I think that Keroro Gunsou is probably going to be the kind of lunatic series that I will enjoy more in small doses. Lots of energy, and interesting characters, and lots of 4th wall breaks, and plenty of manic energy. But I can see where it could wear if I try to watch too much of it at one time.

It's actually a 15-minute series with two 15-minute episodes bundled together to fit a half hour time slot. Which is a format that works pretty well for certain kinds of series, most notably Ninja Nonsense. The big benefit of the format is that a lot of kinds of comic contrivances become tedious if spread to a full half hour, but can be fresh and amusing as long as they're shorter.

The second half of the first episode is a flashback to the first meeting of Keroro Gunsou with the Hinata family. Natsumi, older sister, is the sane and responsible one of the family. Aki, the mother, is editor of a kid's manga magazine and is quite weird. Fuyuki, the younger brother, kind of splits the difference between the two, being not as rational as Natsumi and not as nutso as Aki.

The first half was also series foundation, in a sense. Aki reveals that the house they're living in has a basement and offers a room down there to Keroro to live in. He accepts joyously. Aki later tells the kids that there are stories that the basement used to be a jail, and that a girl died down there, and that there are stories that her ghost haunts the place -- and she does. We saw her, but they didn't tell any more about her story than that.

Is she the blonde? The blonde and the ninja both show up in the OP, and I know they're both regular characters. But in the early stages of a show like this they're not in any hurry to roll out characters. The next half-hour episode is about two more, a girl named Momoka and a frog named Tamama.

The translator made an interesting choice. Keroro has a catch-phrase with which he ends most of his sentences, that being de arimasu. (I heard one sentence that he ended de aru de arimasu. Which is really weird.) The translator decided to translate that trailing de arimasu as "Sir, yes, sir!" Which ain't too bad, in character.

4th wall breaks can be fun, too, and I think they broke the 4th wall at least 5 times in the first half hour.

The dreaded Space Frog Invasion turned out to be an anticlimax. Keroro and 4 others came down from the fleet to scout the situation out. And after Natsume discovered Keroro, by accident, the commander of the fleet decided the whole thing was a bad job and retreated, leaving the five behind. Wussy, I say. Wussy!

Of course, if I had Natsumi mad at me, I'd be terrified too.

UPDATE: I'm not just sure what the prospects are for fan service in this. I assume little-to-none, since it was intended to be a kid show. But the picture on the cover of one of the DVD cases shows Natsume in a bikini, and she looks rather more shapely up top than I thought she was. Also, Aki is definitely an adult.

Probably that's just some artist taking liberties. But she's definitely her mother's little girl.

UPDATE: Ep 2 proves that some jokes really can't carry a full half hour. A whole half hour of Momoka trying to confess to Fuyuki alternating with Momoka beating the crap out of Tamama ceased to be funny about half way through.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 06:20 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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