Teppen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Recommendation: A truly great comedy, but western audiences and casual anime fans may have difficulty getting into it.

Manzai comedy can be hard to appreciate, especially for western audiences. That shouldn't scare you away from Teppen, but you'll want to be aware that you'll need to put in more work than usual to appreciate it. In all honesty, the manzai scenes are consistently the weakest parts of the series, but fortunately there aren't that many of them. This is more of a manzai-flavored CGDCT comedy series about the wacky daily lives of the 5 comedy trios staying in a dorm together than a show "about" manzai. ... The funniest parts usually have nothing to do with stand-up comedy at all and involve escalating idiotic behavior by the girls until it ends in a ridiculous place, like with the house blowing up or Jack Bauer from 24 breaking down their door (that last one is real by the way). There's a subtlety to it that makes it extra funny too, you feel rewarded for rewatching and digging into it to find jokes that you didn't catch the first time around, like Barbra being represented by a barber pole in the Teppen council meeting or Chihori creating the time loop in episode 4 to give Yuina extra time to practice her lines. It feels oddly high IQ for a show like this.

"They didn't have to go that hard" is really the feeling you get in every aspect of the series. It looks from the outside like a cheap cash in on a mobile game that doesn't actually exist, but instead it's filled with the kind of love and care that you'd typically see go into a passion project. The script is densely layered with jokes that aren't always immediately apparent, the animation is far above and beyond what you'd expect (the paintball fight from episode 3 is a particular highlight there), and the characters have tons of personality and are well voice-acted. Even the OP is brilliantly animated, and the song, which features the main cast rapping, is the best of the season by a mile (go listen to it if you don't believe me). It's a show that consistently exceeds expectations in every area.

There is one major caveat to the series though. It is, for lack of a better term, extremely Japanese, and makes zero effort to round off its edges for western audiences. A number of jokes involve wordplay that is simply untranslatable to English, and there are constant cultural references to things casual western audiences would know little about (the group Akudare Kingdom is almost entirely built around stereotypes about Ibaraki Prefecture, for example). This is a series that is badly in need of translator notes and I had to rely on more knowledgeable friends to "get" some of it. It's still broadly funny in ways that will be recognizable to everyone, but some of the best material is only going to be accessible to fluent Japanese speakers or those with extensive cultural knowledge.

This is not the kind of show that everyone is going to enjoy, but it ended up being one of my favorites of Summer 2022 and I have so much respect for the obvious effort that was put into infusing this show with soul and personality when it could have easily been a bloodless corporate tie-in. Even if manzai is a hard pass for you, give Teppen a chance. It will probably surprise you.

Girls, Bravo.

I want to start off by saying that I really, really want to like Teppen. Studio Drive has created a colourful, well animated show with expressive and likeable characters and the voice actors do a killer job keeping the flow of the conversation up throughout all the episodes I’ve watched. It’s an impressive production with very little empty or awkward space to throw off the pacing, just like an actual group comedy skit performance.

However, you’d think an anime about cute girls training to becoming professional comedians would be a bit… funnier?
I know that good comedy is different depending on what you find ... humorous, but for me the comedy in Teppen is lukewarm at best. It’s not like the show doesn’t have the building blocks to make a hilarious show. The cast is made up of quirky girls from all different walks of life and one girl is heavily implied to be an alien which she constantly tries to protest. That’s legitimately funny. I did enjoy episode 1 and the introduction to all the different groups as well as the ridiculous house warden and I enjoyed episode 4(3) which was about one of the girls gambling on crypto, but I can’t say that I busted a gut laughing from these episodes which are on par with your average moé school life, comedy anime and it seems from this shows current MAL rating (6.27) I’m not the only one who feels this way.
I do think that maybe the shows rhythm was thrown off due to the cancellation of episode 2 thanks to some real world events, but also maybe not.

I don’t want to bash the show too hard. Like I said at the beginning, I really want to like it and I think if you’re interested then you should absolutely give Teppen a go. Humour is in the eye of the humoured, but I just watched episode 5(4) and I seriously questioned why I was still watching which for me, is a death flag for a comedy show.

Also the OP is a banger.

5/10 Mediocre.

Teppen is one of my favourites in this season. The wackiness, the unreasonable boke, and fast pacing comedy is what I love in this. Tbh, this anime is the only comedy anime that cracks me up in this season. The approach is similar to Kill la Kill, i.e., over the top and fast-paced. Absurdness upon absurdness come like a barrage of machine-guns.

Its only weakness is in the last episode, where some seriousness is present. To most people, the comedy is unfunny because it has layers. You need to know many japanese trivias to really grasp the meanings. But to me, comedy with more than 1 ... layer is more interesting because it contains informations rather than laughs only. Seitokai Yakuindomo is one such instance where knowledge of kanji and dirty jokes is required.

The other reason why I like this is that seiyuu's ability to deliver comedy is significant in their career. I have watched how veteran seiyuu in older comedy anime performed and they are marveous. Usually the ones that cannot deliver as good can be seen as newcomers or just not as experienced. Looking at these newcomers is something that I look forward to because some of them lately had matured into incredible seiyuus and in high demand.

If you come for easy laughs, this anime is not recommended. If you otherwise look for trivias or layered comedy, this anime will be a good choice.

You know, I was a bit worried when I saw that Bushiroad was attached to this project, this being an adaptation of their manga in their magazine, my biggest fear is that, in the post-Milky Holmes era, their work has always stuck to the safe side and never takes any risks; anything even remotely interesting, Revue Starlight for instance, always ends up being restricted or constrained by the invisible hand of the committee, snuffing out any creative vision by the creative staff attached to it. With Teppen, my fears were thankfully unwarranted, as it’s single handedly Bushiroad’s wackiest and funniest show since Milky Holmes (funny ... since Hercule and the Feathers are mains in this).

Despite being themed around manzai, Teppen itself is rarely manzai. Rather, it uses its premise as an avenue to lead in to its wacky comedy. Perhaps for the better considering most other manzai shows end up being on the bland side for just having 20-minute long manzai routines. And you gotta hand it to Bushiroad for managing to keep the whole show fresh and varied throughout. I was initially afraid the sheer size of the cast would lead to bloat, but it never felt that way in the end as each group gets a chance to be in the spotlight and even individual members in each group has that one trait that makes them memorable, even if I can’t always remember their names and end up referring to them by their trust (eg. Mito Komon Ibaraki girl for instance)

With the exception of maybe Young Wai-Wai, each group ends up representing a common region of Japan, be it one distinct prefecture or a few similar ones. There is a lot of playful prefecture vs prefecture banter here, and if you’re into this very niche yet specific genre of comedy, Teppen has got you covered until the next prefecture shilling show.

Sure, the jokes don’t always land. For instance, the mythical episode 2, which was feared to be cancelled forever due to a certain incident, ended up just being an outdated and not very funny at all reference to 24, far far past the point where parodies of it are even topical. But Teppen throws out jokes and gags more frequently than it has exclamation marks, so you’re still in for a good time regardless.

Teppen is certainly a show that came out of nowhere and I’m happy and thankful at the amount of creativity at display each episode. Now, I hope that hometown tax episode won’t be about Hokkaido again…

7/10

I honestly really enjoyed Teppen. At first, I was afraid it would be about a "group of girls doing comedy and competing against each other", but it turned out to be way better. Why did I decide to give it a 9? Because it made me laugh (or at least smile) too many times. I do agree not all of the jokes were funny, but if you're into random screams, quick weirdly escalated situations and situational comedy, then you'll definitely enjoy this show. This is not even about manzai - the manzai scenes in this anime are very rare, usually only for a few seconds ... at the beginning of every episode. The rest are always the girls laughing in the dorm and preparing for Teppen.
This anime gives you a wide range of different and unique characters whose personalities surprisingly interested me so much I just wanted to know more about them. Now this anime is finally over - and I wish there was a second season. Again, no, this isn't a cliche unfunny manzai anime that bores you to death. It kinda screams gen z energy - completely random reactions, breaking the fourth wall, Japan prefecture jokes, etc. The opening was also fire. This anime is not for everyone, but it is enjoyable once you get used to the comedy it uses.

Here I am, questioning to myself again: yet another manzai comedy? And after the blandness that is Maesetsu! that only really speaks to the native Japanese (which everyone else will not understand), is Teppen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (And yes, that is 15 exclamation marks, the most after Keijo with 8) gonna be any different? In a hopeful way, I wish I do, because of all the manzai comedy that has been seen, Teppen is easily the best out of the lot that I remember, though not without its issues.

We all understand comedy in all sorts of various ways. But when if it's one that's ingrained only to a ... certain demographic, that honestly is a bit hard to justify its existence to everyone else. And this is exactly what Teppen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! has going for it, being a Japanese manzai a.k.a stand-up comedy that's all the rage in Japan as a traditional pastime. Unfortunately, if you don't understand much about that, I can tell you that it's hard to really love this show for all that's worth of its various references and such.

The basis for Teppen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! is exactly what it sounds like: a group of girls incorporated into a competition (the Teppen Grand Prix) from the views of 3 new and aspiring young rookies (Yayoi Sakamoto, Yomogi Takahashi and Yuzu Hosono) whom want to make it big with comedy, and finding themselves living together with other groups with their own quirks and features, all in the vying to win the competition with the best they could. And I'll say that I give marks for some originality that's done here to showcase the various groups according to their regions (Young Wai-wai from Kansai (region), Celebri-Tea from Tokai, Akudare Kingdom from Kanto, Invaders from Hokkaido, and Bullet Kunoichi from Kansai (area)) and fully establishing the real-life counterpart identities from where they come from, for all 15 girls.

As for the part of the show that supposedly wants to make the audience "Laughing 'til You Cry"...well that is pretty much a mixed bag. You either love it or find it boring (as is my case) that some references will be generally understood, but for a comedy skit performance, it isn't as refined as say the CGDCT moments for the group that lives in Takako-so under the watch of "Onegai Muscle" rip-off Manager-cum-caretaker Seiji Tani. Throughout the course of the anime showing the groups' various skits (at least on my watch), most of them were quite boring but not stale, as per the motive to infuse comedy where it works best. To this I say, maybe you can understand the inference better than I do, and there're two sides to the comedy coin in this case.

The most impressive I've seen from this show is the mixed usage of Seiyuus that for a large character cast such as this, they did their job well to retain the feeling of infused, fine comedy. And this is brought forward to the OP, which is the most creative that I've both seen and heard of others calling it a banger, and it's not without reason that its over-the-top goofiness allows to embrace its intentions wholeheartedly. And largely for that, it succeeded. May'n's ED isn't half bad either, now that I think of it, especially when the OST is that subpar and generic, there were a few standouts, though it honestly didn't make my experience watching this any better, even with studio Drive's whack-outta-the-wazoo like visuals, which also got the job done as it should.

It's absurd, it's wacky, it's just comedy. And believe me, I've tried to like Teppen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and what it has going for it, but it's just boring and ludicrious to sit for 12 episodes expecting to understand references and body jokes, to the point of messing with my brain and thinking: "Comedy can be better than this, and it doesn't have to be limited after all."

Teppen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'s definitely not a snoozefest, but a sleepfest of a dream with sheep baaing question marks on top of my head, now that's more affirmative.

"My name is Sakamoto Yayoi! I love comedy!" Me too, Sakamoto. Me too. Too bad this is one of the most unfunniest shows I've watched.

It's sad, really. Characters are vibrant, and they have great design. They pop out, and not in a super cliche'd way for the amount of characters and time spent on them. Voice acting in the manzai isn't half assed, and the animation is actually pretty good.The OP is good. The visuals are a great pair to the manzai, and so are the facial expressions, and I think that's one of the most important things when animating comedy. It's not just people ... talking in the anime, but rather people actually perform actions, and there's visual representations of the random conversation and topics that they have in their Manzai acts. However, it's not funny. For a show about Manzai, it's one of the most unfunniest things ever.

Almost all comedy have some sort of Manzai in it. In Japanese media this is especially the case. And there's a lot of great comedy shows out there. This is just sadly, not one of them. This show just kind of tries too hard. The script tries to fit as many jokes as possible, and they all kind of just suck. The Boke and Tsukomi roles are a bit more rigid than more traditional comedy since the show literally is actual Manzai, but none of these Manzai acts really have that natural feeling to them that makes comedy so charming in anime/manga. When stuff like Gintama and joshikousei no mudazukai are doing Manzai much more naturally and successfully than a show focused around that exact premise, you got a problem.

Much like how Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu tries to portray professional Rakugo, this show tries to express semi-professional or professional Manzai. And both can't do it. Because there's nothing to hide behind. Sports shows can just animate people doing crazy moves that humans can't perform, but what about Manzai? I mean, manzai is good when it's funny. There's no animation, characters, plot points or anything to really hide behind. You have people do manzai performances? Just like in real life, the best indication that a performance is good is if it's funny.

Even shows like Lucky star, where the main premise is CGDCT, and with such simple setups since it did adapt off a 4-koma, it still manages to be funnier with the Konata, Kagami, Tsukasa, and Miyuki manzai acts in their group of four. The manzai in Teppen just isn't that natural. There's no pacing that needs to happen for comedy to work, but even beyond that, the content, no matter how well paced, is just horrendous.

Even despite how Japanese-centered the comedy is, even if you can understand most of the jokes and gags, the fact of the matter is that Teppen !x15 is simply not that funny. It has funny moments, and the characters are slightly unique, but the jokes in this anime are not what you'd expect from "professional" comedians even though we're expected to believe they're the best of the best and the audience is supposedly laughing along with you as the story plays out. There were a few good gags and jokes, sure, of course there were, but any semi-decent slice of life has some comedy bits ... here and there. I felt more obligated to laugh at parts than actually naturally laugh. Unlike something like Joshiraku where we laugh because of the characters' developments on the side of their profession, Teppen !x15 is literally about their comedy, which brings in even higher expectations, yet fails to deliver. Also, the whole actual driving plot was totally left on the side which was a real shame. Honestly, this anime had so much potential, but went in a completely wrong direction.

All in all, it's a comedy anime that focuses on top-notch comedy, yet doesn't get any funnier than your average rom-com. You're better off watching Joshiraku even if you don't understand the jokes because at least most of the setups are somewhat decent. Or better yet, just watch an actual funny gag anime like Asobi Asobase and Joushikousei no Mudazukai. It should honestly be labled more as a CGDCT and leave it at that. The girls are cute and fun, but that's about it.

As a side note, I have to say that the visuals for the OP were absolutely stunning. It's weird because it's not super flashy or has crazy effects, but seeing how they animated the girls and backgrounds was just so pleasing to look at. I watched the OP every single episode and partially finished the anime at all just to keep looking at the OP. The song itself isn't anything crazy either. I've seen worse, but it's not playlist-breaking either. 8/10 on the OP for sure (only -2 cuz song)

Overall, 4/10 for being somewhat average, but failing to adhere to the expectations of the main focus of the entire story, comedy.