Forum - View topicThe Best (And Worst) Anime Comedies
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Spastic Minnow
 Bargain HunterExempt from Grammar Rules  Posts: 4629 Location: Gainesville, FL |
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My "Masterpiece" anime are Nichijou and Azumanga Daioh. Both have been well represented so I'll just leave them with the mention.
I used to have Excel Saga rated as a masterpiece, but it also represents the pitfalls of time. It simply didn't age well and a show based largely on shock humor is going to lose a little something when you know what's coming. I also wanted to mention it because of the great and grating Nabeshin. Other than Excel Saga I have watched and enjoyed other shows of his. I'm one of the few that really likes what he did with Tenchi GXPand i enjoy The Wallflower. (I'm somehow afraid to watch Nerima Daikon Brothers- I watched the first episode and didn't find it all that funny- but I WANT to like it, so I don't want to disappoint myself if I do find it bad) But the other end of the spectrum, when he is really let loose, he can be absolutely dreadful. Puni Puni Poemy is an absolutely unfunny, ugly, insulting mess. It comes just short of "worst ever" thanks to some interesting choice mixed in there and the occasional almost involuntary laugh. Although To Be Hero seems to be the true example of how far he can fall. It's like he's just a dirty old man trying to remember what he liked about the juvenile humor of his youth. But I did see someone here list it in his favorites, So I guess its still hits for someone... somehow. Maybe I'M just too old. The absolute worst though is a tie between two unfinished OVAs I happened to buy at the same time at a used dvd store. MAZE (Ova), and Jewel BEM Hunter. Both attempts at Ecchi humor that fall completely flat. Maze gets extra demerit points for it's multiple comedic takes on what is basically rape (They don't want it, he tries to anyway, and succeeds once, but its "funny" because he's a super powered alter-ego... and when he is successful, she likes it). Jewel earns extra demerit points for its absolutely inexplicable recent license rescue from Sentai. What kind of bet did they lose to waste money printing that garbage up again? Maze at least finishes an arc, JBH just stops. It's a show` without a beginning and it doesn't end and the middle is unfunny and the ecchi is so lite that it's practically nonexistent Special Mentions (good) Photon, The Idiot Adventures School Rumble Cat Planet Cuties (although I hate the English title) Detroit Metal City Hanamaru Kindergarten Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun Moyashimon Wagnaria Special Demerits (bad) Cololorful (OVA) Recorder and Randsell Eiken Doki Doki School Hours Ah! My Buddha! |
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Mai Yukino
 Posts: 217 |
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Some of my personal best that I had fun watching and had good laughs with are Ghost Sweeper Mikami, Golden Boy, Martian Successor Nadesico, and Mobile Police Patlabor (The OVA's and TV Series).
The worst ones that I dislike are Puni Puni Poemy, Samurai Girl Real Bout High School, Yume de Aetara (TV Series), and Winter 2017's Masamune-kun no Revenge. I found the characters and the overall scenario of these anime to be grating. |
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luffypirate
 Posts: 3187 |
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My two favorites are Lucky Star and The Tatami Galaxy. Weird right? They are pretty different as far as humor goes.
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SonicFanA
 Posts: 159 |
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My favorites
Cute High Earth Defense Club Love! Meganebu! Hetalia Kyo Kara Maoh! Gravitaion |
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Roxas4ever
 Posts: 152 |
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Ouran High School Host Club is the anime I keep coming back to for laughs. It lovingly skewers the shojo genre while creating a cast of interesting characters who play off of each other well.
I don't understand the appeal of Azumanga Daioh. I tried watching it a few years back, since it's considered an anime classic, but around the time that they spent an entire episode trying to get rid of one character's hiccups (really? REALLY? Is this actually funny to people?), I realized this show was not for me, and gave up. |
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Megiddo
 Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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It's always interesting for me to read these lists to see what people consider comedy. I'll throw out a few that I don't think have been given their due.
Carnival Phantasm is a hilarious adaptation of some of the best Type Moon gag manga around and everything from the infectious opening theme to the more sedated ending theme is a celebration of Nasu's universe. Like Carnival Phantasm, .hack//GIFT takes characters from a mostly-serious franchise and turns them lose in the most zany out-of-character irreverent manner possible. GIFT goes one step further by using deliberately crude art and animation for the entire episode which only enhances the stark contrast to the anime/game source. It saddens me that I think the only mention of Nerima Daikon Brothers has been someone's worst as it is easily my favorite Nabeshin work. It is also the only anime where I vastly prefer the dub over the sub. Musicals in anime are uncommon. Kurenai, Kanamemo, Kiniro Mosaic and more have had an episode where the cast busts out into a song or two. A Channel has the most awkward musical segments as well. However there is only one anime musical: Nerima Daikon Brothers. It is also a huge labor of love for the English dub especially. In the original Japanese, nearly all the song lyrics for the episode were the exact same, however all songs in English have changed lyrics to fit with whatever is happening. It results in a much better overall experience and a lot more laughs. I really do wish it got more attention since it is such a unique experience. Yet another barely mentioned show among English a speaking fans is ufotable's Futakoi Alternative which takes characters from the bland-as-can-be visual novel/anime Futakoi and injects a spastic and silly plot that eventually turns more dramatic. For the first half of the series though, I don't think the fast-paced gag humor can be topped. As far as worst comedy I've seen in full, I'd have to go with Ultimate Girls, one of many garbage shows from the early 2000s put out by m.o.e. who clearly knew nothing about more.. It's an Ultraman/sentai raunchy parody with the shallowest humor imaginable. I honestly can't recall why I watched it all. |
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Chocoreto
Posts: 105 |
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Best would probably be Gintama'. Even inside all the Gintama's seasons, these 51 episodes of Gintama' are the most solid comedy episodes one can find. Honorable mentions I would give to Arakawa Under the Bridge and Yondemasuyo Azazel-san, just to mention a couple of strong titles that weren't already mentioned here.
And the worst... for me, I could never laugh with Excel Saga and Cromartie High School. The first was just too weird to make any sense, even comedic, and the second was plain boring. Also I could never get used to Sakamoto desu ga, the levels of cringe in every single joke were just too high for me to take. But the one that was absolutely abysmal, the one I told myself: "Give it a chance, so many people like it, it has so many seasons, it must be doing something right!" was, unfortunately, by far the worst 'comedy' I've ever had the unhappiness to encounter: Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei. Now, MAYBE it makes some sense for the Japanese audience. Maybe. PERHAPS. I, for one, found it absolutely horrendous. Warning to the rest of you: If you're not a SHAFT fanboy/fangirl, do not go anywhere near this series! The style really rubs you the wrong way and you can not comprehend how you're supposed to laugh with what you're watching. Plus, for a nice bonus, reading the ending of the manga will immediately make you swallow any laughter that might have accidentally passed by your lips. Just to make sure it kills off anything good it might have offered. Oh joy. |
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Megiddo
Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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I'm not a SHAFT/Shinbo fanboy and I greatly enjoyed SZS. Social commentary has always been a big plus in my satire of choice though.
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Hiroki not Takuya
 Posts: 2599 |
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Thank you Redcar for the link to the Garzey's Wing dub
 I'd say Mr. Tomino must be a mad genius for giving us an "isekai" show (sort of...) 20 years ahead of the trend. Of course it also qualifies as the absolute worst example of the genre and exemplifies everything bad that can happen in visual storytelling. The messed-up dub just makes it into a classic comedy! However, the game dub of Chaos Wars https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAtC1SzWSXg was the funniest cluster-fu*k of all time. I use the term only because it most accurately defines this dub. Enjoy, those who haven't seen...
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Unicorn_Blade
 Posts: 1153 Location: UK |
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Making a good comedy for me is so much more difficult that making a good thriller, drama, and whatever else.
I watch anime-comedies very rarely, because from those I have seen, most did not make me laugh or bored me out of my mind. Maybe there is a lot more to explore, but since it's not really my thing as a genre, I rarely reach for it. I really liked Skip Beat! and Space Dandy and Tatami Galaxy. These are the only I believe comedies that I have seen and rated high. Oh, would have forgotten Count Seven Deadly Sins. - big like here too. I really disliked Wallflower, Squid Girl, Arakawa under the Bridge. I know there were probably some merits to them, but comedy is subjective and they did not anything for me. I think what I appreciate the most are comedy bits/episodes in series which are not necessarily comedy shows. I love the "Toys In The Attic" and Mushroom Samba episodes of Cowboy Bebop, the baseball game and the weed field going up in flames in Samurai Champloo, Isaac and Miria's antics in Baccano!, the football game episode (37?) in Eureka 7, Flame vs Fullmetal duel and looking for a bride for Jean Havoc in Fullmetal Alchemist just to name a few. |
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EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
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I've already mentioned I found Nabeshin more grating than great in Excel Saga, and GXP, but Wallflower was okay enough to be funny-- Probably because, unlike throwing the manga out in Excel, and not even coming anywhere near it in GXP, the original Wallflower manga was strong enough to create structured plots to focus our humor/sympathy/satire on the guys and the girl. As for throwing in the usual Nabeshin "random running gags" of the Loli-Goth Girls, that's a little bit of the directors', er...distraction that throws one of his series off the rails and can sometimes make it look too self-indulgent, if he doesn't have a strong enough base to work from. Yes, Urusei Yatsura only worked as a crazy everything-into-the-pot comedy when Mamoru Oshii threw out Rumiko Takahashi's manga stories for the director-indulgent anime episodes in the same way that Nabeshin threw out Excel Saga's (with "permission", of course), but there's a difference between clearing the dance floor for 80's TV-era Oshii and clearing it for Nabeshin. And I only mention this because anyone who puts GXP, Wallflower, and Nerima Daikon Bros. in the same sentence remembers the 00's Bubble years. Yep, you were there, m'friend, we can spot the symptoms a mile away. 
Like Ghibli's "My Neighbors the Yamadas", it's comic-strip humor as opposed to manga humor, and I frequently joke about the laid-back episodic humor's uncanny resemblance to an anime-schoolgirl translation of Charles Schulz's Peanuts: Yes, we all compare Sakaki and the cat to Charlie Brown and his kite, now take that comparison through Tomo/Lucy and Osaka/Linus (and Chiyo/Snoopy? Ms. Yukari/Sally? Kagura/Peppermint Patty?)... What's turned a few folks on the thread off already is the director's quirk for deliberately gag-annoying us with long....long.....long.........long pauses before hitting us with the punchline. (Eg. Sakaki wanting to pet Chiyo's dog, and petting it, and petting it, and petting it, and petting it....The joke is, we know why she doesn't want to stop.  )
It's like the famous gag of Steve Martin pouring a "strong cup of coffee" from Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6Bjt0Z0psY : Okay, we're thinking, how LONG is he going to let this gag go on, and he's almost comically trolling us with when we think he's going to cut the gag off and tell us where the punchline is supposed to go. Tricky timing, if you can manage it, and it can be a little smug when overused (which the AzD director often does), but perfect when done right. |
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crazieanimefan1
 Posts: 411 Location: Auburn, AL |
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Hetalia, Polar Bear's Cafe, and Ouran High School Host Club are some of my favorites. Polar Bear's Cafe, I eagerly wait for the DVD release in North America. Yet I am not a fan of Panty and Stocking that one kind of turned my stomach a bit.
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23997 |
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So apparently my contribution to this thread will be a sequence of posts where I go, "yes, of course!" when somebody mentions a title that inexplicably and unforgiveably slipped my mind. In this case, it's Unicorn_Blade's mention of Skip Beat! which absolutely is in my top 10 comedies. In fact, I should have a physical copy of it in a month or two...
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Edjwald
 Posts: 1379 |
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If the shows haven't been available through streaming the obvious places for the past three years I haven't seen them, and I'm still catching up on a lot of shows that I've overlooked. I guess I'm going to have to watch Gintama stat, and check out Cromartie High School, Nichijou, Monthly Girls, The Daily Lives of High School Boys, and Excel Saga too .
One I haven't seen mentioned is Ben-To. The taut voiced earnestness of the characters talking about the soul shattering importance of fighting for bargain ben-to meals with deadly seriousness cracks me up. I wouldn't say it's my favorite comedy, but the unseen narrator of Sabagebu Survival Game Club makes me laugh, especially since the characters are over the top selfish people in a parody of gun crazy John Woo type movies (not that I can't get behind some John Woo). The series parodies a lot of sports anime tropes too. I don't like shows that glorify sociopaths, but anime where flawed people get swift comeuppance and little respect for bad decisions can be fun. Kind of like a Japanese Donald Duck dynamic. The droll asides of the narrator for Okami-San and Her Seven Companions. had a similar effect. I guess I have a weak spot for meta-fictional shows where the main characters can overhear and get into arguments with a snarky narrator when it's convenient for a laugh. Picking worst for real rather than just releasing some tension is harder for reasons people have already mentioned. How can you judge a series you watched five minutes of? Plus some of my least favorites were for dub reasons (I'm the type who only does dubs if I can't find an alternative or if it's late an my eyes are tired) There are two Funimation voice over people in particular who sound like forty year olds pretending to be high schoolers though I haven't heard a lot of them. The female has an Ethyl Merman like shrillness going on that goes up and down my spine like a cheese grater, and the male sounds like he should be selling insurance. And there are some Ecchi comedies that...let me put it this way. My new TV doesn't have an on/off switch. There are some comedies sexualizing things that oughtna be sexualized where, if my remote suddenly broke in the first five minutes, I'd run out of the house screaming. Then I'd stand in the front yard until I remembered there was a power cord. I guess the one where I watched a couple episodes despite being annoyed rather than amused was the one about the artist and his assistant that a reviewer mentioned. Last edited by Edjwald on Sun Aug 06, 2017 4:49 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Roxas4ever
Posts: 152 |
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That is actually a perfect comparison!
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