Mr. Tines wrote:If a series with surf-boarding elephants and body-swap curry isn't already comedic enough for you (and that's just in the first cour, mind you), then I'm not sure what to recommend!
Hehe... Well, the thing about Utena is, that it has (at least where I am now, which is having just finished episode 4) a certain atmosphere of... surreal-ness? Not sure what the right word is...
I mean, not that that isn't very similar to something found in
another show I enjoy very much (it rhymes with "Neon Genesis Schmevangelion"), but right now I need lighter stuff, for my current emotional state. I admire Utena, and enjoy it so far, but I need something that's (almost) pure comedy.
So, for that reason, I decided to take a break from that, and watch
WataMote instead. I had heard that it was funny, and... that was it, really.
I enjoyed it immensely. Not only was the humor perfect, but it also pushed the envelope of what I thought they could show on TV. The protagonist, Tomoko, is a
very realistically portrayed shut-in 1st-year high-schooler who suffers from severe social anxiety, and can barely say a word to anyone outside her family and a single friend (who goes to a different school).
She feels that, now that she's in high school, she can reinvent her image and become popular, and.... it is just beautiful. Seriously, I cannot describe how funny it is. And there are powerful undercurrents of tragedy underneath the humor, so you can feel for her even as you laugh. Again, like I said, she is written extremely realistically, which I always consider necessary in humor series. Not too many do that good of a job with psychological realism, and they suffer as a result. This is one that does.
The ending could've been better, but even so, I'd give it a solid
8/10.(I'm in middle of
Shimoneta: A Boring World without Dirty Jokes, which, while good, I predict will be a 7.)
Also, on a recommendation from someone, I decided to give
Hibike: Euphonium a shot, and watched the first episode. It was ok. Very average, to me. I've never seen any 'modern Slice of Life' (meaning, essentially, something that's less about humor, and more about... well... CGDCT, I suppose. This would exclude something like Azumanga Daioh!) shows like K-On before, but this seems like just a somewhat funnier version of those. There was some cute humor, but... Seems a bit too moe for my tastes. Anyone seen it, could say whether it gets significantly better later on?