Snack Basue

LOL, okay, where do I even start with Snack Basue?! Saw the summary picture and my first thought was "Ah, this looks kinda budget..." But man, something just clicked, and I thought, "Let's give it a shot." And BAM, one episode in, I'm convinced it's the season's hidden gem. The humour? Off the charts. It's got this Gintama vibe but, dare I say, it's even better.

The whole show's just taking hilarious jabs at loser guys, and Morita? Absolute comedy gold. 😂 Every single episode's got me grinning from ear to ear. I'm all in, week after week.

It's just so funny. There's this genuine charm to ... it that I can't get enough of.

Snack Basue - A deep-dive into the hidden side of Japanese culture: hanging out at pubs and just talking about rando topics for comedy.

AniManga can be very weird sometimes, and in most rare cases, a necessity as an educational topic for the rest of the world to see what exactly is Japan all about. Shows like last season's Megumi no Daigo a.k.a Firefighter Daigo showcasing how firefighting is done in Japan, those shows when marketed to the West, can look very niche and is rather hard to market overseas. And when it does, it only gets a lukewarm reception and nothing more. Sadly, this is ... the case for yet another underwatched show this season: mangaka Forbidden Shibukawa's Snack Basue.

When you first watch this show and think to yourself that this show is kinda all over the place, boring and whatnot, I clearly understand that the show is catered not for the Average Joe. But for those who are genuinely interested in this show, read on.

It's clear that Snack Basue is meant to be a parody of a culture that you can ONLY experience in Japan: Nomikai, or as commonly referred to as the drinking culture. This is one of many parts of Japan's sacred cultures, which is how Japanese people bond over nomikai as part of the work experience on the social front, that's usually expected on participation, although it is not expressly required.

And that's exactly the premise of Snack Basue as a whole: with hostesses of Akemi and Mama Basue, customers from regulars to newcomers will frequent the place, bringing up whatever topics they like to wish to rant and/or discuss it out, and then at the end of the way, sing a karaoke song of the country's late 1970s to early 1990s Reconnaissance period of music. It's truly Japan when it comes to things like this. The various customers of salaryman Yamada, delinquent/gangster Brother Tatsu, pervertic afro-haired middle-aged man Morita, the married Kazama, boss-like man Miki Azuma, hippie man Kawa, even the parodies of Yuusha (from Dragon Quest) and Jersey Man (which by its VA you should recognize the parody), they all form part of the trope that is Snack Basue, dilly-dally-ing their way through the night, talking about the most random of topics in quick successions of wit, with comedy so out-of-place on the global POV that only native Japanese people can relate to. It can be absurdly funny sometimes when its humour even breaks the 4th wall (like Gintama), from popular characters to even publishers, nothing is off the hook when it comes to comedic criticism.

Clearly, its production feels stinted, but that's part of the charm of the show as well. Produced by Studio PuYUKAI who did the Isekai Quartet series, it certainly has a chibi charm to it that adds an element to the overall show's feel. Also, Rie Takahashi being Akemi just adds fuel to the overall humour of the show, and it's obscenely clear that her character just doesn't take anything seriously at all, going along with the banters of her customers, both regular and new. Also, the OP song for this is a LEGIT banger, being a "left, right, center" of unhinged hype entertainment for comedy values.

Snack Basue is a show not for the Average Joe, that's pretty much a given. If you want to have a night's rest not thinking about the world and drowning yourself in some deranged comedy while siping some alcohol, Snack Basue would serve you well with its free-spirited wording and easy viewership, even if you don't understand most of its heavy dialogue, which even then, it doesn't expect you to understand much of it anyways (as a low-key jab at foreigners not understanding any context).

Snack Basue is an anime about Snack Bar that you can find in Hokkaido. So what is snack bar? They are a part of Japan’s nightlife especially for the people who works ,there are similar to the bars but a lot of more cozy and has friendly atmosphere. In this bar the bartenders called ‘mama’ and they became someone who listen and talk with you. You can socialize with other guest and have a good evening.

Snack Basue has two hostess, oldest hostess Basue (the bar belongs to her) and younger hostess Akemi. We see a daily life conversation between Akemi her mother and guests who ... came to Snack Bar. All the guest we gonna see here gonna be man which I think pretty close to reality. Conversations that we here a generally about the characters personality, situation that happens to them and different views on a random themes . Sometime we see talks about sexual concepts which I think done very nicely. Other than this there are episodes that has more of reference to anime and other pop culture situations where we can see different characters from different anime or real life.

One of the best part that this show done correctly is the characters they all feel real. Which is very important for an anime that is about people. As characters we have 4 main guest that we see the most they are Yamada , Tatsu, Kazama and Morita all four man has different personalities and lifestyles and I think even if you don’t love their personalities you not gonna hate them you’re not gonna feel like you don’t wanna them on the screen. Akemi is our main host and kind of main character of the anime a young woman who has her own relationship problem but can find a way to talk with any kind of human. Very enjoyable main character. The supporting cast that we see through the anime has great moments too.

This anime don’t have a plot it’s an episodic anime in one episode we mostly see 2 different situation that happened in Bar in different times.Other than that The humor done nicely. The jokes are different from each other and references helps them to be better if you love more of talking humor you gonna enjoy it but if you are more of action oriented humor you maybe wanna skip it.

A thing I notice in myself while watching this anime is that I myself start to think about the answer of conversation or what I think about this topic which for me was a great.

About animation I wanna say it works for it anime it’s very different and not for everyone but it definitely works. The musics are great every episode ends with and karaoke and the Op is done greatly.

In the end if you wanna watch an romcom type of comedy on a theme that never done before in anime should definitely watch it. Its different, it’s new and done correctly. The only people I’m not gonna recommend it who like action comedy I don’t think it’s gonna be your cup of tea but I still think you should try