Handa-kun

Episode 6

As Handa-kun continues to introduce us to Handa's unusual classmates, I find myself starting to wonder if he's actually one of the saner people in his school. In an effort to keep Handa's paranoia from going completely off the deep end, Kawafuji does his best to help the eccentric calligrapher make a new friend. Easygoing basketball player Hasegawa seems like an ideal candidate, but a run-in with some rowdy upperclassmen forces Handa to unleash the full power of his menacing aura. Life doesn't get any easier back at school, where star track athlete Dash plans to avenge a past defeat by challenging Handa to a race. Luckily for Handa, Dash's schemes have a tendency to fail in spectacular fashion. Finally, Handa has a run-in with an aspiring fortune teller who tries to decipher his unusual personality by reading his palm.

Handa's day at the arcade with Kawafuji and Hasegawa is notable for one thing in particular: Handa's wonderfully bad disguise. Something about our gloomy hero donning a colorful outfit, wig, and big sunglasses is just naturally funny. That's definitely a good thing, since the rest of the first segment comes up short in the humor department. There are a few amusing moments here and there as Handa tries to wrap his head around the whole “having fun” thing, but it's not enough to sustain a show that lives or dies on the strength of its comedy. Part of the problem lies with Hasegawa; in a series that already has as many “normal” characters as it needs, he's just not interesting enough to justify his own existence. There's very little material in this first segment that requires the introduction of a new character, and I can't help but wonder if the premise might have worked better if Handa-kun had simply made do with the cast it already had.

Compared to Hasegawa, Dash at least stands out a little more. The show uses him to take a couple of gentle pokes at the sports genre, and his overly intense personality plays well against Handa's apathy. Even though it's a fairly standard comedic formula, there's something amusing about watching Dash's plans end in disaster while Handa goes calmly about his day. There's an underlying joke here that for all of Handa's paranoia, he somehow doesn't notice when someone's actually out to get him. This segment also makes decent use of Hanada, with Dash using the “fake Handa” to train for his showdown with the real one. This may not be the strongest or most original story the series has put forward, but it gets the job done.

Of this episode's three parts, the last one makes the best use of Handa as a character. The premise of having Tsugumi try to figure out Handa's personality through palm-reading is clever, as it leaves the door wide open for comedic misunderstandings. It's fun to watch Tsugumi struggle to understand who Handa is based on a few tiny snippets of information, and having the Handa Force on hand as an eager audience just adds to the mayhem. If there's an issue with this segment, it's that it doesn't get enough time to play out; I would've liked to see Tsugumi go even further down the rabbit hole as she tries to figure out just who in the world Handa is.

The problem with this episode is that it rushes to introduce three new characters when there's still plenty of room to work with the cast it already has. Each time someone new shows up, the series has to rely on Handa to keep the humor flowing while it establishes the newcomer's personality and comedic role. Instead of providing variety, each addition to the cast forces the show to go through the same set of motions all over again. As funny as those motions are, they're going to start feeling stale if the series repeats them too often. Handa's entourage of admirers and enemies is already big enough; it's time for the series to start making better use of what it's got.

Rating: B-

Handa-kun is currently streaming on Funimation.

Paul Jensen is a freelance writer and editor. You can follow more of his anime-related ramblings on Twitter.