Joshiraku

This anime is very hard to fully understand with subtitles only and I reckon most anime watchers will miss much of the content of Joshiraku.

But even then the contents are nothing special and the show does not appeal to me one bit. The puns aren't anything to laugh about (they are neither interesting nor funny). The setting is boring and episodes' plots are lame.

I enjoyed the opening and ending and the voice acting crew was good too but those are all secondary.

Joshiraku is not my cup of tea but I guess there might be people who enjoy this kind of stuff, since the show isn't ... fundamentally bad otherwise.

Joshiraku is an anime form of that friend you wanna avoid. He was fun to have around because he had all these funny and long-winding stories to tell; and you didn't care if they were true or not. But, as time passes, you just wanted him to shut up. He WON'T shut up, no matter what you do or say; no matter how hard you try.

Yeah. Sure. The females who star in this show are cute, hot, moe, whatever. But they get under each other's skin rather quickly.

* Gankyou Kuurubiyuutei (Cool Beauty 4-Eyes): The Heather / Paniponi's Rei
* Marii Buratei (Bloody Mary): The "Holler Back ... Girl" and "Physical Punchline Receiver"
* Tetora Bouhatei (Tetrapod Bulkhead): The Annoyingly Lucky Girl / Mitsuko Ramuni
* Kigurumi Haroukitei (Hellokitty Bodysuit): Genki Girl on one side of the coin, Black Lagoon's Revy on the other
* Kukuru Anrakutei (Noose Euthanasia): the human female form of Decepticon's Dirge.

Surprisingly: The wardrobe change amongst these girls, during the middle of the episode where they travel around Japan, had been cranked to 15. They wear different clothes more times than the lot of regular animu that wave around cute girls to get your attention.

And also surprisingly: A lot more goes on during these episodes than during the small amount of time they're on stage.

I watched Joshiraku (including the OVA). Here are my thoughts:

Having somewhat recently completed Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu, I thought it would be interesting to watch Joshiraku with the memory of it fresh in my mind. However, I quickly realized that the two shows are completely different. Joshiraku is a comedy and consists of short skits. The main characters are rakugo performers, although rakugo itself is not a major aspect of the anime. The rakugo theater (usually backstage) is only a setting for the various comedic skits (which are usually unrelated to rakugo). So, don't be like me and expect this to be a rakugo-themed show. ...

This anime is clever and amusing, but not really laugh-out-loud funny. There is a lot of clever wordplay. It often breaks the 4th wall; it is a very 'self-aware' show. Occasionally it felt boring; some skits can feel a little drawn out, and the pacing of the skits is slightly sluggish at times.

I could tell that some of the jokes were too Japanese even for my weeb ass. There were seemingly obscure references to Japanese culture, history, politics, geography, etc…

In terms of audiovisuals, this anime is unremarkable at best. The visuals are adequate, and provide demonstrations of the jokes when necessary. The voice acting is similarly adequate. The OST is unremarkable and fairly inconsequential due to the dialogue-heavy nature of the show.


My personal overall rating: 6/10
Most episodes got some chuckles out of me, but it was never gut-bustingly hilarious or anything like that — just moderately amusing. I enjoyed how clever a lot of the jokes were.

If you like puns, clever wordplay and Japanese cultural references, then this is the comedy anime for you. It is a very Japanese show in that there are frequent references to Japanese culture in some form — anything from politicians to pop culture to kanji readings to traditional folklore. The cultural references have a lot of breadth. Receptiveness to this will likely vary a lot among viewers. A casual anime viewer probably won't be amused by puns about train station names (or something equally culturally esoteric), but a smaller subset of dedicated japanophiles would probably eat this stuff up.