Anime Column] 100 Anime to Watch by Keyword! 100 Anime to Watch: Vol. 25 "POPTEPIC" and more!

Drinking parties among anime fans tend to be a game of association. When someone says, "XXX has XXX scene," someone else replies, "Speaking of XXX scene, don't forget XXX. Anime and animation are connected by invisible threads like this. Let's follow the "anime to watch" using keywords as clues.

There is a debate about whether "POPTEPIC" is funny or not. In the case of gag works, there is a fine line between "funny" and "trying to be funny with a shitty intention," so the "funny/not funny" argument is two sides of the same coin, in other words, it is not very meaningful. Conversely, "POPTEPIC" was successful enough as a gag work when it brought about such a discussion.

POPTEPIC" is an anime adaptation of Bukubu Okawa's four-frame manga of the same name. It is difficult to explain the original work in a few words, but it is an absurd four-frame comic with a lot of parody elements, featuring POPUKO and PIPIMI. The anime adaptation of the original work was a completely unorthodox adaptation, as a result of taking over the original's attitude toward the material with an increased level of power.

For example, the cast announced prior to the broadcast had Mikako Komatsu playing Popuko and Sumire Uesaka playing Pipimi. However, in Part A of the first episode, Masashi Ehara played Popuko and Yoshitada Otsuka played Pipimi (this is an adaptation of the original story). In the B part, Yuji Mitsuya and Noriko Hidaka were the "touch" duo. In the second episode, Aoi Yuki and Ayana Taketatsu and Toshio Furukawa and Shigeru Chiba play Pipiko and Pipimi.

The cast changes only as an example of the story. The anime "POPTEPIC" uses the rules of TV animation in such a way as to create a variety of gags. The sheer number of gags and the sense of getting away with it are truly impressive.

Therefore, this time, I have selected "Chocolate Panic" as a gag anime that "subculture shit women" who often use "POPTEPIC" as a joke in their works would like.

Chocolate Panic" is a surreal gag manga by Kamui Fujiwara, a manga artist representing the New Wave. Reading it again now, the three main characters are dark-skinned aborigines with names like Mambo, Chombo, and Chimbo, which do not seem to fit the current era (the names of the three characters seem to have been changed in the current book), but in the 1980s, this work was sold in a book with a very stylish binding resembling chocolate. The release of the OVA was in '80s.

The OVA was released in 1985. It was an image video created in the style of a promotional video for the music group "Open Sesame," featuring the three characters, and the original creator was quite committed to the production of the video. Rather than being funny, the video is memorable for its swing toward a more fashionable direction while retaining a sense of absurdity.

It is a nostalgic story that when "Kirik and the Witch" was released, TSU●YA in Shibuya casually displayed a VHS video of this film as a related work in the special feature section, and I wanted to say "Oi oi oi" to them.

The second was "It's going to be OK!" by Hisashi Eguchi. This is a story of how Hisashi Eguchi wrote "It's going to be all right! This is an anime adaptation of a gag manga that Hisashi Eguchi serialized in ASUKA Monthly from 1986, also released as an OVA in 1990.

Episodes from the original manga, such as "Uncle Jamila's Nightmare," in which Uncle Jamila, who wears a sweatshirt like Jamila, appears in a girl's dream and makes puns, have been adapted to anime by Rintaro, Kanemori Yoshinori, Moriyama Yuji, and others.

The "manga with chapters" stories featuring beautiful girls are live-action, while the "compressed" stories with monsters use special effects-like Muppets, and a variety of other methods of expression are used in addition to animation.

Both "Chocolate Panic" and "Somehow it Works! have not been released on DVD to date, making them difficult to watch.

And finally, "OH! Super Milk Chan. This film is about a mysterious young girl, Milk Chan, who is ordered by the president to take on various cases. In addition to the graphically stylish screen production, there are many parodies and black gags with celebrity references. In that sense, it is one work that seems to have the greatest affinity with the audience of "Poppetepic." ...... "Nah, nah, nah!" "Nantsutte na!

So, with a total of 25 articles covering a total of 100 anime to watch, this will be the last article in this series, as planned. Enjoy your anime life from now on!

(Text by Ryota Fujitsu)

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