning the pool. Okay. I have to give points for the idea there. It perhaps wasn’t the funniest skit, but the punchline still was a great one.

On a side-note, I’ve looked into the mysterious ninth episode for this series. It looks like it’s just going to be a compilation episode, so I’m just going to review Mitsudomoe’s second season next week. Heck, one of the reasons I decided to blog this series was because of its short length, which would make blogging Supernatural a bit easier, so it would have been quite inconvenient if this series went on for a few more weeks…
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Level E – 06

by psgels, posted in Level E



Oh, this show is brilliant! This episode was again an awesome that continued the Color rangers story and turned into a full blown parody here. The characters though were the ones who made it awesome.

Two episodes in, and these characters are not only already developing, but this series is also really making use of it. The point in which they found themselves caught up in the traps that Ouji had set for them was just awesome, but also how Ouji forced them to say the names of the girls they liked was absolutely hilarious. I especially loved how thorough that password system was set for the blond-haired kid. and of course, the grin on Ouji’s face when he found those out was just priceless.

The irony is that Level E is a collection of short stories with no main plot, and yet it still blows every other show this season out of the water. This series however has made every second count, which is very rare for an anime. it’s consistently creative and tries out great and interesting ideas and the delivery also couldn’t be better. Especially the chemistry between just about all of the characters is just fantastic here.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka? – 06

by psgels, posted in Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka?



This episode… was something else. Talk about gore here, seriously. This episode was a really intense one thanks to that demented villain who didn’t care at all how much she wrecked her own body. Usually when anime use regenerative powers, it makes the action scenes rather dull, but this really is one exception because the creators still managed to make the gore look really painful.

After all of the build-up, it also was great to see Hellscythe finally use her words. Seriously, the last thing I’d expected this series to be was a good drama, but this show knows exactly how to create a tense atmosphere and use its characters for the best with it.

Now, this episode did introduce what will probably be the major villain of this show… who still needs a ton of work though. He’s quite generic at this point: really evil and brainwashes others to do evil stuff for him. His back-story of being related to Hellscythe could promise to be interesting, but if his character isn’t interesting then that backstory also isn’t worth much.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Mitsudomoe Zouryouchuu! – 06

by psgels, posted in Mitsudomoe



This episode breezed through three entire months as we visit the new year, valentine’s day and april fool’s. It neither was the best nor the worst of this second season, but again it had some sketches that were really funny. My favourite was the april fool’s one, with its excellent punchline (seriously I’ve had nearly the same trick pulled to me when I was a kid, only it wasn’t on April Fool’s).

The worst was the valentine’s sketch, though. It’s the umpth one about the triplet’s father invading the school and being mistaken for a pervert. It’s good that the creators didn’t drag it on for too long though, like make an entire valentine’s episode out of it. That probably would have been really boring. The new year’s sketch meanwhile returned to the toilet jokes, but it had some really good ones.

Beyond that, this episode also took Satou’s three stalkers to a completely new level of creepiness. It was by far the most disgusting part of the episode when Mitsuba started throwing those snowballs. This is just one of those sketches that’s wrong on so many levels, but at the same time really well delivered so that it becomes hilarious, unlike for example the urine jokes of the first season that were just weird and forced.

The parents meeting meanwhile could have been good, but that one felt a bit forced to me. It seemed just like “let’s show off some crazy personalities that the parents of the different children have”. It would have been appropriate for early on in the series… but there are only two episodes left.
Rating: * (Good)

Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka? – 05

by psgels, posted in Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka?



As for choosing which Studio Deen series to blog this season, last week sealed the deal for me. What does Dragon Crisis do? A beach episode. What does Zombie do? GIANT FLYIONG WHALE! It’s really a shame for Dragon Crisis: it does have a pretty good execution. It’s just that the story is way too cliched.

Now, I am a fan of Studio Deen: whenever they’re good, they’re really good and whenever they’re imaginative, they’re really imaginative. Obviously that part of them is nowhere to be found in this season, but Zombie is still pretty good. I originally didn’t want to blog it because I’m already blogging two other comedies this season, but episode four showed that this show also delivers in the drama department.

Having said that though, this fifth episode was a step down, partially due to the ridiculous amounts of fanservice in it. The saving grace there was that at least the fanservice was diverse: it was not the same scenario repeated over and over like what most harems do, but the creators like to keep it at least a notch creative.

In the same way, the story is pretty cliched and this episode showed that this show also isn’t the best at combat between human-like creatures (the whale battle last episode was very good, though), but it’s the details here that are surprisingly creative, and the dialogue is surprisingly witty at times. Ayumu is quite likable with his nonchalance. For now, that’s enough to keep me interested, though this show WILL get very annoying if the rest of the episodes are going to be like this one.

In the same way, the drama was decent, but it in its turn did turn Haruna in a typical tsundere. Yes, this show is inconsistent, and I hope that the second half will make good use of this. There are only 12 episodes, after all.
Rating: (Enjoyable)

Level E – 05

by psgels, posted in Level E



After the end of the previous episode, I already had a suspicion that this episode would focus on Ouji’s plans to create the earth rangers. That indeed turned out to be true, but I didn’t expect him to kidnap a group of innocent children to do it. Seriously, this episode was just nothing but a grown man grabbing a bunch of random kids and playing a ridiculously unfair game with them. And it was hilarious.

It’s perhaps not as good as the previous episodes, but even then I absolutely loved this episode. It again takes a group of random guys, this time in middle school, and this time it’s non fiction. Again, their designs were nicely unconventional for anime, and really feel like Ouji picked the nearest five kids that he could find. The way in which they tried to deal with the fact that they had been turned into power rangers (without any actual powers besides a bunch of illegal ones) in a great little parody of the super sentai genre.

This episode subverted a ton of these tropes, like how most kids who get these powers really aren’t going to play along, and how for some the powers may just rise to their heaDS. Or the way in which they couldn’t use most of their weapons because they were grossly illegal.

I also liked that twist with the teacher, and how she as an alien immediately noticed that something was up, and also how she laughed when she found out that Ouji was behind everything. I’m not sure whether this was a one shot episode or whether it’s going to continue next week. That would be interesting, if only to see a bunch of kids beat up Kraft.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Mitsudomoe Zouryouchuu! – 05

by psgels, posted in Mitsudomoe



Not the best we’ve seen from this sequel, but still really funny. There were some jokes that were of the milked out category, but there also were enough new and hilarious ones.

To start with the positives: this episode finally made Satou’s three stalkers into three individual characters. Satou meanwhile also kept himself out of awkward situations and instead works much better as a straight man type of character. Usually the creators seem to try too hard with his character, but this episode avoided that. Oh, and to my delight the female teacher also finally proved to be more than the dumbest woman on earth, when she ended up teasing the girls and their attempts to screw their own measurements.

Now, as for the bad stuff… the lesbian jokes were kindof out there. Generally this show is at its worst either whenever it’s milking the misunderstanding jokes (although that quick dog poo joke in this episode was dumb, yet strangely hilarious) or when it’s artificially making its characters dumber than they usually are. I mean, a lot of this episode was about the usual nonsense talk between kids of their age, but the point Miku started eating the cookies of that occult girl’s face was just… weird. The same goes with that scene of Miku’s mother, sneaking into the classroom, but that one was saved by the way in which she smacked Mitsuba’s face on the table when she got caught.

In a way, Mitsudomoe is also a lot more nostalgic than I’d want to admit. Sure, it’s very exaggerated and all, but at that age I too was just discovering toilet humour,and started caring about what my classmates thought of me. This is also why I appreciate how the second season has gotten more down to earth compared to the first that just tried too hard. I’m not fond of admitting it at all but some of the scenarios and lines in this showw are surprisingly easy to relate to…
Rating: * (Good)