Asobi Asobase: Workshop of Fun

At first, I thought this anime will be your typical girl show with no comedic element whatsover. Why did I expected that? The opening. Openings are always the one that summarizes the plot or the composition of the story of an anime. And I was definetely wrong. I actually asked myself "Am I watching this on YouTube right now?" because I got clickbaited really hard.... and I love it. Comedy anime will always be there this season. It is a rule already on the anime industry that at least 1 comedy show will be a talk on the anime community. One of them this seasonis "Asobi Asobase". Story The plot is not really chronological as each episode is divided by "content" or "parts". This is no issue for comedy shows for the past years as long as it makes the audience laugh out loud. The plot revolves on three stupid but laughable girls named Honda, Hanako (the unbelievably smartest one in academics but idiotic as hell), Olivia (that girl who looks like she mastered English through genetics but mastered Japanese instead), and Nomura Kasumi (The girl that has glasses... and... the one that has the serious face. sometimes). We watch this girl meet each other with misunderstood expectations, thus making the "Pastimers Club" where they engage each other with games... to pass time... (nice logic)... In the Pastimers Club room, we always see them sitting together, thinking of absurd activities to do from playing in an inflatable pool to playing a penalty-ridden game of sugoroku. Of course on every clubs there are chances other clubs will come by and have some absurdity (well in anime only...i bet) to one another. The Occult Club for example with Oka (the girl with the weird eyes and witch hat) had visited the Pastimers Club for some instance, as well as fights for the club room like the Shogi Club. Not to mention the involvement of supporting characters like the Student Council President, Maeda, Chisato Higuchi (club advisor), Olivia's weeb bro, Tsugumi Aozora and many more becomes part of the story's hilarity and madness with each contributing their characteristics to the story making it funny. Characters: The people/characters of an anime will always contribute to the plot's aim either to make us excited, laugh, thrill or horrify. Asobi Asobase have a wide range of well-done characters, each contributing to the show's aim... which is to be comedic. We have the three main girls of the series. Honda, Hanako, who is the genius as well as the idiot of the group who hates popular girls and such. Oliva, the blonde-hair girl who you think will be part of the cool kids/popular kids group but it turns out she is faking her accent and english and she's just your typical japanese girl. Nomura Kasumi, the only girl in the group that has glasses and probably the most dangerous one as her face gets serious, you are done. But on the other side she writes BL/yaoi novels making this her primary embarassment. These three makes the show very enjoyable. Let us not forget the supporting characters as well. The two teachers, the club advisor and the male teacher have both made some scenes funny. Tsugumi Aozora, whose gender still unknown picked curiosity to the Pastimers and so on some episodes, she was the focus. The Occult Club member Oka having a thrilling and mysterious atmosphere makes the vibe even stronger. Olivia's otaku bro who we thought that will be a handsome looking guy but it turns out it is your typical fat weebo (except his damn eyes were a beauty) and let us not forget Maeda. Maeda the best butler at the service of Honda Hanako that have anal issues. Sound: Ahhh the sound.. The Opening song's soothing, cheerful and playful music "really" introduces us what are we going to expect on the series. Actually, no it doesn't. I love how they made us think that this will just be your typical high-school girl anime because of the opening song but then we stumble to realize how clueless we are as we watch and then we hear the Ending song, instead of having those angel-like voices, it was replaced by demons now and I love it. Art: When I first look upon the visuals (like when I saw the first episode with the opening), I thought "Oh no.. The art is... not that good i guess?." but as I progress through the episodes, I didn't think of the visuals at all anymore. In fact, the visuals are okay on normal scenes but when the "shock" or "anger" scenes come, we can see how the art changed drastically going higher levels. Not to mention the Opening's heavenly-like visuals was damn false as we go through the episode and then we get a pitch black ED with some line drawings of the three girls. Visuals matches the anime perfectly along with the sound. Overall thoughts and Enjoyment: I can't describe how much I enjoyed this series. There is no episode that wil make me giggle or make me laugh so hard. Overall, this anime is highly recommended for those who love the comedy genre like I do. And this is the type of anime that when you have a bad day, you can watch this and just laugh your heart out.

If I told you Summer 2018 was lacking in comedy shows, then that statement itself would sound like a joke. There were several ones including an anime that dealt with gender bender idols, a show that made every journey to school look like a misadventure, and even one with a demon girl dealing violent dropkicks. It wasn’t easy to stand out as much when it comes to comedy. Yet somehow, some way, we have Asobi Asobase that came along like a God-sent gift. Diving myself into this series felt like entering a world of absolute absurdity. Asobi Asobase is like a deconstruction of the ‘cute girlsdoing cute things’ at its finest. And I say this as someone who really enjoy slice of life anime. There’s no complex storytelling and a show like Asobi Asobase knew what it was doing from the very start. Right off the bat, we are introduced to the trio of main cast – Hanako Honda, Olivia, and Kasumi Nomura. They make up the heart and soul of this show as every episode deals with their daily live adventures. Together, they are the Pastimers Club. As the most energetic girl of the group, Hanako often gets her classmates into playing games at school. These games often ends up being formulated with outrageous rules and ideas. Her classmate Olivia pretends to be an American with broken Japanese in order to fit with the crowd. Finally, Kasumi is the studious girl in the show with a dislike of playing games. With such an oddball cast, you’d wonder how this show can connect with the audience. Well, stop. Don’t think hard about this show because if you do, then there won’t be enjoyment coming from it. Asobi Asobase’s key to selling itself is the absurd humor. Nothing will probably ever make sense in the end and it doesn’t need to be. The games that these girls participate in often have high stakes too such as the loser being having to lick armpits. While this sets up for anticipating who the victor or loser will be, the sheer thrill of getting to the outcome always end up in an outrageously humorous manner. The main trio does indeed carry most of the show but some of the supporting cast also gets their own moments of fame. Characters like Chisato Higuchi makes a fool of herself despite being a teacher. Oka adds her own taste to occult games to bring out this show’s black comedy. Characters like Tsugumi Azora become a source of feminine jokes because of her appearance. On the contrary, the show also loves to make fun of masculinity with characters like Takayanagi. If you don’t believe me, just look at her face and tell me if she is manly or not. We even have a butler in the show by the name of Maeda who would do anything for Hanako. As you may guess, it leads to hilarious moments like when he shoots beams from his butt. There’s actually more on that list but the general idea is that Asobi Asobase doesn’t care about whether it makes sense or not. It cares about being entertaining. By the time you read up to here, the general consensus is probably just accept this for what it is or not. It’s an easy decision as the show isn’t hiding its intentions from the moment the girls appeared on screen. I’m not going to lie though, there are definitely some episodes that stands out more than others. However, each episode contains multiple segments where at least one stands out more than the rest. In some cases, you may end up liking them all equally or hate them altogether. There’s also so many jokes in this show that ranges from many categories to the point where you may think everything may be a parody. Believe it or not, it’s more about making its viewers laugh rather than looking for attention. What also did catch my attention is the character expressions. Watching Asobi Asobase is like the show literally challenging you to laugh at how characters react. The way characters show their expressions is often exaggerated at very chance it gets. It never takes a step back to showcase how mean the characters can be. Add to their hyperactive personalities and you get absurd humor. As such, praise should definitely be given to studio Lerche for drawing that out. The artwork is also mostly soft with palette coloring. Yet, it’s never hard to take eyes off the Pastimer Club as they stand out above all else that’s going on in every scene. Character designs in the show is delicate with the main cast as teenage girls. Others such as Oka and Takayanagi stand out with their own unique appearances. Quite frankly, character voicing in the show should also be given exception praise. Every dialogue in the show coming from the main characters sounds like a shtick. It’s almost if the characters are part of a stage performance. The theme songs are also performed by the main characters where every lyric can easily catch your attention. As gimmicky as everything sounds, I have no shadow of a doubt that the show knew what it was doing all along. Asobi Asobase takes the risk of bringing comedy to levels of being near incomprehensible. It’s much more about “cute girls doing cute things” to what you’re used to. However, be aware. This is definitely not an anime for everyone. If this style of anime selling is not your cup of tea, then definitely turn your head and walk away. But if you’re here to stay, then it’s a showstopper that gives absurdity a new meaning.

One dimensional cardboard characters, plain bad looking art style and jokes that aren't funny in any way, there's the essence Asobi Asobase. The comedy is mostly build around either characters doing or saying something completely random and unexpected or character having a weird over the top facial expression. After seeing first 10 minutes I had already seen all this show had to offer. I still went and watched every episode trying to confirm there weren't any good jokes in the show, there were not. Confirming this wasted about 6 hours of my time though, so I guess joke's on me. A good situational comedy wouldhave build ups leading to a punchline, Asobi Asobase doesn't. Just constantly spewing bad memes one after another isn't what I could call funny or entertaining. Characters themselves are so simple and bad it would admittedly be hard to do anything more verbal that that with a cast like this. This show really gave me nothing, except an huge overload of obnoxiousness. Nichijou does everything this show tries to do on a whole another level.

Asobi Asobase represents why anime comedy is pretty damn special: because it can reach limitless possibility without betraying the sense of normalcy. What I'm trying to say is: Asobi Asobase is funny as hell. First of all, do not be fooled by the cover art/poster of the series. In fact, the Shoujo-ness of the poster simply represents the irony that is about to unveil: a story about girls being girls in rawest ways imaginable. It is not to say that what we're dealing with is an Ecchi or blue comedy in vein of Seitokai Yakuindomo or Ao-chan Can't Study. In Asobi Asobase, everything that is wrong aboutbeing fifteen is celebrated to a fault: ranging from having odd sense of style, the guilt and pleasure of being a fujoshi, the dillema of being vulnerable and menacing all at the same time, and (I kid you not) body odors (yes, teenage girls are actually prone to this issue more than the boys). Nowadays, it is rare to find anyone throw the coin "laugh-out-loud" or "LOL" with the exception of what we type on our LINE chat. With Asobe Asobase, though, in each and every episode, you will literally laugh out loud. The major flaw, admittedly, is the art that is sometimes niche, but other times it can feel a bit 'meh'. We laugh, and then we feel less alone. Being teenagers is uneasy and sometimes really gross but hey, sometimes we gotta laugh at ourselves. #felixlovesanime