{"id":808,"date":"2014-03-05T13:13:20","date_gmt":"2014-03-05T18:13:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/?p=808"},"modified":"2014-03-05T13:13:20","modified_gmt":"2014-03-05T18:13:20","slug":"d-fragments-and-the-perils-of-anime-comedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/d-fragments-and-the-perils-of-anime-comedy\/","title":{"rendered":"D-Fragments and the Perils of Anime Comedy"},"content":{"rendered":"

With each new anime season comes a wide array of comedies vying for attention: the romantic comedies, the parodies, the harems and reverse harems, the slices of life, and so on.\u00a0 Each mixes comedy with an additional element in order to create a (hopefully) stronger final product.\u00a0 From time to time, though, a series comes along with the audacity to bet everything on its sense of humor.\u00a0 Much like a poker player who goes all in, these shows tend to either succeed in incredible fashion or fail completely and slide into obscurity.<\/p>\n

Two shows attempting to walk this less-traveled path in the current season are D-Fragments<\/i> and Tonari no Seki-kun<\/i>.\u00a0 Both display common characteristics of their genre: rapid-fire jokes, characters with clearly defined comedic roles, and an eager willingness to ignore reality whenever necessary.\u00a0 While they have all the visual trappings of a high school rom-com, their settings merely act as a stage for the comedy routines carried out by the characters.\u00a0 Having chosen to live or die on the strength of their jokes, these shows must work harder than most to hold viewers\u2019 interest.\u00a0 In order to see whether or not they\u2019re successful, it\u2019s helpful to look at a recent example of what this genre looks like when it\u2019s done right.<\/p>\n

\"DFrag\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Tall images clash with the layout for these articles, but this was too adorable not to include.<\/em><\/p>\n

The golden standard I\u2019ll be holding our challengers up to is Nichijou<\/i>, translated as My Ordinary Life<\/i> for its English simulcast.\u00a0 The show ran back in the spring and summer of 2011, and I have yet to see another series outdo it in terms of pure comedy.\u00a0 A supremely talented animation team worked wonders with Nichijou<\/i>\u2019s visual gags, and the writing shifted smoothly back and forth between everyday observational humor and completely unchained lunacy.\u00a0 What really made Nichijou<\/i> work, however, was its complete dedication the art of comedy.<\/p>\n

Much like the way in which Space Dandy<\/i> acts as a delivery vehicle for self-contained sci-fi stories, Nichijou<\/i> existed to experiment with a wide variety of jokes.\u00a0 It had no problem whatsoever spending minutes establishing an entirely new setting and group of characters for the sole purpose of (literally) dropping a single sight gag onto its main cast.\u00a0 The joke itself wasn\u2019t especially funny, but it didn\u2019t need to be.\u00a0 The point was, I suspect, to secretly enlist the viewer as that segment\u2019s \u201cstraight man\u201d character.\u00a0 By inevitably shouting, \u201cYou spent a quarter of the episode setting up THAT joke!?\u201d at the screen, we unwittingly became part of the act.\u00a0 Nichijou<\/i> missed as often as it hit the mark, but it succeeded at having lasting appeal because it did legitimately original and interesting things with its humor.<\/p>\n

\"Nichijou\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Everyone who watched this show now has the theme song stuck in their heads. Bwa ha ha.<\/em><\/p>\n

So, what of the two Winter 2014 contenders?\u00a0 Neither is quite as bold in its execution as Nichijou<\/i>, but both have their strengths.\u00a0 Tonari no Seki-kun<\/i> has a standard formula that it adheres to in each episode, but it executes it well and benefits from a short running time.\u00a0 We know from the start that Seki will distract Rumi by doing something ridiculous during class, but it\u2019s worth 8 minutes a week to see what happens.\u00a0 Seki-kun<\/i> is hardly an ambitious show, and I doubt it could hold up as a half-hour program.\u00a0 Thankfully, it doesn\u2019t need to, and it succeeds as a result.<\/p>\n

\"Sekikun\"<\/a><\/p>\n

How does Seki get all his stuff into school in the first place? The world may never know.<\/em><\/p>\n

As a full TV series, D-Fragments<\/i> has a much higher hurdle to clear.\u00a0 It also scores very few points for originality, as many of its comedic elements have been used by other shows.\u00a0 Good-hearted tough guy butting heads with a group of quirky girls?\u00a0 Hello, School Rumble<\/i>.\u00a0 Ridiculous (and often harmless) juvenile delinquents?\u00a0 Hey there, Cromartie High School<\/i>.\u00a0 Constant jokes at the expense of a busty female character?\u00a0 Howdy, every harem series ever made.\u00a0 What saves D-Fragments<\/i> is the way it uses these old ingredients.\u00a0 We can predict what sort of joke the show is building up to at any given moment, but the writers know this and use it to surprise us with a slightly different punchline than what we\u2019re expecting.\u00a0 It\u2019s effective enough in the moment to provoke fairly regular laughter, although I doubt a second viewing would be as enjoyable.\u00a0 In the end, D-Fragments<\/i> is hoping you\u2019ll come for the jokes and stay for the occasionally sweet moments between the characters.\u00a0 It\u2019s essentially a romantic comedy disguised as a high-energy joke barrage.\u00a0 Certainly not an unqualified success as pure comedy, but an enjoyable show in its own right.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to build up a loyal fanbase when all you do is tell jokes, and I doubt Seki-kun<\/i> or D-Fragments<\/i> will move as much merchandise as comedy-drama hybrid shows like Nisekoi<\/i>.\u00a0 Still, whether or not you enjoy them, single-minded comedies are good for the anime industry as a whole.\u00a0 They\u2019re able to serve as a kind of proving ground for original humor, and the successful material can be adopted by other shows.\u00a0 Maybe someday they\u2019ll help us move on from the sigh-inducing \u201chapless guy falls headfirst into girl\u2019s bosom\u201d routine.\u00a0 Hey, a critic can hope.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Kawaii Overthink is written by Paul Jensen. You can follow his ramblings about anime on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>.<\/address>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With each new anime season comes a wide array of comedies vying for attention: the romantic comedies, the parodies, the harems and reverse harems, the slices of life, and so on.\u00a0 Each mixes comedy with an additional element in order to create a (hopefully) stronger final product.\u00a0 From time to time, though, a series comes [Read more…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=808"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":814,"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808\/revisions\/814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}