Good afternoon! Since it’s so incredibly cold in the Twin Cities this weekend, I thought it would be a great time to sit down with a cup of hot tea and snuggle underneath a fuzzy blanket to write some first impressions of this Winter’s crop of anime. Look for several series-specific First Impression posts to appear over the next few days. I’ve gathered all of the short-form series I was interested in into this post here, sans She and Her Cat since it’s still MIA as of this writing (I’ll update this post if/when it becomes available).
I’ve been debating how to go about these impressions and how thorough they should be. For these short form series I think I’ll keep things brief, but still offer some pros and cons that will hopefully be informative enough for readers to decide whether the shows sound interesting or not. Let me know what you think!
Ojisan and Marshmallow
- Simulcast on Crunchyroll
- Number of Episodes: TBA
- Episode length – 3.5 minutes
- Episodes viewed – 1 and 2
Hige-san is a middle-aged worker at a “Web-Related Company.” Despite his stocky, gruff appearance, he’s actually got some cute habits, the most obvious of which is that he loves marshmallows. His younger female co-worker Wakabayashi-san knows this and uses it to her advantage – she has a huge crush on Hige-san and knows that marshmallows are the way to his heart. The issue is that she’s a bit too forthcoming in her marshmallow-related advances, making both Hige-san and anyone around the two of them uncomfortable. In episode 1, she attempts to steal a kiss from Hige-san by putting the last marshmallow in between her lips, and in episode 2 she implies adult activities while Hige-san calls to let their boss that they’re stuck in the rain. Will their mis-matched personalities ever meet to light the spark of romance?
On paper, this series sounded really cute. I’m always happy when anime series star adult characters, and candy and romance are things that usually lead to sweet ends. Unfortunately the first couple of episodes made me feel really uncomfortable. There’s a sort of unsettling train of thought that, if someone of lesser power in a traditional power relationship is doing the sexual-harrassing, then it’s supposed to be funny rather than disturbing. In this case, Hige-san is older and also a man, giving him some definite social advantages in the traditional-looking office setting he and Wakabayashi-san share. And it’s Wakabayashi-san who’s being really sexually forward with him. The problem is that it’s all completely inappropriate behavior for the environment they’re in and also their current relationship (as coworkers) and it’s decidedly not funny to me. What’s worse is that the other employees don’t really seem to care that she’s acting this way. I didn’t necessarily expect this to turn into a discussion of sexism in the Japanese workplace system, but seriously? This show gave me kind of a knot in my stomach just because it’s very casual with its employment of sexual harassment humor.
Pros: The series stars adult characters, which is a rarity in anime.
Cons: The humor seems to hinge on a lot of uncomfortable sexual situations and outright office sexual harrassment.
Please Tell Me! Galko-chan
- Simulcast on Crunchyroll
- Number of Episodes: TBA
- Episode Length: 7.5 minutes
- Episodes Viewed: 1 and 2
Galko, Otako, and Ojou are three friends with very different personalities. Galko is a “gal,” a popular, stylish girl who gets a bad rap for coming to class late. Otako is an otaku through-and-through. Ojou is a wealthy girl who can be lacking in life experience. The girls spend their days discussing some of the questions that many people would probably like to ask but might not be comfortable with, including periods (tampons versus pads), bathroom habits, pubic hair, breast size, and other stupid myths about the female body that the boys in class seem to pull out of thin air.
Just to get this out of the way, the subject matter in this show is pretty crass and focused on bodily functions and oddities of the human body. This is not subject matter that bothers me, really, but I think it might be off-putting to others (though if hearing about girls’ periods in even the most abstract sense squicks you out, you need to grow up). What I really liked about this show is that the characters themselves tend to defy expectations. Gals can be reviled because of the stereotype that they’re shallow, lazy, and sleep with a lot of guys. Galko (who was my favorite character of the three) is stylish and can be concerned with her looks, but she’s also smart, caring, interested in literature, and has her own hobbies. She also gets kind of embarrassed when it comes to romantic things, which is kind of a fun character trait. I don’t think it’s negative for a woman to want to have a broad range of sexual experiences, but the fact that Galko defies that expectation is kind of cute, too.
I don’t know if it’s a good thing or not, but I kind of like the portrayal of the guys in this show. What actually makes me kind of happy is that their ignorance of women and their complete unwillingness to interact on a normal-person level with the girls is met with an attitude of eye-rolling disdain, which I think is warranted. Anime would likely be a lot better in general if some more of the male leads got some of this kind of feedback (at least it would be in my fantasy world).
Pros: The discussions are really straightforward and I laughed quite a bit out of identification with the things that the girls were talking about. The guys are also called out for being willfully dumb towards girls.
Cons: This is not a clean, cute series about cute girls having a cute slice-of-life time. If you don’t like bathroom humor, best move on.
Sekkō Boys
- Simulcast on Crunchyroll
- Number of Episodes: TBA
- Episode Length: 7.5 minutes
- Episodes Viewed: 1 and 2
Art student Ishimoto Miki got so sick of drawing still lives of busts and statues throughout her high school and college career, that she vowed never to draw another statue again. Instead, she decided to enter show business and become a manager for stars and idols. Her first big break comes as a manager at Holbein Entertainment Inc. where’s she’s put in charge of a hot new boy idol group. This could be her dream job, if not for the fact that the group calls themselves the Sekkō Boys and they’re actually the busts of famous saints, gods, and famous people from history – Mars, Hermes, St. Giorgio, and Medici. The boys are heavy, hard to transport, and they get mistaken for props wherever they go. It’s only after acknowledgement by another famous female idol that they begin to feel better about themselves.
One positive consequence of the uptick in okay-to-mediocre male idol anime lately has been the appearance of male idol parody anime. Probably one of the most recently famous occurred in the now-censored first episode of Osomatsu-san last season, but this show continues somewhat in that vein by taking all the tropes of male idol and reverse-harem shows and applying them to completely ridiculous characters. Look at how “chiseled” their features are! They’ll never age-out of being idols! It’s a little like personifying countries in Hetalia, only in this case you don’t have to consider the truly icky implications of making moé-moé jokes about WWII (people do feel bad about that stuff, right?). Anyway, as someone who’s pretty fed up with the real-life screwed-up Japanese idol culture and how it gets romanticized in anime and other media, this is a great deal of fun.
Pros: The choice of characters really proves that Japan has jumped the shark on idol anime – in the good way. The characters are also voiced by famous male Seiyuu, so if you’re into that fandom it’s a nice bonus.
Cons: I question how many new and humorous situations the boys can get themselves into; it seems like gags about their weight and composition will run out of steam pretty quickly.
Yamishibai Season 3
- Simulcast on Crunchyroll
- Number of Episodes: TBA but probably 13
- Episode Length: 5 minutes
- Episodes Viewed: 1
On his way home, a young man notices a public bath house that he’s not seen before. Since it’s hot and he’s sweaty, he decides to stop in and freshen up. The bath is run by an old woman who looks ancient, and there’s not another customer in sight. As he’s washing his hair, he hears a voice from the women’s bath on the other side of the barrier. “Could I borrow a bar of soap?” she asks, and he tosses her his soap. “Could I borrow a bucket?” she asks later on, and he warily gives her the one he was using. “Could I borrow a razor?” but he doesn’t have one. She becomes frantic and speaks as if possessed before finally revealing herself and stealing the young man away.
Yamishibai has always been kind of a mixed bag. A lot of the short stories are really goofy and tend to steer away from cultivating any true sense of horror. But when the show is on its game, it tends to be pretty good. This episode was enjoyable and I think it’s because it fit really well in to the formula of “three;” it upped the dread with each repetition of “could I borrow…?” by making each request less and less logical. The sense of being alone in what would normally be a bustling public place is also one of my personal fears – I have had nightmares where I was with friends, and then turned around to find the environment gone dark and no one around me (I blame the opening scenes of Silent Hill 3 for that). It’s still not as terrifying as that episode with the hair inside the copy machine from season 1, but that one will be difficult to top.
Pros: The episode stayed away from corniness and did a good job of cultivating a sense of impending dread.
Cons: The show overall has been a mixed bag and I expect not every episode will be as good as this one.