Ranked #4554

Ebiten: Kouritsu Ebisugawa Koukou Tenmonbu

(WARNING: if you’re one of those people who think that any anime without some kind of complicated story is garbage then leave right now. I’m not even sure what you’re doing here)

I honestly stumbled upon this anime completely by accident and I don’t know whether to be impressed, disturbed or enraged. I'm not going to describe the story (mainly because you can just read the Synopsis at the top of this page) nor will I explain the plot.....well.....because......there is none. It’s a parody ONA so what do you expect? Some weird moral lesson? Sorry wrong floor.

Ebiten: Kouritsu Ebisugawa Koukou Tenmonbu can best be described in one equation:

The craziness of Haruhi + the artwork Seitokai no Ichizon + Cocaine = Ebiten

That being said, being only 3 episodes in, I honestly find the show kind of interesting. (If not a tad bit extreme) and I find it a good break from all the other serious shows I am currently watching.

Then again, I still find myself constantly asking WHATS THE POINT OF ALL THIS. I mean you have the club president who does the most random shit I’ve ever seen in anime (and that says ALOT), some female yaoi doujinshi lover (and cannot remember what their called nor do I want to look it up because I’m a strait male), and a cat that is supposed to be the clubs adviser?

What’s more the main "female" character that joins the club is supposed to be a cross-dressing BOY! Why they decided it would be better to make him a girl, I don’t understand. Maybe the creators thought it would be too weird since the clubs all females. (I know it’s weird to say that NOW but I’ll be lucky if you even read this far in the review)

Basically, if you enjoy parodies or want to watch something crazy and ridiculous, then this might not be such a bad choice. But (like I said at the top of this review) if you want something that’s more serious and engaging then just turn toward something else.
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Ebiten in itself is very nonsensical and frequently has many references to quite a few animes, (including full episodes related to sailor moon, dragon ball Z, K-On, etc.) For people who have seen most popular anime titles in the past, the parodies in this show will be quite entertaining, and will incite much laughter on how similar they are able to make their references. There is no serious plot in the anime, and it isn't really a floor-roller, but it is quite funny nonetheless, and just entertaining to watch how they do parodies.

Story: 5 - Not much along the way of a coherent plot, frequently conflicts are just obliterated by a "just because" incident based on a parody element, which makes for a great laugh, but makes the plot make little sense. This is the point of the series in general, although there is a bit of relationship development, albeit that I didn't know whether they were having relationship development to parody drama romance animes, or if the creators actually wanted some development in there 'for serious'. The fact that I can't tell what is parody and what isn't makes this anime funnier, for me at least, and I enjoyed that. However, the story itself is not an aspect of the anime that was memorable.

Art: 7 - Not bad at all. There are some interesting methods of portraying costumes and effects when they parody certain animes. Particularly, the sailor moon transformation sequence was quite hilarious to watch, by sheer similarity to the original, and the opening themes that mimicked openings of the current anime of parody extremely closely. When they parodied DBZ, they even had strikingly similar "before commercial" and "after commercial" animations, that made me laugh. The characters are nicely designed, however animation is not super high budget and non-focused character movement is minimal. In terms of what I didn't like...the ending theme of most of the episodes had me exiting my player, due to the fact it had real life people running down school hallways all dramatically, and looking awkward. I think it was supposed to be a joke, but it sort of made me facepalm at how they looked.

Sound: 7 - Music in the anime is not a focus during normal screentime, however, when parodies come into place, mimicked themes and sound effects are awesomely similar to original content and at the same time different enough to bring laughter. One of my favourite moments concerning sound was when they parodied K-On, and the episode had the "before commercial" and "after commercial" guitar riffs that are so memorable of K-On. Last episode had a nice ending theme.


Character: 7 - There are only two characters in the anime that go through particular development, and these two characters are the single relationship that develops throughout most of the anime. I won't go into huge detail about them, because spoiling would then occur. Despite the minimal character growth, some of the characters are memorable just because of their comedic relief factor, for example, one girl is the classic "always gets her clothes torn off by something, and is obsessed with yaoi" girl. Although it is cliché'd, this was likely intended in order to have her parody such type of characters. I liked this. Other character personalities include a girl who gets turned on by cats, a "haruhi suzumiya" type club president, a "bossy tsundere loli" student council president, a "soft-spoken mature girl who can get people to do what she wants deviously" club vice president, and, my favourite, a teacher who is a super-stalker for her ex-boyfriend that claims her cat is the teacher of the class she teaches, and that she is just a young maiden. The latter character probably brought me the most laughs, because her entire usage in the plot is to be ridiculous.

Enjoyment: 5 - Although quite funny, I have seen a lot funnier anime many a time. In terms of pure parody anime, this is a reasonably good one. Seitokai Ichizon is probably better ( I haven't watched much of it, but from what I have seen, it is more coherent), in many ways. Some episodes I didn't know the anime they were parody-ing, and this results in me not even liking the episode one bit, and just mindlessly grinding through it without a laugh. For someone who has seen every anime they parody, enjoyment could probably be up to 7 or even 8, however a couple of episodes for me were just bleh. Nothing special. The ones I did know however were good laughs and I kept to watching the whole series in hopes of seeing more of them. Middle ground for enjoyment for me, resulting in a 5.

Overall fairly good, so 6/10. Wouldn't watch again unless showing friends some of the parody parts that I enjoyed, a nice quick set of ten 21 minute episodes for someone who wants a quick fix. read more