Tag: Comedy

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Halloween Seasonal Special Features

It’s Spooky Season! – Day 19: Golden Kamuy Episode 11 “Everybody, Get Together! It’s a Murder Hotel!”

I’m sure this goes for most fans of any type of media, but it’s a fact that there are certain anime series that I really enjoy that I have a difficult time recommending to anyone. In some cases, it’s because the material they cover is so extreme that to adequately warn for all the content would rightfully drive away most folks (I’m looking at you, Made in Abyss). In other cases, it’s more that the tone is so specific that it’s often tough to get a read on whether or not someone else might actually enjoy them.

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Halloween Seasonal Special Features

It’s Spooky Season! – Day 18: Level-E Episode 4 “From the Darkness”

While Halloween is typically thought of as a holiday revolving around spooky and scary things, I find that I have a lot more fun when there’s some spooky humor involved. Fear and laughter are often closely intertwined – how often have we experienced a jump-scare that leaves us laughing in the aftermath? It’s been a trend in my neighborhood this year for families to create funny scenes using the plastic skeletons that you can find for sale in the lead-up to Halloween. Some of my favorites have been a skeleton walking a skeleton dog on a leash, and a skeleton hanging off of a second floor balcony after falling off the roof during some roofing work (apparently). It takes a symbol of death and decay and makes it funny and fun!

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Favorites Special Features

Five Anime to Watch if You’re Short on Time – Round 1

I used to think that I was too busy, and then I went and had a kid. Now I truly know the meaning of not having the time I want to indulge in my various extracurriculars (right now my spouse is out with the baby so I can have some time to myself, and I still spent the first hour of this precious time taking care of house chores instead of settling down to write – I have problems). Along those same lines, the thought of trying to keep up with several seasonal anime series like I’ve done in the past is truly laughable, and I haven’t been current with very many anime series over the last several seasons at least. I’m sure some of you out there reading can share in my frustration.

Luckily, there’s good anime out there for people in our situation. While I definitely won’t be digging into anything of the magnitude of One Piece any time soon (or ever), I know of plenty of bite-sized anime treats to enjoy while carving out some precious free time in between other obligations. I’ll be sharing some of my favorites over several upcoming posts, to hopefully provide something of a lifeline for others just looking for a quick fix rather than something that would take half a lifetime to watch.

Please note: while I encourage folks to seek out official sources for these titles (I’ll be listing availability as appropriate) not everything may have an official US release. Unfortunately, this is simply the nature of being a long-time anime fan who’s watched various series become more and less available over time.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2022 First Impressions – The Maid I Hired Recently Is Mysterious

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 11

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: After Yuuri’s parents pass away tragically in an accident, he decides to let the servants at his small mansion go to help preserve some of his inheritance. Unfortunately, for a kid with very little experience cooking and cleaning, living life entirely on his own has a steep learning curve. It’s at his moment of greatest need that Lilith, a maid, shows up on Yuuri’s doorstep and offers to work for him in exchange for nothing more than room and board. Though Yuuri finds this suspicious, the alternative isn’t appealing.

Almost immediately, Yuuri finds Lilith’s behavior questionable. She teases him with a familiarity that seems counter to the fact that they barely know one-another. Yuuri often finds her up late at night reading books or cooking up concoctions in the kitchen. He’s sure that she must be some kind of sorceress out to get him. It’s true that her motives run deeper than they may seem to at first, but despite her seemingly playful nature, Lilith wants to wait for the right time to let the young master know more about herself.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2022 First Impressions – Uncle From Another World

Streaming: Netflix

Episodes: 13

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Seventeen years ago, Takafumi’s uncle was hit by truck-kun, and while his earthly body seemed to be in a coma in the hospital, his mind was far, far away having adventures in another world. When his uncle finally wakes up, Takafumi assumes that the weird language he’s speaking is just the ramblings of a crazy person, but once his uncle demonstrates some honest-to-goodness magical ability, Takafumi begins to understand the potential for profit he may have just stumbled into.

While their YouTube career starts as a bit of a slow burn, Takafumi learns more about his uncle’s experiences while his uncle wrestles with catching up with seventeen years’ worth of technological advances and changes in the video game console landscape. While his uncle has always seemingly had issues dealing with real human relationships (his fondest memories are of video games), Takafumi learns that his uncle may have inadvertently become closer to a young woman in the other world than he may have realized at the time. As Takafumi and his uncle try to work out a way of sustaining themselves and their meager lifestyle, could his uncle’s “interesting” past come back to haunt him?

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2022 First Impressions – When Will Ayumu Make His Move?

Streaming: HIDIVE

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Urushi is the leader of her school’s shogi club, but unfortunately it’s not quite a club since there are only two members – herself and Ayumu. Both of them love playing shogi together, but it’s obvious that their matches contain a significant amount of emotional subtext. Love may be in the air, although neither of them is confident enough to come right out and acknowledge it.

Ayumu is a master troll, constantly complimenting Urushi in ways that can only be construed as distinctly romantic. Urushi is more than happy to call him out, although when she does he never acknowledges his motivations as anything other than pure respect for his senpai. The two even find themselves sharing an umbrella on the way home from school one afternoon – are they really being truthful with one-another and themselves?

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2022 First Impressions – Chimimo

Streaming: HIDIVE

Episodes: 12

Source: Original

Episode Summary: Mutsumi, Hazuki, and Mei are three sisters that share a charming suburban home. One day while Mei is reading, she notices a strange white blob-like creature dive into a cabinet. The sisters extract the creature from its hiding place, only to find that they have no idea what it is (other than cute). They assume they have an abandoned animal on their hands, so they wait for the owner to come knocking on their door.

In the meantime, the creature seems to be multiplying, or at the very least inviting its friends to come hang out. Soon the sisters are dealing with more than a dozen little horned marshmallows, each with its own personality. Eventually Jabberwock the 8th, a messenger from Hell, comes calling after his minions, though as the oldest sister Mutsumi is more than capable of getting him to hit the road. But as a demon sent to Earth to scope out new territory on behalf of Hell, Jabberwock has it kind of hard and the sisters take pity on him, inviting him to live with them until he can get on his feet.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2022 First Impressions – The Yakuza’s Guide to Babysitting

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Kirishima is a Yakuza who’s generally known as a pretty bad dude – his way of solving most problems for his organization typically involves beating the living daylights out of people. Dealing with children seems like an unnatural fit for such a demonic man, so when his boss initially assigns Kirishima to act as a guardian for his young daughter Yaeka, he initially believes that assignment to be a joke. Unfortunately for Kirishima, it’s a serious as a heart attack.

Babysitting doesn’t suit Kirishima, but to his credit he tries his best. When Yaeka starts to withdraw, Yaeka’s aunt Kanami helps him figure out what’s bothering her. When he shows up to her elementary school’s open house, Yaeka is surprised and bashful, but it seems to do the trick – it allows her to work up the bravery to give her dad the art project she made just for him.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2022 First Impressions – Teppen!! Laughing ’til You Cry

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: TBA

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: After winning a regional manzai comedy competition, the manzai trio Young WaiWai is asked to move into a dorm specifically for national manzai competitors. There, they join other regional groups, each with their own aesthetics and schtick – some are wealthy, others pretend(?) to believe in aliens. Here, they all practice their routines in order to prepare for competition – and to make their audiences laugh.

Young WaiWai turns a semi-autobiographical occurrence into a routine, describing a very unusual case of a broken bodybuilding trophy and the location of its missing head. While they try to hide the situation from the owner of the dorm (the winner of the trophy who’s extremely proud of it), they walk back through a series of truly silly events to discover the true culprit.

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First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2022 First Impressions – Engage Kiss

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 13

Source: Original

Episode Summary: Baylon City is ground zero for the mining of the mineral orgonium. Of course, as with the extraction of most natural resources this one comes along with some unintended consequences, one of which is the release of demonic entities who cause destruction around the city. Shu Ogata is a former employee of a private military/security company experienced in dealing with these demons, but after setting out on his own his costs quickly got out of control and it’s become a struggle for him to simply keep the lights on. The only thing keeping him afloat at this point is his relationship with a girl named Kisara, who seems to be attracted to Shu in spite of his many flaws and helps to pay off his debts.

When Shu manages to snag a contract (by severely undercutting his competition), he has to call in some favors simply to prevent himself from getting immediately killed. But the biggest favor is one given to him willingly, because Kisara happens to have incredible power at her disposal. The only issue is that, in order to release that power, she and Shu have to “reinvigorate” their contract on a regular basis via the power of a passionate kiss.

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