Spelunker Sensei

It may seem strange at first to make an anime adaptation of a game that was released over 25 years ago, but it makes a lot more sense with context. Spelunker on the Famicom is a very notorious game in Japan for how easy it is to die. You literally cannot drop 2 feet without dying mid-air, à la Action 52. How do you make an anime with a weak protagonist like that? Make him a scrawny teacher, of course!

Spelunker Sensei is reminiscent of classic web animation with its sense of humor and pacing. Me putting it that way could lead you to believe that ... it's going to be nothing but a bunch of amateurishly-made slapstick shorts which would only be funny to people who have played the game. However, that is absolutely not the case. Spelunker Sensei takes the concept of having a super weak protagonist and goes all out with it, creating several creative scenarios that will defy your expectations and have you laughing out loud. I was actually taken by surprise just how smart the setups were and how well the punchlines were handled.

With that being said, can you watch it and still get some enjoyment out of it if you haven't played the game or know of its infamous status? Well, you can definitely get a chuckle or two if you know the context, but being more familiar with it is what I think will really sell this OVA to fans of Spelunker and hardcore retro gamers as a whole. Otherwise it's a solid 30 minutes of fun for everybody else.

But for those who are deeper into gaming culture, you may associate bad games with angry nerds and irate gamers, which were all the rage in the late 2000s with their fruity language and high tempers. Meanwhile in Japan a lot of these bad games, or "kusoge", are actually quite celebrated for numerous reasons. The is that seeing people get angry over games is funny, but why would you wanna be the one behind the controller yourself? Playing bad games doesn't sound like fun, does it? Not necessarily in the traditional sense, however, there definitely is a level of passion behind getting the most out of the flawed. There's something other-worldly about getting that AAA experience out of a piece of media. Contrasting that on the other side of the coin, there's also something very human about the more niche and indie stuff. Watching Spelunker Sensei, I could tell that everybody who worked on it loved Spelunker and had a blast putting this OVA together. It's is a love letter to anybody who can feel that very human energy out of media. Maybe it doesn't have the greatest and most professional production out there, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Spelunker Sensei (or Spelunker is a Teacher) is a 30 minute comedy OVA following the misadventures of a teacher who is a Spelunker and those around him. The idea is based on the video game Spelunker which is a rogue-like game about exploring caves and obtaining treasure. A more modern game based on the same idea is Spelunky, which has some of the same features of cave exploration and easy death.

The OVA is made up of numerous short gags, mostly focused on the fact that Spelunker Sensei can die from seemingly minor events. Sometimes the same set up is used multiple times with a ... different outcome, which I found amusing because it was hard to predict exactly how the situation would play out each time. It seems really similar to a lot of shows with 3-minute episode length, except that all the material is in one episode.

The animation is done in Flash and very basic, but I don’t think that this is a detriment to the show. The characters aren’t especially mobile, and the backgrounds are simple, but the comedy mostly revolves around dialogue so the visuals are of secondary importance. Most of the show is in a simple traditional anime style, although there are also some 8-bit style visuals and a few scenes which have been shot in real settings.

I found the music very enjoyable. The opening song ‘Risk My Life’ is lyrics set to the tune of Spelunker BGM and it was exciting and to me evoked the feeling of the adventure and difficulty of Spelunker Sensei’s life. The ending theme 恋は探検 (Love is an Expedition) was very cheerful and perhaps didn’t suit the very dry humour of the show as well, but it was catchy and fun to listen to. The background music during the show featured mainly some simple synthesiser sounds which I think complemented the comedy in an unobtrusive way.

As the comedy of the show is based around dialogue, the voice acting is important and I think that the cast performs very well. Sugita Tomokazu, known for his roles playing cynical characters, is definitely worth a special mention as I think he does a great job showing Spelunker Sensei's resigned attitude to life.

I really, really liked this show! I would definitely recommend it for fans of dry humour or if you like seeing a nod to retro games.

When it comes to a bad piece of media, whether it be a movie, TV show, music, or anime, the worst thing is a bad comedy. When it comes to every other genre, there is at least something to enjoy or appreciate, like it's atmosphere, technical quality, soundtrack, maybe a great performance or two, or it's potential. With a comedy, it relies entirely on it's jokes, and when it's jokes aren't funny, it has absolutely nothing to go on. And there isn't a point in pointing out the good parts of a comedy when the entire reason you're there is terrible. That's where Spelunker Sensei ... comes in.

Based on the Spelunker Sensei video game franchise, Spelunker Sensei (AKA Spelunker is a Teacher) is a one shot OVA that was released in March of 2011 about a man named Spelunker (yes, that really is his name) being a teacher in your stereotypical Japanese high school. That's pretty much the entire premise, since it relies entirely on the jokes. Or joke, singular, in Spelunker Sensei's case.

The entire joke is that Spelunker dies really easily, and he continually dies over and over again from things that don't normally kill people. It's literally one setup and premise repeated over and over again over 30 minutes, and it's not even that great joke to begin with. I wish it had been a lot more creative with it's joke. The OVA could have been Spelunker telling stories of his dying in various absurd or silly situations, but everyone points out that he couldn't have died because he's still alive, and that maybe he has a faulty memory, but maybe he was telling the truth the entire time because no one would believe that a man could die over and over again.

But i guess that would have cost too much money, because the OVA has some pretty bad animation. The OVA looks like it was animated by one person on Newgrounds in the mid 2000's. Or maybe they spent their entire budget on Tomokazu Sugita, who is known for his roles such as Kyon from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and Gintoki Sakata from Gintama. Did the guy owe someone something or lose a bet? There isn't an English dub, but i doubt anyone was expecting one of this.

In conclusion, don't watch Spelunker Sensei. Even so-bad-it's-good anime have more laughs than this. And there's plenty of good anime comedy out there, or at least interesting ones.