May 24, 2020 ☼ anime

I’m a little over halfway through Seitokai Yakuindomo and I’m not entirely convinced that it’s good. Like, the idea of an anime being made up of purely dirty jokes is entertaining, but most of the “dirty jokes” aren’t jokes at all—characters will just say “sex” or “masturbation” or “breasts” or “penis” or related words as a poorly related response to something, and we’re expected to find it funny. You’re completely over the novelty by the first episode. Maybe you can argue that it’s supposed to be a depiction of the juvenile, repressed behavior of hormone-fueled teens, but it doesn’t have anything interesting to say about that. It’s definitely too much to expect anything transgressive, but I was at least hoping for “edgy”, and this doesn’t even have that.

One caveat is that I’m watching an english-subbed version of this anime, and there’s always problems with translating jokes, especially wordplay, between languages. While I’m sure some of the jokes definitely land better in Japanese, I’m reminded of shows like Joshiraku which are entirely built around complex wordplay and obscure Japanese culture, and yet, still manage to be incredibly funny post-translation.

When they’re not making pointless jokes though, the characters are entertaining enough, and the situational humor is serviceable for a 4-koma style anime. Enough to keep me mildly entertained, but instead of laughing, I’m usually on a permanent “…really?” smirk.