Happy Kiss Archives | Page 2 of 2

How many weeks can an anime milk the joke of a team of heroes uninterested in the villains and the lame monsters and have it remain amusing? Cute High Earth Defense Club Happy Kiss is definitely going to try to find out as it runs this joke ragged.

Maybe I’m just go to show my age, but I remember reading the Peanuts comics when I was a kid (they were old even then mind you) and reading the strips where Lucy holds the ball for Charlie Brown before pulling it away. Over and over again the punchline was always the same no matter what twists came earlier in the sequence or what reasoning she gave Charlie Brown as to why this time would be different. This episode felt a bit like that as the same joke is played again and again. The main hero, Kyotaro, is not interested in saving anyone or anything. His few moments of action are the quickest path to him getting more sleep or food. Despite the repeat of this joke, it lands most every time.

Part of that is the increasing frustration on behalf of the villains and part of it is the reaction of his own team-mates. Now whether this joke can continue to travel through an entire season or whether it starts showing some wear in the next few episodes will more or less determine the fate of Happy Kiss. Will it be a parody that brings ongoing chuckles throughout, or is it going to go the way of so many others with a concept that is funny for about five minutes that then dries out. I guess we’ll see, but so far this anime has definitely made me laugh.

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Karandi James

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I enjoyed the first Cute High Earth Defense Club anime but dropped the sequel mid-way because it just felt repetitive. I wasn’t going to pick this up, but a few positive reviews encouraged me to try episode one. I ended up being pleasantly surprise. What did you think of this first episode?

What happens when five guys gather in a club room and then a bath house talking about nothing in particular when a strange creature appears and grants them magic powers they didn’t ask for and don’t want? Well, we’ve seen before what happens and for a season at least it was pretty entertaining so what does Happy Kiss bring to the table?

This time around we have an otter instead of a wombat and this otter claims to be a Prince. Judging from the preview of the next episode it looks like the politics of the aliens are actually going to come more into play this time around though we’ll wait and see. We also have five different guys but at the same time it is more of the same. While the cast are amusing enough they are all pretty much standing in for some fairly standard tropes and the dialogue, while entertaining isn’t exactly flowing naturally. Particularly with fourth wall breaking comments about the animators flubbing a scene.

Still, this works because it holds to the standard magical girl cliches and injects just enough humour to the situation through the absurdity of it. As a first episode it was amusing enough and small details like the tea cups early in the episode having a stripe of the colour the boys would eventually transform into were appreciated.

I’ll give this one a bit longer and see how it goes. And yes, I know I’m being contrary after dropping other comedy shows but for some reason I have a soft spot for this franchise.

Thanks for reading.

Karandi James

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