Ebiten: Kouritsu Ebisugawa Koukou Tenmonbu

Ebiten: Kouritsu Ebisugawa Koukou Tenmonbu
Now I am not really one for parody shows, and while it can be done well, I find that many fall short of what they are really trying to emulate. This is where I find Ebiten. First and foremost I saw the art and I wasn’t amazed. The overly large and styled hair and almost each face being identical (really though, one scene has one face fade into another, and they fit perfectly together) was not something that I enjoyed. This could be because I recently have watched a string of shows with fantastic animation, and this one just felt ... bad by comparison, but perhaps to recognize the bad, we must first know what good is. Along with the general art style, fan service was quite abundant, and while this isn’t always a bad thing, it felt very forced, and often tried to be used as comic relief rather than doing what it’s title would imply.

In short, there was no story. This show followed a plot that really focused on general, episode-long adventures, rather than an overarching plot. And while sure characters were introduced and there was some plot substance there, more could have been done to make it better. This was an ONA (Original Net Animation) and I can understand why. As the first 6 episodes were generally about nonsense, the last 4 tried very hard to have a plot that didn’t really make sense to the show as a whole. I can tell that the writers wanted me to believe the twists and turns, but at any moment I was expecting the main to wake up, and it would all be a crazy dream, but that never happened. They took the story that made little to no sense, and ran with it, ending the show like that. Outside of that, the show explores the wacky misadventures of the Astronomy Club at Ebisugawa High School.

The music also was sub-par. I noticed that each opening screen and episode had a general theme of the show it was trying to parody, but I say “screen” and not opening song because while the song and the opening animation never changed, what did were the 15-second clips of the Name of the show in various art and iconic styles. Honestly these 15 second clips were some of the coolest parts of the show. If they had chosen to change the opening each time rather than just create something short, it would have been much more memorable, but in the end the music was just forgettable. Not bad, not great, but just average. The music started to play a role in the plot, but it was so quite under the talking that it might have well been absent all together.

I had no idea going into this show what I was getting myself into. If anything I knew that the art style was going to be different and I had to adjust, but I just couldn’t. The style to me seems lazy and disappointing. While the characters seem cute, I just could not feel for them like I have for other shows. But as the references either weren’t funny or felt forced, I kept checking the time bar to see the time left. Also with the inclusion of the “pheromone story” near the end, really through me off even further. I have no problems with shows that just have episode long stories about goofing around, in fact I think I might prefer that in this type of setting. The first few episodes, based on their descriptions showed real promise, but what I read just prior to watching didn’t match up to what I watched unfold on the screen and that is a shame. This show could have been generic and easy to watch, but in turned out to be boring and one that I will not revisit.
Overall Score: 6/10