Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m excited to return to one of the most unusual reader request projects I’ve ever encountered, the ‘70s comedy Ganso Tensai Bakabon. So far, the show has mostly just rambled through a series of wacky adventures centered on Bakabon’s deeply stupid father, a trend I expect to continue for the foreseeable future. Rather than the continuing narratives that define the modern late-night anime paradigm, Ganso Tensai Bakabon is a classic sitcom, aimed at general Japanese audiences, and lacking the specific subcultural assumptions that further define/marginalize the shows we generally frame as “popular anime.”
As a result, Bakabon feels more akin to something like The Simpsons or Ren & Stimpy than Neon Genesis Evangelion. It exists within a lineage of television comedy that’s actually far more universal than what we generally recognize as anime, and it thus offers a more realistic portrait of general Japanese comedic and cultural sensibilities than our usual stories of giant robots and melodramatic boarding schools. At the same time, the show’s art design and animation embody the distinct excellence of Japan’s animation tradition, offering beautiful painted backgrounds and remarkably expressive flourishes of character movement. It’s altogether unlike basically anything else I’ve covered, and I’ve rambled more than enough at this point, so let’s get right back into Bakabon-papa’s nonsense!
Episode 2
The color and art design of this OP still impresses. It offers some of the most dramatic examples of the show’s tendency towards scribbled hatch shading over shadow fills, and burns through a wide array of inventively preposterous visual scenarios
The inking of this one shot of Bakabon-papa is wild. The uneven line weight evokes the character’s sense of anxiety while also granting a remarkable sense of texture to the composition, as if the ink is dripping into the grooves of corrugated cardboard
Of course, a fair share of this show’s content is just based on cultural or linguistic assumptions that are foreign to me. This “a frog-dragonfly, that’s unusual!” moment is totally unreadable to me, but presumably makes some sense in Japanese
“Hello, Turtle? Mr. Turtle!”
While his wife actually cleans the house, Bakabon-papa is busy admiring a story of how Urashima Taro was assisted by a giant turtle. This story is still mainly a comedy for boys, having initially run in Weekly Shonen Magazine, and thus centers the experiences of Bakabon and his childlike father while setting Bakabon’s sister and mother as more conventionally domestic characters. I’ll be interested to see if Bakabon’s mother eventually gets to overcome this limited characterization and have the same sort of wild fun as the men in the family
Their relative characterization is clearly reflected in their visual design – all of the jokesters are super-deformed and child-sized, while Bakabon’s mother is about twice his father’s height
“I’m no knight-errant, no errands for me!” This must be a valiant translation of whatever the Japanese pun was, another reminder of how many jokes I’m likely missing because of the language barrier
The more a show leans into a specific culture’s assumptions about society and personal behavior, the less its drama or comedy will be translatable to foreign audiences. As a result, non-physical comedies and character dramas are often the hardest genres to translate internationally, frequently requiring intimate knowledge of a particular culture or language to really be understood. On a macro scale, this reality of translation can have a detrimental effect on what sort of art is funded and created – for example, one reason so much of Hollywood’s recent output has been dedicated to simplistic action spectacles is because simplistic action spectacles can be understood without any cultural context. The less specific art is, the more translatable it is, but seeking that goal tends to result in less distinctive art that has less to do with the unique conditions of our lives
Mama sends him out to get Turtlecakes. Nice to see her razzing her husband for his bad jokes, this is the sort of stuff I was hoping for
“Dumbass, that’s the wrong song!” And here we have a joke that presumably requires an intimate knowledge of ‘70s Japanese nursery rhymes
“You shouldn’t bully turtles!” “You’ve got it wrong, I was bullying this kid!” Followed by a joke that scans for basically everyone
“What is your relationship to this turtle?” “I’m a family friend.” The comic’s fundamentally excellent sense of comic absurdism still rings true
Bakabon-papa buys a turtle for 100 yen. I’m kinda curious as to what 100 yen’s purchasing power was back in the ‘70s
Love this turtle’s goofy little face. Everyone’s so dang expressive in this show
“Bakabon, please lead our guest to his room.” Getting a lot of comic mileage out of Papa’s deference to this turtle
“Dad, turtles are reptiles, they can’t drink coffee.” Bakabon’s younger sister seems as mature as his mother
Love the detail of Papa having to pull out a lower shelf to stand on in order to reach the kitchen cupboard
Some more lovely background compositions as Papa takes his new friend for a walk. It’s wild to see this show tossing off feats of art design that modern anime would kill for even for these quick transition shots. Really goes to show how completely overtaxed the modern industry is by its level of content production, as well as how significantly the advent of CG backgrounds has undercut the aesthetic qualities of recent shows
At the local police box, the officer is enjoying some ramen brought by the appropriately named Rameko
The existence of local police boxes situated right in the middle of Japan’s many walkable neighborhoods seems like it goes a long way towards shifting the relationship between police and regular citizens – they are more a part of the community, not an overseer being inflicted upon it
“Silence! You must be planning to steal from the rich! You’re under arrest!” Of course, the general characterization of police as belligerent buffoons seems to span nearly all cultures
One of Papa’s idiot friends stops by, resulting in a series of pratfalls that ultimately breaks poor Mr. Turtle’s shell. Catastrophe!
“The Jealous Wedding Anniversary”
Lovely colors and a dynamic series of establishing shots as we hone in on Papa lazing around on a park bench. The show departs from its usual sitcom layouts to present energy-driving shots of a new arrival’s feet rushing towards the camera, and pigeons scattering at his boisterous approach
“Is it alright to be that happy about something?” I have to agree, Papa
And more playful tricks of layouts, like this actual spinning of the composition to simulate this character turning his head right-side-up
The man reveals it’s his wedding anniversary, prompting Papa to realize it’s also his own wedding anniversary
“My wife is beautiful, and we are the best couple in the world.” Bless Wife Guy Papa
This new guy rightfully points out that Papa’s “loving memories” of his wife are more like how a mother would treat her child
“If you really loved me you’d eat this bone!” We really do get some wonderfully surreal moments in this show
Having done his best to ruin this man’s marriage, Papa skips away with a light heart and full smile
Meanwhile, Mama has found herself a kitten. I love how all the animals in this production look like awful little schemers, complete with wretchedly contorted evil grins. It’s like every animal has the head of Danny DeVito
More beautiful colors and layouts as Papa commences his feud with the cat, lending remarkable aesthetic richness to simple scenes of him raging and kicking the cat out. This show!
Incredible entrance for the local police officer, who fires three shots into their roof, proudly announces himself, and is swiftly drop-kicked by a deranged Papa
I like how the police box wall is covered in “criminal profiles” that are just goofy scribbled faces and tokusatsu costumes
And Done
Welp, that sure was plenty more nonsense with a charming crew of idiots! Bakabon himself took a step back this time, leaving even more room for Papa to make an outrageous fool of himself. “Papa is jealous of his wife’s potential suitors” was ultimately a less fertile vein of comedy than the show’s more conceptually absurd stories like “there are pirates burying loot in our yard,” but the show made up for it with a rich array of beautiful backgrounds and dynamic layouts. It’s hard not to feel warm and cozy in a show with such inviting art design!
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