Ranked #2911

Kill Me Baby

The funny thing about comedy series is that they either "click" with you or they don't. Some series, like Nichijou, may take a few episodes, but Kill Me Baby is a lot more immediate (or shallow, if you will.) In fact, the best way to decide if you want to watch this series is to watch a sketch or two. That's all there is to an episode of Kill me Baby: a rapid succession of 4-koma gags, directly translated to the screen.

Yasuno and Sonya don't get much in terms of characterization. They are the traditional vapid air-head and irritable straight man from manzai comedy. Agiri is even more of a prop for additional jokes rather than a character proper. The art is minimalistic, ditto for the soundtrack. The OP is a weird polka that may take a few times to get used to, while the EP is a pretty catchy pop tune accompanied by nifty dance moves.

Speaking of sound, the voice actresses do a bang-up job. Yasuno's is a relatively newcomer, while Sonya's has more roles playing boys than girls, but they carry the show, making some jokes that could otherwise fall flat side-splitting funny. Agiri's voice is high and annoying, but I guess that's what they were aiming for. And it's a welcome surprise to see a Kugimiya character get the short stick (she's the redhead "unused character.")

Kill Me Baby uses a fraction of the budget that JC Staff allocates for its flagship projects, but it squeezes as many laughs per yen as humanly possible. The next time you feel you are not in the mood for elaborate battles, complex plots and philosophical exploration, give it a spin. read more

This is a comedy about a high school girl who is also a professional killer. From that premise one might except comedy that is a bit on the black side, but this time it's not even grey, perhaps closer to pink. All pointless introduction aside, Kill Me Baby is an anime adaption of a 4-koma format manga of the same name. I haven't read it past a couple of glances, but I know I shouldn't expect any plot. What I expected instead were ideas of interesting scenarios that would use the absurdity of an assassin attending high school for hilarious jokes.

Disregarding the subjective matter whether hilarious or not, most jokes don't have much relevance to the setting at all. Only when I hear the macabre duet of "kill me baby, baby please kill me" mid-episode, I remember professional killing is involved somewhere deep down inside. But hearing the voices plead to put an end to their existence sounds so wrong it always makes me wonder whether anyone over at the studios knows what those words mean in Japanese. That feeling pretty much sums up my experience with Kill Me Baby.

The characters are very one-dimensional, which is to be expected and is more of a strength than a fault in a 4-koma format comedy. Yasuna, the normal girl, is an annoying troublemaker in a good way. Her restlessness is good fuel for jokes and she does technically a good job at the role of boke. The assassin girl Sonya isn't very flexible. She is violent and she thinks everything quite seriously and in terms of her profession. That sounds good for comedy, but believe me, she is the greatest enemy of anything funny. I'll elaborate that later. Ninja girl Agiri is based on good ideas and she is capable of delivering clever and unpredictable punch lines. Thanks to that her success rate at funny is the highest among the cast. And there's some unused character who was clearly labeled unused for a reason and should have stayed that.

The characters themselves are suitable, but that alone doesn't amount to much. Things would have been just fine if the scenarios were built to more interesting and even remotely capable of drawing power from the craziness of the fact a high school student is an assassin. Sonya's personality should have been used as a source of comedy, it even feels ideal for it. Instead, it becomes the weapon Sonya uses to slaughter any signs of funny around her. Maybe the fact it's the only thing she appears to kill is some kind of clever statement from the creators, but I'm more inclined to believe it's unintentional irony.

There are a lot of opportunities to use Sonya's inflexibility in flexible ways, but no. Maybe one explanation is that considering the assassin theme, a lot of potential is locked in the realm of black comedy which isn't accessed here. I'm not saying that's the only reason this fails to be very funny, there is a lot of room for great comedy without resorting to anything sinister, but it might have at least made it much easier to come up with something clever. I think even additional use of cheap misunderstanding scenarios would have improved the series, and that's an alarming thing.

The jokes are not that random, but the scenarios are, they aren't really connected to anything, by anything. Kill Me Baby doesn't really seem to care about the setting, and despite taking the freedom it doesn't get justified with hysterical situations and hilarious punch lines. There are maybe a couple dozen jokes I found clever or funny, so that makes less than two for each episode. And considering the rapid barrage jokes, the success rate is very low and 95% of the show was not funny to me. On top of that, all episodes are paced in an extremely annoying fashion; the time of the day is narrated in monotone whenever the scene changes.

The budget is quite minimal, but thankfully this kind of series doesn't demand much in terms of production values. The backgrounds are not detailed, but their resemblance of crayon drawing is a decision I liked a lot. Animation quality is low, but sufficient when it is needed. Yasuna's exaggerated reactions and overall restlessness are portrayed well and those are the times when visuals work at their finest. But while something like that is well executed, it doesn't amount to anything without funny scenarios to back it up.

Sound effects are okay, they work fine at underlining the silliness of everything and putting more impact on punch lines. There isn't a lot of background music, just the bare minimum that is needed to pace the jokes or relax the mood when it's needed. The tracks are remarkably simple but not to a fault. I don't usually like including any comments on opening or ending themes in my reviews, but I'll make an exception since the ending was pretty much the highlight of Kill Me Baby.

Voice acting roles are pretty good. Yasuna's really lively like she's suppsoed to be and Sonya's seriousness comes through well while Agiri's voice brings me to a state of pure bliss. Rie herself has a minor role, but I'm too accustomed to her distinct voice to be able to say anything insightful about it. She's on helium for a couple of seconds in one episode, at least that was some variation. The other voice cast is... compact. Our two heroic voices responsible for extras do a wide range of roles for pretty much anything that makes some kind of sound. It feels like a stylistic choice though and doesn't even work that bad.

In the end, I decided to refuse to believe this anime is comedy. It's actually more profound than that: Sonya is the arch-nemesis of fun itself and she is pitted against not only the rest of the cast, but also the writing staff in a battle where the goal is to spare at least something funny from her endless onslaught. The fact that the series gets slightly funnier towards the very end when Sonya starts delivering more interesting responses and acting more vulnerable for the sake of comedy is amazing development that is actually commentary on the human condition and makes Kill Me Baby a groundbreaking creation almost on the level of the iconic masterpiece Tantei Opera Milky Holmes itself.
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