Ranked #572

Mitsudomoe Zouryouchuu!

According to the principles of classical conditioning by Ivan Pavlov, animals can be conditioned to respond to neutral stimuli in unconventional ways by means of pairing two unrelated stimuli. For example, if food is brought to a dog causing it to salivate every time a bell is rang, the dog will begin to associate the food with the bell and begin to salivate at the sound of the bell, even without the presence of food. Likewise, if one happens to laugh his or her ass off after watching an episode of the first season of Mitsudomoe, he or she will begin to associate great humor with the catchy, kiddy opening theme of this anime. Thus every time the catchy, kiddy opening of Mitsudomoe Zouryouchuu starts playing my face broadens into a wide, wide grin; I preemptively humor myself in anticipation.

And all you watching Mitsudomoe should do so too, whether consciously or not, because Mitsudomoe is still funny.

Mitsudomoe is a gag comedy. The basic premise is the same as last seasons: the insane crazy life of the three Marui triplets: Mitsuba, Futaba, and Hitoha. The jokes consist mainly of slapstick comedy and raunchy toilet humor (although the animators drew the line one step before Gintama and don't actually show anything.) Like the first season, there is no over arching plot or epic quest: you don't expect such things in a comedy like this. What's taken advantage of is the character development done in the first season. We have a general sense of who the characters are, what are their quirks, and what makes them tick. What's done quite well in this second season is the mixing and churning of these old characters in order to create novel situations and thus novel humor; no joke is overused or stale in this show. That doesn't mean that the writers have abandoned character development as a source of humor. It's present, albeit in amounts appropriate for a gag comedy.

Each episode essentially contains three or four little "short stories," each of which is independent to one another. I also noticed that they have aired these short segments out of chronological order i.e. they air the class swimming in the pool before they air the segment showing the class cleaning the pool. Also some of the events are split into two different segments, i.e. the Christmas story, which was split in two. However this uneven airing of episodes does not cause continuity issues due to the lack of actual plot.

I did have qualms with the first episode. Instead of an actual episode featuring the Marui triplets, we got basically a full episode of the Gacchi Rangers and their apparently screwed up antics. Although I didn't mind this kind of development, it seems a bit wasteful for an adaptation that lasts only eight episodes.

The art is clean and consistent. The backgrounds are fairly detailed and the color palette fairly vivid. The one thing that may bother people is how childish everybody looks. The Marui triplets look like third graders to the untrained eye when in fact they are supposed to be sixth graders. This my be due to the stylistic decision to give all the characters especially round cheeks and squat faces reminiscent of a fat baby. This design is applied to almost all the characters and in the end is just the style of the art.

For comedies such as these, the voice actors have the especially important role of not only giving the characters life, but giving the jokes that they make impact. And in order to do so, the voice actors often have to make their screams and expressions loud and exaggerated. The seiyu playing Mitsuba, Takagaki Ayahi does a particularly fine job of screaming “DIE!!” at the top of her longs in a squeaky voice.

The Opening theme and the Ending theme are well suited for this anime. As stated before, the opening theme suits the mood and the style of this anime well. A catchy, kiddy song sung by the Marui triplets heralding the screwy antics yet to come. The ending theme is better than last seasons. It is certainly pleasant to the ears. It sounds like it's being such by someone with a voice similar to Rie Kugimiya's voice, which I have no problems with.

The enjoyment level is certainly up to par with the first season of Mitsudomoe. I highly recommend those of you who haven't seen the first season to check it out first before indulging in the second.

My only other qualm with this series is the length; eight episodes is certainly not enough Marui antics for me. Here's to a third season hopefully.

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Story [8/10]
Mitsudomoe is a typical slice of life comedy that doesn’t really have a story. The show follows the daily life of the Marui triplets, that’s it. Every episode is divided into 3-4 humorous skits. There isn’t much to write about the story, as there isn’t much going on. There are no development, nor is it really needed. Even though there are no story, it doesn’t mean that the show is bad. In fact It’s quite the opposite as the show is one of the most entertaining ever! The skits are great and the humor will give you cramps from laughing too hard.

Art/animation [10/10]
The animation is excellent. The style fits the series very well.

Music/soundtrack [9/10]
The new opening is very similar to the one in the first season. Those who liked the prequel’s opening will not be too disappointed. The soundtrack is overall nothing special but it fits perfect. Like in the first season the characters still have their own characteristic sounds. These sound effects are probably some of the funniest ever.

Characters [10/10]
The characters are all brilliantly designed. Every character have at least two or three character traits that make them unique. Not only do you get to know just the Marui triplets, but also their whole school class. All of the classmates are as equally unique as the other. Most of the characters have stayed the way they were in the first season, but for some reason, Mitsuba’s role in the show was slightly changed. In the first season she was more of a sadistic character. In the second season she plays the “chubby” character. There was some of this in the first season too, but now they focus more on this. Her character gets more original with these new changes and it opens for new, unused or not often used jokes and puns. In a way I liked the changes, as there are too many S-characters in anime lately.

Enjoyment [10/10]
Although there isn’t anything special about the it, the show still manage to be one of the most entertaining I know of. I guess that if you’re reading this you probably have watched the first season and are wondering if the second is worth watching? Why else would someone read a review of a sequel? Well, the answer is simple; YES! If you liked the first season, you can continue watching the second season without being disappointed.

Some final notes:
Well, there is one thing that could have been different: the first episode. The first episode is a Gachi ranger episode (Hitoha’s favorite show). Although it was a great episode, I wish we could see more of the triplets.
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