天下制覇

 

I accidentally deleted the caps before uploading them so had to redo them and now I’m too annoyed to be witty.

Impressions:

Wow. I think Shinbo might have learned a little restraint. There were hardly any shots of people looking backward over their shoulder or close-ups of eyes. Still about 300% more of either than you’ll see in any other show, but that’s about 300% fewer than usual for him. Not that it keeps him from recycling sight gags from his other shows either. Perhaps he just has a checklist of things to do now. The problem is that I suspect that the visuals are being done solely because people expect it to him. The pacing is about half where it probably should be, so all the shots of people walking, or slowly turning around, etc are just trying to hide that there’s nothing actually happening. It can work when creating a supernatural or surreal atmosphere, but doesn’t fit nearly as well when the closest thing is a really really shrill flute in the background.

And if you’ll notice that I haven’t said “funny” or any variation of it in the first paragraph, gold star for you. The foul spectre of compromise hangs heavy over the episode, particularly the very start and second half which were a fairly pathetic attempt to try to be artsy and serious, and that’s even discounting that most of the ‘comedy’ consists of the two leads yelling at each other. It wants to be some kind of dramatic romance, yet spends much of its time being a loud comedy. There’s even a spontaneous rainstorm just so they can have a shout out about what’s important and it can be extra dramatic. The comedy was never even particularly strong to begin with. “That bitch!” and an exaggerated reaction is still not a joke, no matter how strangely you color the face.

As harsh as I’m sure this came off, I’d still put it a few levels above most of the other ‘comedies’ this season even though I don’t think I really ever cracked a smile. Perhaps the reason Shinbo hasn’t had to use all his cheap tricks is because he has at least some kind of budget. It’s at least using its visuals for something, just not very effectively and certainly not to serve the show itself. It really needs to pick up the pace and shout a lot less though. Considering its heritage from Shounen Jump, I give that about a 3% chance of happening, and most of that is just the chance that Shinbo will be off his meds for the rest of the show’s production.