I really wanted to like Saint Young Men, and sure, when placed on a spectrum of overall enjoyment it would lean towards a generally positive side, but considering how the premise is that Jesus and Buddha have a vacation in a shitty Japanese apartment I can’t help but feel disappointed. The potential for comedy that this set-up promised was astounding, yet there is a clear lack of jokes in this film. Japanese comedy relies heavily on the straight man, which is fine, it’s a tried and true formula that can definitely be funny. Sometimes the reaction is funnier than the action itself. The issue with Saint Young men is that everyone is a straight man (something that the real Jesus probably would have liked).
The main characters are supposed to be virtuous people, so obviously they can’t be the same group of goofballs that you find in other anime comedies, and everyone else is the straight man to the unintentional shenanigans they accidently create. Funny events happen because our characters are there, but they’re personalities are never the cause of it. I can’t help but picture a series like Prison School, where once again, everyone is the straight man, except here, because everyone is perverted and stupid, the scenarios they’re taking seriously is whether or not tits or ass is better. In Saint Young Men, Buddha is throwing a surprise birthday party for Jesus.
If that premise amuses you currently, try picturing the exact same scenario except the deities are replaced with generic weeb shit? Do you care? No. Not really. And that’s kind of the problem. Jesus and Buddha could have easily been replaced by any random foreigner and the serious would probably function the same for the most part. The religious figures inclusion is entirely for shock value and nothing else and once that shock wears off it’s a kind of ok unfunny comedy that you watch to the end cause why not. It’s not bad, just entirely forgettable.
That’s not to say that there isn’t the occasional funny scenario, the conversation that Jesus had with the Yakuza drawing parallels to both of their lives is a genuinely great moment for both characters involved, that wouldn’t have been if it wasn’t specifically Jesus talking to him. These moments simply happened way too rarely to justify an hour and a half long film.
If they adjusted the release so that there was more OVA’s instead of the one movie than I think it would lead to a much better end result.
6/10
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