Usakame

Usakame, for me, was one of the bigger disappointments of the past season. Coming off from Teekyuu especially, I was left astounded, confused, but mostly bored, and curious as to how boring this series ended up being.

For the uninitiated, Usakame, like its sister series, is a short 3 minute anime centering around the straight man and her 3 other foils. However, decidedly different is how the two anime handle its pacing. Take a look at Teekyuu, it's fast and ruthless. Each second each moment the anime is on, the series spares absolutely no expense in having wasted. Jokes and gags get thrown at a ludicrous ... pace, and if it doesn't work, it moves on to the next scene. This rushed pace is what drew me into the series and is where Teekyuu draws its primary strength from. Neither the characters nor the jokes are particularly good or anything, but the frantic pacing and unorthodox direction makes it something really special.

Now contrast that with Usakame. Despite having an additional minute, for whatever reason the pacing of the anime is decidedly slow. This works against the show's favor for good reason. Scenes get unnecessarily drawn out, jokes drag on and on, and by the end of the episode, nothing really happened. The slow pacing is the biggest flaw to Usakame, it can't decide whether it wants to be a 20 minute anime or a 3 minute short. Just watching it is tiring.

And that's all I can say. It's tiring.