Hey folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to keep moving on one of our more recent projects, the goofy and visually enthralling Kaguya-sama: Love is War. If you’ve been following these articles, you probably know my overall impressions at this point – I’m constantly finding new things to rave about regarding Shinichi Omata’s direction, but haven’t yet been hooked by the show’s cast, and am generally just kind of whelmed by its comedy.
That’s not unusual for me, of course. It’s a rare anime comedy that can keep my attention for long, and altogether, I think Nichijou is the only one I’d count as a personal favorite. I’ve discussed before how comedy, like horror, is built out of the element of surprise – and in order to cultivate that surprise, it relies on an assumed set of common cultural assumptions. The more complex and ambitious a joke is, the more it must assume its audience is drawing from a specific cultural and knowledge base – and as a dude from New England, I don’t really possess the experience to parse genuinely clever Japanese comedy. What is left is the stuff that’s universal – slapstick, silly faces, and everything else that translates without translation.
In the end, this means that the anime comedy which I might find genuinely clever is frequently untranslatable to me, while the stuff I do understand feels simplistic and repetitive. Honing the fundamentals can certainly ameliorate this effect (Nichijou and Sun & Moon are strong examples of that), but ultimately, I tend to watch these shows more for the characters than the jokes. So here’s to hoping for more meaty character moments, as we explore one more episode of Kaguya-sama!
