This Week in Anime
What the Hell is Going On in Pop Team Epic?
by Monique Thomas & Steve Jones,
Is it possible for lightning to strike twice? When it comes to the impenetrable weirdness of Pop Team Epic, the answer is yes. Vandalize the offices of your sponsors. Stare directly into the face of God and ask, "Are you mad?"
This series is streaming on Crunchyroll
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network.
Spoiler Warning for discussion of the series ahead.
@Lossthief | @BeeDubsProwl | @NickyEnchilada | @vestenet |
Big changes this week, Nicky! But while we may have some new corporate overlords, I want to assuage any reader worries with my personal guarantee that "This Week In Anime" will be the same as it always was: bad. But with watermarks now! And thankfully, with a little finagling, I've figured out how to make them as unobtrusive and legally compliant as possible.
We at "This Week In Anime" are known masters of subtlety.
Some of you may recognize that the TWIA team has consisted of several "Nth Degree Shitposters," something that is a big pride point and integral to our column's success and effectiveness. We've dedicated ourselves to being purposefully strange, absurd, and toughing it out against each other in these dedicated weekly joke battles. Still, even we have to gaze in awe over the sheer power levels of one opponent's return. Watch us get destroyed this week against Pop Team Epic's second season!
That said, independent of its flavor of humor, the best thing about the first season of the anime was its appropriately anarchic adaptational philosophy. It spanned many different art styles and media, boosted a broad swathe of international creators (mainly that one French dude), used different voice actors for each episode, and aired a rerun of each episode with new voice actors for each episode's second half. There was nothing else like it, and it's a tough act to follow!
Even the second season's opening animation challenges you to try and perceive it! (Caution: the middle transition might be hazardous to some.)
The second OP has grown on me a lot—I like how the song sounds like you smashed three anime OPs together. I also like how Bkub gets a different credit each week (we're leaving these untranslated to protect the innocent).
And while you could make a lot of comparisons with Pop Team Epic to other parody series, like some viral YouTube videos or even something like Robot Chicken of the early 00s. The amount of flexing and the deep cuts that really deal critical damage to my humor organs keep me on my toes with each vignette.
Somehow, you can take the same Pop Team Epic sketches, swap in some handsome dudes with those haircuts, and it's still funny. It might even be funnier. I don't know what humor is anymore. Is it this? It must be this.
What's also neat trivia is that most of the voice actor pairs have a history from other series like Yuma Uchida and Junya Enoki. They also starred as Megumi Fushiguro and Yuji Itadori in Jujutsu Kaisen. It feels like a nice excuse to make people get together and go totally off-script, like in the Dora the Explorer parody segment.
What better bonding activity than giving comeuppance to a sexually-harassing farmer by sawing his genitals on a lumber mill? Twice!!
What's fun is that the stunt casting runs the whole gamut. You'll get veteran voice actors who have no idea what the show is or what it's supposed to be doing. You'll get friends who shoot the shit in the post-credits. And you'll get duos who know exactly what show they're on and use that as a license to go off-script as much as they want. It's all great.
The Square Enix bits (get that contractually obligated bread) are also turning into another font of stylistic spoofs. They began with Final Fantasy stuff—no surprise there—but I'm thrilled they've moved onto lampooning increasingly esoteric games in the company's oeuvre.
My platonic ideal of Pop Team Epic is an anime that appeals to so few people it may as well appeal to nobody, and I'm pretty sure the creators share that ethos.
Even slightly looser variations grant a lot of texture to the humor, like going full sketch mode while busting out a solo on a recorder.
They might understand PTE better than even Bkub. It's a scary thought.
Seriously, please help me.
discuss this in the forum (9 posts) |