Working has all the ingredients to be the next big hit. Based off a 4-koma, it has managed to combine the right formula together to attract mountains of praise from across anime fandom. It has successfully managed to gather a group of cute girls into a small area together (useful because now they save on background art expenses) and make them interact and generally do cute stuff together. We have the clueless cute dimwit, the shy and unwilling moeblob, the graceful, big busted female who’s eyes are permanently closed and is probably is a closet lesbian. In fact, this show was destined for success if it wasn’t for one big problem.
This anime has men in it. How dare you do this A-1? Just because the original manga had men in it doesn’t mean you had to adapt it exactly! Crush the hopes and dreams of otaku everywhere why don’t you.
OK, being serious from now on, Working is just another 4-koma adaptation, and not a very good one at that. There’s no real originality in the characters and the jokes are just pretty much the same jokes you’ll see in every other 4-koma adaptation. The problem comes from the 4-koma format itself. There only seems to be one format of jokes for a 4-koma.
And you can be guaranteed that this unusual character trait (which, incidentally, you’ll have seen in hundreds of other characters before, normally from other 4-koma adaptations) will be repeated and used as the joke throughout the rest of the series. The girl is small, the guy is a minicon (actually, that was quite a nice turn of phrase from Working), the graceful girl carries a sword. Worst of all is the girl who is afraid of men. Yeah, I haven’t seen that a bizzilion times before. It actually makes me quite interested to watch that anime with the girl who wants to be a slut.
I’m being a bit overly harsh here. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before and it’s nothing you’ll remember that well once it’s over, but it’s not like it’s a bad show or anything. The animation is very good, the seiyuu cast is star-studded, the music…ok, the music was horrible but that’s easy to ignore. You can watch Working as a sort of mild filler in your life while your waiting for something worthwhile to do with your time to appear. But to be honest, this isn’t even as good as K-ON. At least K-ON had the decency to actually rid the screen of horrible male presence.
13 Comments
That’s sad…perhaps I will only be watching one anime this season. o/
To borrow the concept from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, there’s a hidden fifth panel: darkness. In this case the secret fifth panel is the audience going ‘umm, okaaayy…’ Too many cliches by far, so many jokes that just fell flat on their faces.
I tend to generally like 4-koma adaptations quite a bit (loved Lucky Star and Azumanga, thought Seitokai no Ichizon was pretty good), but this was very disappointing for a first episode. Uh-oh, you and I are in agreement on comedy. What is the world coming to?
I’d read that 4-koma. needs moar chicks though imo
It is what it is.
@mefloraine
Imagine the horror of watching the first episode of everything in a given season and not a single one being any good!!! God, I might just give up on anime altogether if that happened
@ExecutiveOtaku
Heh, I was actually thinking of that fifth panel of doom when I was drawing my wonderful 4-koma. The fifth panel of doom would be ‘rinse and repeat’. Actually, who needs rinsing!
@Shinmaru
As in baby chickens? Yes, every anime needs more chicks
@Baka-Raptor
Isn’t everything
That MS-Paint drawing is so the perfect microcosm for this show.
I think that you’re right, that the formula of the 4-koma controls the pace of this show, with everything feeling like a punchline, or the setup to the next joke. The humor, as a result, is not particularly subtle. I must say I was amused by the episode, though. My biggest concern is that they will hit the same jokes over and over. If that starts happening, this show will be dropped.
Man, that’s some real talent you can see in that ms paint drawing.
I’ll check it out…eventually. Not watching anything since Thursday equals backlog fun.
@Aroduc, Janette
MS Paint? I’m disgusted, I drew that in photoshop!
@Joojoobees
There needs to be development of the cast. That’s what usually makes 4-koma work, but my hopes certainly aren’t high for this one
Whoever said 4komas require originality?
It would be kind of awkward if society’s style of humor changed every season.
I don’t care if you’re the one who drew it, that’s totally MS Paint
i don’t quite see why having guys in this anime is a bad thing…
@Aorii
It’s not originality that’s the problem (although I do believe that each anime should try to do something different or at least add shine onto something already done rather than sticking with the status quo). It’s more the repetitive nature of the jokes. If this is all they have then it’s going to fail even harder than it already does
@chii
Sarcasm on my part, sorry if that didn’t come through. It was a subtle jab at K-ON moeblob male fans who don’t want men to invade their dreams with these girls
oh i see now lol
a no male presence or just one in a show makes for a bad show imo (some exceptions apply of course depending on the genre)
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