So, what is Tesagure? Like I said: it’s basically a Japanese variety show masquerading as an episodic, slice-of-life anime. The masquerade is paper thin, of course, and the show indulges often in pointing it out. It’s animated entirely in MikuMikuDance, which is this really awful 3D animation program that is the software equivalent of trying to wrestle a coked-up, greased baboon. If you’ve ever watched stuff on Youtube or NicoNico labelled “MMD” that’s the program: models will clip through each other constantly and the hair meshes just go nuts all the time. So, the fact that these guys were able to make relatively professional-looking, fifteen to twenty-minute episodes with minimal clipping and nothing going insane is grounds for, like, the Nobel Peace Prize. Now, don’t get me wrong, Tesagure looks awful. I mean, it’s made in MMD: you get what you pay for. The textures for the models are simple and probably just stock that came with the software. Be that as it may, I think that lends a lot to Tesagure’s charm. See, it’s supposed to look stupid because it’s a Japanese comedy and Japanese comedy is quintessentially incapable of subtlety.
And that’s the most remarkable thing about Tesagure. The writing is actually funny -- to me, a Westerner. The reason I find this so remarkable is because Japanese people have a hard time dealing with comedy. Partly this is a consequence of culture: being funny isn’t Japanese. Japanese culture is super-serious even when it’s trying not to be. I’m not trying to be racist or bigoted here: I’m positing this on anthropological fact. Moreover, the Japanese language, though in certain areas quite robust, is highly contextual, owing to its Chinese and Sanskrit roots. Quite often, sentences and even certain words have multiple interpretations and everything coming out of Japanese person’s mouth is highly ambiguous, subject to a high degree of misinterpretation, and predicated on a host of tacit assumptions grounded in the cultural paradigm. So, telling a joke in Japanese is really, really hard. The language simply isn’t built for it. Consequently, Japanese people who want to be funny have had to construct ways around this. Their solution, from what I’ve experienced, has been to simply hammer the joke in as hard as physically possible, subtlety be damned. Crack open any gag manga and you’ll probably see one of the characters do a little aside after the joke where they flat-out explain it as obviously as possible -- because they have to, lest the Japanese audience be confused (“I don’t understand. She said ‘I really like you.’ Why did she hit him? Oh, I see, she wasn’t being serious. My language is incapable of denoting sarcasm.”).
Conversely, Tesagure’s jokes somehow come across despite the ponderousness of the language. And I think the main reason why it is so successful is because all of the dialogue is recorded live. That’s why I’ve been calling this a Japanese variety show. The voice actresses are literally in a little sound booth together talking to each other and doing the gags. And it works amazingly well! Moreover, the jokes are ad hoc and done on the spot, just like in Japanese talk shows, so occasionally the girls will break down into giggling fits on the spot or screw up the joke or interrupt with little quips. This gives the dialogue an incredibly life-like quality that really brings the humour to life. They aren’t just reading the gags in typical manga-esque, stone-faced monotone. They are just a bunch of Japanese women goofing around in a sound booth. It makes the comedy more human, more spontaneous and natural. It utterly lacks the artificial quality you’d find in something like an internet 4koma. In the later episodes, the girls will record on location at actual Japanese parks and attractions. The actresses themselves even exclaim how unheard of that is!
One of the seiyuus is a real-life pop idol (I’m not big into J-idols so I don’t know who or care) and all of the other seiyuu have professional vocal careers. Thus, they sing both the opening and ending themes and they are really quite good! The soundtrack to Tesagure is nothing short of godlike and I willingly listen to the OST frequently. In addition to the opening and ending themes, they will occasionally sing other songs which, when translated, are extremely self-deprecating and actually incredibly clever. I would watch this show for the music alone, which puts Tesagure head and shoulders above other comedy anime.
Tesagure is basically the Japanese version of Mystery Science Theatre 3000. They just sit around riffing on anime and manga stereotypes and doing humourous bit gags. And that’s great because it actually works super well. It’s genuinely funny for everyone, not just Japanese people: real John Lennon, hands-joined-across-the-world crap. Man, I hate MikuMikuDance.
