To date I have seen Tengen Toppa Gurren Laggan and Neon Genesis Evangelion from Gainax. The obvious choices, sure - but they give a fanciful, high-concept low fantasy mood to the studio - one that is in no way explored or so much as implied here. This makes sense to an extent; Makoto Moriwaki, largely known for family shows - most notably the 2005 adaptation of Onegai My Melody - so both her's and Gainax's involvement with this show do not seem particularly well at a glance. However, Gainax adapts the manga's style to a tee.
The animation is definitely the most praiseworthy aspect of the show, it moves exactly as a manga moves as one reads it while still feeling very lively visually. Gainax has shown both before and after this show that they are masters of doing a lot with a little and this show exemplifies this trait of the studio excellently. The backgrounds are often minimal and work as excellent backgrounds to the simple, thick-stroked characters on top of them. Both these designs and the usually muted colour palette contrasts with the sexual and violent themes of the show well - definitely an appeal of the manga's initial run.
The audio largely meshes well with the atmosphere the visuals build, Ebichu is goofy and cute but doesn't at all sound out of place in this world despite being a talking hamster and all. All the voice actors just sound like normal people and that's obviously what you'd want in a largely slice-of-life show. The soundtrack is minimal, often quiet melodies just ring out in the background, usually muting out when any sound effects are played. It all works in the service of the aforementioned mundanity of the setting.
Sadly, these praises mean little without a well-written show to back them. The show intentionally has a very bare-bones aesthetic so it doesn't really function as eye candy; and the cornerstone of a good comedy is good writing which I sadly don't think is accomplished here. Explaining jokes tends to be hard, but I can make two main points on why I don't particularly enjoy the happenings in this show. The first point is the most obvious, the over-reliance on simplistic sex jokes. A lot of the sex-related gags in the series mostly have to do with the sex words themselves - be it their mere existence or Ebichu screaming these terms out. I imagine a lot of the appeal to these gags is hearing the words being screamed by itself - an affect of the joke completely lost when I read the subtitle and hear what may as well amount to background noise.
Secondly, there is another formula which the show too often clings to is the cycle of Ebichu spouting something bizarre then getting attacked by her owner or her boyfriend. As the series progressed and the main cast started getting out more - particularly with the introduction of Maa-kun as a catalyst - the normally formulaic characters are at their best when there are other personalities around them to bring out different aspects of their character. Owner's boyfriend does this to a certain extent as well, but generally the more the merrier. It was fun to see these parts of the characters around the early middle of the series, but other than the occasional Ebichuman segment this aspect of the show fizzles out towards the end and not much of interest ends up happening for the majority of the series.
I feel like my not liking this could be better attributed to it not being my cup of tea. There is a lot to appreciate here, and it's very competently made, but the writing and style of humour generally made Oruchuban Ebichu a chore for me to go through. On the bright side the episodes are short, despite being a 24 episode series you could probably finish this in a lazy afternoon if you really felt like it.
