Manzai is a traditional form of Japanese stand-up comedy where two comedians act out skits as a straight man and funny man, guiding the audience through a series of punchlines. Two determined girls, Mafuyu Kogarashi and Fubuki Kitakaze, are aspiring manzai entertainers who struggle to achieve any real success, despite their lengthy time on stage. They often partner up with manzai newcomers and their close friends—Rin Araya and Nayuta Asougi—to help in the opening acts of each other's routines. In order to eventually reach their desired fame, the four girls challenge themselves by changing venues, switching roles, entering competitions, and giving it their best to hone their craft and gain more experience. But before that can happen, these flourishing young artists must first grow into presentable performers to get signed as amateurs and start their dream in earnest. [Written by MAL Rewrite]
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In 2007 a new era of CGDCT (Cute girls doing cute things) began with “Lucky☆Star”. One of the best studios of all time was involved in this work: Kyoto Animation. 13 years later, Studio Gokumi and AXsiZ try to create something similar with "Maesetsu! Opening Act", but unfortunately this work does not quite create the "WOW" effect. Why am I comparing these two? You will see more about this below. Have you ever heard of the Japanese word “Owarai”? Before I came into contact with this anime, this term didn't mean anything to me either. Owarai is a traditional Japanese comedy duo who perform in frontof a live audience. It’s quite similar to stand-up comedy but they always appear as a duo. Their goal is clear: With various gags making people laugh. But this path is also hard and requires a lot of work. Our four main character (2 duos) are trying their best to make a breakthrough in this entertainment industry. Their ambitions are high, they aim to perform at the Nanba Grand Kagetsu Hall in Osaka which is very famous for comedy acts. But every beginning is difficult, our girls have to be content with small gigs in addition to their part-time work. We experience how they slowly become better and better despite ups and downs. It's a typical slice of life anime where we experience their everyday lives. Our first comedy duo “Tokonatsu” consists of Fubuki and Mafuyu. Fubuki is known for being insightful and level-headed, she tends to be slow on some comedic uptakes like doing a proper pause. Mafuyu on the other hand is cheerful and high-spirited, she has high aspirations of being a proclaimed comedian. However, she easily gets distraught when her acts fail which happened at the beginning quite a few times. Nonetheless, they didn’t give up and you can feel how much they enjoy it. Natuya and Rin are the other duo that goes by the name “RDeco”. Natuya is soft-spoken and carefree, she presents herself as a calm and pleasant person, always looking for the positives of the most negative situations. Her partner Rin is taking the logical part. She thinks rationally and is never afraid to opine her thoughts to others. In addition to our two main duos, we can see a few other comedy duos like “JK Cool”, “Freak!” or the duo around Mafuyu's sister Manatsu “Tsundora”. The anime also explains well why all the groups chose that explicit name. My first thought after seeing "Maesetsu!” was like: This is “Lucky☆Star”, just a little bit different in term of the plot. It is not exactly the same style but if gives you that vibe. The girls are portrayed in a similar cute form. The animation is not something that would catch your eye, but it is still fun to watch. In addition to the many comedy appearances, we also hear OP and ED singing by our four main characters. It's not music that gives you a catchy tune, but you can hear the comedy part from it somehow. After the first few of episodes I was a little bit skeptical to be honest. The jokes, what is the most important thing of the anime, were not convincing and also not that funny. But you could clearly feel the increase from episode to episode. Our girls worked really hard to get better and better. It is good to see that their efforts have not been in vain. Another interesting aspect is getting to know this comedy scene. Believe in your dream and work hard on it, one day it may come true! Finally, I would like to say that “Maesetsu!” is certainly not a masterpiece and there are surely parts that could be designed better. Nevertheless, for every CGDCT fan this anime is worth a try, it contains all the typical elements from this genre. May we one day see our girls at the top of a big comedy stage!
I'll keep this shorter than I usually would (partly because I didn't actually plan to write a review for this) and just get to the point. The premise of this show is girls doing comedy, and trying to make it to the big stage. With that being said, you may be expecting absolute comedy gold to come out of this, but unfortunately, that won't come. I assume that would disappoint many, so it's best that you know that you would be as well if that's what you were expecting. In reality, this is more of a slice of life (the cute girls doing cute thingstype I suppose) where the stand-up comedy acts as a supplement. In reality, most of the funnier moments just come from the day to day lives of the main characters (which compose two 2-person stand-up comedy pairs). They have their own specific personalities, and do have some bit of development, at least when it came to overcoming a few of the conflicts that come up in the story. But again, with the comedy aspect, it is one of those where you either like it, or you find it boring (or hate it I guess). You should be able to tell rather quickly where you fall under, though if you're unsure whether you want to watch it, I would say to not bother. I personally enjoyed this show as something I could just casually watch, but in reality, it's probably a bit niche in the type of people that may enjoy it. If nothing in what I wrote sounded interesting, then chances are you aren't part of this niche.
Comedy is subjective. What does stand-up comedy mean? According to Britannica: It is comedy that generally is delivered by a solo performer speaking directly to the audience in some semblance of a spontaneous manner. However, this business practice is very different in Japan. Owarai geinin, or two-man comedians as they are referred to, is a very lucrative business, and by no doubt very popular in its own homeland. I remember having used to watch Owarai geinin in many variety shows through Japanese-imported programs over the years, and the insanity of referencing as much content as they can really helps add to the hilarity vibe, not to mentionthe already magnificent calibre of prolific Japanese comedians that never ceases to amaze me growing up with them in the past. To no one's surprise that such a show was conceived to teach newcomers about Owarai geinin, I'd think that: "Hey, this unknown show can be somewhat niche, but at least unique." And to no one's dismay, this anime quickly bombed by the 3-episode rule for being very tedious and boring, not to mention the flat comedy that almost can be akin to a sound producer having to edit the "audience laughing SFX" track to repeat multiple times from start to finish. If you want to know what's noteworthy of this show, it's Lucky Star's author Kagami Yoshimizu character designs, and mind you, that source material is more than 10+ years old (and currently on hiatus). Oh, and director Yuu Nobuta, having to direct 2 shows this season: Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear, and this (I'd presume he didn't really care about this the entire time). At this point, I really feel sorry for the various female Seiyuus that did the VA jobs for the entire character cast, because you can't match "success is the mother of all failures" with inconsistencies. Yes, the point of this whole show is to see the main quad-duo Owarai geinin of Mafuyu-Fubuki (Tokonatsu) and Nayuta-Rin (RDeco) to "struggle valiantly" and pick up on their own paces of succeeding step-by-step with help from some real-life Owarai geinin (e.g. Freak!'s Junki Tomita and Ubu no Hatsuna), that's really good to have mentors following up their learning journeys. But this is 2020, not 2007. What works in the past doesn't translate well into the current times, and to be honest, Lucky Star back then was kinda the same thing (as told by Joey The Anime Man): "It was batshit full of references that anyone outside of Japan won't understand." and that rhythm applies to this show as well. So unless you live in Japan, you're probably very lost to answer what is going on, and even as an Asian myself, little jokes I can get, and many others I don't. No surprise yet again of the Studio Gokumi X AXsiZ collab, that's always a thing for the bright coloured, child-like shows. Just fine. Same with the OST, nothing really special to say about it. Again, I don't blame you if you entered into this show thinking that you'd have a relaxing comedic time. Nope, it's as entertaining as the worst performances you've ever heard in your life. Nice try, but you're better off watching Lucky Star instead, that I can recommend as a classic.
The proposal of this anime is interesting, but something quite foreign to us, since I doubt that there are many people who enjoy Japanese humor/Japanese comedians in this part of the world, and this is the main argument of this anime. While it's not a work on the same level as Lucky Star, it's not a bad anime, since Yoshimizu Kagami doesn't create bad works. Also I noted that the director in charge of this anime is the same as Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear, High School Fleet and who has worked for other anime such as Endro~ and Toji no Miko, in fact he directedMini Toji's anime, a plus for me. I laughed, although not much of the routines, but there was a Freak!'s routine that I did like a lot, that of the husbandos in the second round, I mean, the one in the final episode, even though they didn't show us the entire routine. This anime, if you don't know much about Japanese humor or you don't like as much as they do, you'll not enjoy this anime so much, and in fact, at first, it was difficult for me to see this anime and if I had seen it weekly, most likely I would have stopped watching this anime. But luckily I was right, I remembered what happened to me in Last Period, jokes more inclined to the Japanese audience, which is not the same comedy used in other anime like Maoujou de Oyasumi that you laugh because they cut a giant ghostly sheet in half, for example. Seeing it all at once made me appreciate that this anime is going up, start a bit slow and difficult, but it softens and you enjoy it as it progresses, I can give certainty that you already find the grace to the fourth chapter and go on. I liked the cast of protagonists, one more than others, I will not say which, the secondary ones are really nice, like Mafuyu's sister and Tomita. Good designs in general, not much more to add, ost pretty good, the color palette used it's ok. And the seiyuu's cast? I was happy to hear Aoba again, in a kawaii character. Anime underrated? Yes. Anime show that any kind of people would like it? Hardly. But it's not a bad anime.
Are you unfamiliar with manzai? I wouldn't recommend this. Oh you are? Well, I'd still be ambivalent about recommending it. Many have overstated Yoshimizu Kagami's role in this shows production and while he does offer some solid character designs I wouldn't consider it in the vein of Lucky Star. I'm no manzai expert, as someone with a bit more familiarity with the medium than most in the West, perhaps such a perspective might be useful. As an original co-production with Yoshimoto Kougyou, the largest comedy agency in Japan there's a novelty to this, and it's wholeheartedly committed to giving a broad look at the industry from an amateurperspective. But the jokes aren't that funny, even from the context of someone familiar with the style and its sense of humour (this was a minor point of conversation in the Japanese online discourse) and it takes some time for the series to get a handle on the pacing that suits it best. It gets funnier. That's very much the point. You don't decide to be a comedian on a whim and wake up funnier. You bomb, you fall back on dumb puns, you do it on stage to no one laughing and then you do it again and hope this time, maybe this time, you'll get a laugh. Maesetsu will beat this into you with aggressive schadenfreude. Every bomb hurts you almost as much as it does the characters. To me that's the novelty that makes this series interesting. There's a believable sense of character progression that's rather honest. As the characters grow into themselves they also grow into their jokes and there is a satisfaction that comes from seeing that. Perhaps it's just the writing staff becoming more comfortable with writing manzai as production went on, even the material from established (fictional) comedians comes off weak early on. Regardless, it's a quality that endeared me as time went on. At best it's a middling 4-girls show and at worst a curiosity. Yet there's value in exploring such a curiosity. While I can't argue for it's quality, it's a memorable experience I'll keep in mind for a while to come. For the daring with a mind to look into a facet of Japanese entertainment less-explored within anime, give it a look.
Never have I seen a show about comedy manage to be so unfunny. Comedy is supposed to be subjective, but the jokes in this are very objectively bad. The worst part it's that they're not even bad in an ironic way, where the jokes are funny because they're bad. They simply fail to summon any response other than boredom. You know it's bad when the joke bad comedy duo routines in other anime making fun of the art form end up being funnier than the supposed authentic experience on display here. Part of the problem is that none of the characters are in any way actualcharacters. Gun to my head I could not tell you a single thing about any of them that sets them apart from the rest, much less what any of their names were. Bland is putting is nicely, and only sadism would bring anyone willingly to a show they might put on. Even the acts that were supposed to be the "professional" and "good" comedy duos were pathetic. I know there are cultural differences and a language barrier perhaps keeping some of the jokes from landing but that shouldn't prevent every single one from falling flat as they do. Despite technically being animated there was nothing that felt alive with the animation, just boring safe direction with nothing dynamic to catch your attention. It's a boring, painful to watch series of events and if you manage to get through every episode the only emotion you'll be left with is relief that it's finally over. 5/10 is generous.
This just proves that people only see one form of comedy. Me on the other hand have have visited these places and i understand what they are doing. once you get its not that hard. Just shows how one minded people are. I ran into this show from some ad when watch Boruto and i just have to say its amazing.. I know we wont get another season one can only hope :/ There is so much info we have not gotten and soo much back story for characters it would be a shame if they dont keep going on. After this show ihad watched K-On and that one is also amazing... I hope people go in with an open mind. Just give it a chance. Please