Dagashi Kashi is… watchable? It’s not really much more than that yet, but it’s a pleasant enough time for twenty minutes a week. I’m frankly a little unsure what I’ll have to say about it each episode; I feel like this first writeup sort of covers everything the show has to offer, but I guess we’ll have to see where it goes. I suppose I could always just go deep in describing exactly how the show evokes Hotaru’s candy lust each week, since that does seem to be where the show’s own staff are putting their focus. And actually, there’s always room for a formal breakdown of why manzai is bad. So yeah, probably won’t have a problem after all!
You can check out my first review over at ANN, or my episode two notes below.
Yeah, every other expression makes her look like she’s losing her mind with candy lust, and the eyes pretty much naturally do that too
Kinako-bou is today’s first snack
A big Gundam parody starring dagashi snacks
A colony drop parody, lol
And she kind of loses the train of her metaphor somewhere along the way
Hotaru’s got that confidence + silliness
“The technique commonly known as ‘God’s Left Hand,’ correct?”
It’s all pretty standard manzai comedy
“Wanna try becoming… adults?” welp, time for misunderstandings
Namaiki Beer, fake beer you dissolve in water
The old “getting drunk on fake beer” trick
The show isn’t really funny, it’s just… inoffensive, I guess?
Being lazy with Saya in the summer heat
Saya being all “how should I treat this strange child” to Kokonotsu is pretty good
More history lessons. Basically a slight cooking show of cheap candy crap
And now another bizarre interlude starring Fue Ramune
Hotaru is the sun, for some reason. Her stories always kinda fall apart in the last act
But there was actually a point to her metaphor, holy crap
And now Menko cards
“Watchable” is definitely the word for Dagashi Kashi. It’s not really notable in any respect (well, I really like the character designs), but it’s never unpleasant either. I’m not sure I agree that the manzai routine is inherently unfunny, though I’m not certain how it differs from the western straight man funny man act.
I watched a bunch of Parks and Rec this weekend, and it struck me that the manzai tsukkomi is the equivalent of a sitcom laugh track.
Shows like P&R replace that with “look into the camera like I’m on The Office” reaction shots, which means that they’re short and sweet, as well as not over-used, as they’re generally reserved for scene buttons. Otherwise, jokes are usually built upon by having characters react to an absurdity with their own brand of slightly off-normal.
In addition, the secret to a show like Parks and Rec is that there are no strict tsukkomi characters. Everyone has their own form of absurdity that comes out from time to time, even the people who usually function as a “straight man.” The one real “normie” character, they wrote out by season 2, because he was so bland, and replaced him with another absurd character, plus a straight man character with his own points of weirdness to riff on.