Place to Place #07 — Playing House

May 17th, 2012

 

Great. The kids have meat fever.

Impressions:

I’m sure I’ve said it before… many times… but the show’s at its best when it’s really going full tilt with the physical humor. And by the inverse, it’s at its most boring when the characters are just sitting around aimlessly talking. The first half of the episode was just that. Sitting around on a train. The most exciting and interesting thing was Tsumiki accidentally getting left behind so Io jumped out the window so she wouldn’t have to be alone. Even the ‘jokes’ were so dull that it was easy to miss the usual four-panel format that the show drags around like its personal 10 ton handicap. Once they actually got to the river and were messing around/being cutesy, it was a little better, but that was just a couple minutes of an otherwise fairly poor first half.

In a rare double whammy, the second half continued directly on from the first instead of being mostly completely unrelated. Unfortunately, it was fairly similarly dull. The fireworks at least added explosives to the show for a few minutes and Tsumiki’s hair-purring was okay, although does call into question what exactly Io does in his spare time to make him that facile with handling that much hair. I’m guessing alpaca groomer. Most of it was pretty boring too though. The show’s a lot more fun when it indulges in its energy and physical humor, and the episode just didn’t have much of that. Use the visual style to its best effect. Stop squandering your assets, dammit.

Preview:

Swarms of things.

Posted in Place² | 2 Comments »

2 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • NightShadow2239 says:
    May 18, 2012 at 1:45 am

    Parasitic headcrabs. ^

  • Jack says:
    May 20, 2012 at 5:38 pm

    I like this show.

    I love how cute it is (I’m a sucker for catgirls), but it REALLY does suffer from a pacing problem. Maybe, as you’ve pointed out, it is being dragged down by its four panel roots. And I also agree that this show works the best when they’re going full tilt such as that game of kick-the-can.

    Either way, the script pacing or editing is killing the potential comedy here. Good comedy is all about timing and that doesn’t change when it’s visual. That’s why you need a good editor.

    This episode is a bit better than Ep. 6. It needs to be snappier, though. They could easily take 15-25 frames out of each gag and the show would flow better.