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Once upon a time, if you had come up to me and said that a bunch of Japanese guys made an “anime” entirely using MikuMikuDance starring a bunch of popular female voice actresses pretending to be high school girls who are pretending to be in a non-existent after-school club but are really just doing comedy routines from Japanese variety shows and you told me that this was actually genuinely funny you would have elicited from me an incredulous guffaw followed, perhaps, by a slap on the shoulder and a hearty “come off it, mate.” But, no, Tesagure is that show and incredulous me would have ... dined on crow.

So, what is Tesagure? Like I said: it’s basically a Japanese variety show masquerading as an episodic, slice-of-life anime. The masquerade is paper thin, of course, and the show indulges often in pointing it out. It’s animated entirely in MikuMikuDance, which is this really awful 3D animation program that is the software equivalent of trying to wrestle a coked-up, greased baboon. If you’ve ever watched stuff on Youtube or NicoNico labelled “MMD” that’s the program: models will clip through each other constantly and the hair meshes just go nuts all the time. So, the fact that these guys were able to make relatively professional-looking, fifteen to twenty-minute episodes with minimal clipping and nothing going insane is grounds for, like, the Nobel Peace Prize. Now, don’t get me wrong, Tesagure looks awful. I mean, it’s made in MMD: you get what you pay for. The textures for the models are simple and probably just stock that came with the software. Be that as it may, I think that lends a lot to Tesagure’s charm. See, it’s supposed to look stupid because it’s a Japanese comedy and Japanese comedy is quintessentially incapable of subtlety.

And that’s the most remarkable thing about Tesagure. The writing is actually funny -- to me, a Westerner. The reason I find this so remarkable is because Japanese people have a hard time dealing with comedy. Partly this is a consequence of culture: being funny isn’t Japanese. Japanese culture is super-serious even when it’s trying not to be. I’m not trying to be racist or bigoted here: I’m positing this on anthropological fact. Moreover, the Japanese language, though in certain areas quite robust, is highly contextual, owing to its Chinese and Sanskrit roots. Quite often, sentences and even certain words have multiple interpretations and everything coming out of Japanese person’s mouth is highly ambiguous, subject to a high degree of misinterpretation, and predicated on a host of tacit assumptions grounded in the cultural paradigm. So, telling a joke in Japanese is really, really hard. The language simply isn’t built for it. Consequently, Japanese people who want to be funny have had to construct ways around this. Their solution, from what I’ve experienced, has been to simply hammer the joke in as hard as physically possible, subtlety be damned. Crack open any gag manga and you’ll probably see one of the characters do a little aside after the joke where they flat-out explain it as obviously as possible -- because they have to, lest the Japanese audience be confused (“I don’t understand. She said ‘I really like you.’ Why did she hit him? Oh, I see, she wasn’t being serious. My language is incapable of denoting sarcasm.”).

Conversely, Tesagure’s jokes somehow come across despite the ponderousness of the language. And I think the main reason why it is so successful is because all of the dialogue is recorded live. That’s why I’ve been calling this a Japanese variety show. The voice actresses are literally in a little sound booth together talking to each other and doing the gags. And it works amazingly well! Moreover, the jokes are ad hoc and done on the spot, just like in Japanese talk shows, so occasionally the girls will break down into giggling fits on the spot or screw up the joke or interrupt with little quips. This gives the dialogue an incredibly life-like quality that really brings the humour to life. They aren’t just reading the gags in typical manga-esque, stone-faced monotone. They are just a bunch of Japanese women goofing around in a sound booth. It makes the comedy more human, more spontaneous and natural. It utterly lacks the artificial quality you’d find in something like an internet 4koma. In the later episodes, the girls will record on location at actual Japanese parks and attractions. The actresses themselves even exclaim how unheard of that is!

One of the seiyuus is a real-life pop idol (I’m not big into J-idols so I don’t know who or care) and all of the other seiyuu have professional vocal careers. Thus, they sing both the opening and ending themes and they are really quite good! The soundtrack to Tesagure is nothing short of godlike and I willingly listen to the OST frequently. In addition to the opening and ending themes, they will occasionally sing other songs which, when translated, are extremely self-deprecating and actually incredibly clever. I would watch this show for the music alone, which puts Tesagure head and shoulders above other comedy anime.

Tesagure is basically the Japanese version of Mystery Science Theatre 3000. They just sit around riffing on anime and manga stereotypes and doing humourous bit gags. And that’s great because it actually works super well. It’s genuinely funny for everyone, not just Japanese people: real John Lennon, hands-joined-across-the-world crap. Man, I hate MikuMikuDance.

So...like...what if Shinji actually, you know, got in the robot? Like, what if instead of Shinji being a horrible, insufferable misanthropist and his dad being a crazy megalomaniac that really can't get over his dead wife, Shinji was super-hype about saving Earth and his dad just wanted to watch everything burn? That's kind of what Captain Earth is.

Basically, everyone in this show is some kind of stereotypical Giant Robot archetype and their role in the story uncannily parallels the roles of Evangelion characters but reverses those characterizations. Don't believe me? Take a look at the main character: Daichi Manatsu. He's a stereotypical Japanese high school ... student who just wants to live a normal life but finds out he's genetically pre-destined to pilot a frigging awesome giant robot. He lives with his step-dad who is actually the leader of a secret underground organisation that's constantly plotting NEFARIOUS DEEDS (TM) with a super-secret shadowy cabal like they are the Tribunal from Metalocalypse talking about how to stop Dethklok. Sound familiar? Here's the thing, though: Daichi is SUPER HYPE about wanting to get in the robot. He thinks it's totally radical. Everybody else wants to stop him (well, the unnamed shadowy figures at least). So, it's basically like bizarro-Evangelion. And that's cool, because Evangelion (in all of its incarnations) has always been seriously and irrevocably marred by its thoroughly-unlikable protagonists. Oh and the show's writer is Yoji Enokido who was the screenwriter for...Evangelion.

So, having Daichi be a real go-getter is a refreshing change of pace for the genre, which has seen its fair share of teenage protagonists NOT want to get in the robot and/or being unlikable weirdos (I'm looking at YOU, Heero Yuy from Gundam Wing). Granted, Tengen Toppa Guren Lagan saw two protagonists (Simon and Kamina) both generally optimistic about their piloting destiny and arguably that's what gave TTGL such a cultural impact at the time of its release.

But wait, you may ask, if Daichi is basically Bizarro-Shinji, are there analogues for Rei, Asuka, Risuko and the rest? Yeah! Yeah, there totally is. So, in the first episode we are introduced to a quiet, almost unearthly boy who befriends Daichi and has supernatural powers and their relationship quickly escalates into ambiguously gay yaoi-bate. Sound familiar? Sound...maybe, I dunno...like Kaworu Nagisa? Yeah, he basically is except his name is Teppei and he has purple hair instead of dirty blonde. And, in keeping with the motif, unlike Kaworu, Teppei is a generally cool guy who (so far) doesn't seem to want to blow up Earth or initiate Third Impact or...whatever Kaworu was supposed to do in Eva. Rei has an analogue too, who, in keeping with the archetype, is tacit and mystifying but, unlike Rei, she's actually pleasant and not socially awkward and has brown hair. Daichi's uncle is basically Fuyutski; Ritsuko has gone from being a super-hot chain-smoking MILF to being a dorky, balding Anglo-Saxon man; Misato is there too and she's basically the same but younger and with short hair (go away Woolie).

But, more than just being a refreshing take on giant robot anime, Captain Pla...Earth has a lot going for it visually as well. For one: there are actual animations. I can't count the number of times I've watched anime try to get away with just looping animations and wiggling the cells in the vain hopes of impressing action upon me. Captain Earth's art direction is subtly beautiful. It's not the highly-rendered, meticulously detailed backdrops you would find in big-budget titles but it's also not the flat-colour rubbish you see in stuff like Gantz. It feels good to watch and that's really important when you are making a piece of VISUAL media. The colours have a very natural tone and everything is quite bright and vivid.

Being a giant robot anime, there are giant robots and their designs are also of a high calibre. The protagonist's mecha, Earth Engine Impacter [sic], has a broad-shouldered narrow-waisted design that reminds me a lot of Nadesico. In fact, all of the mecha have that Nadesico style to them, with just a hint of modern sensibility. Granted, Earth Engine at first struck me as rather ugly, not quite as garrulous as, say, those old 70's mecha but still rather bulky and cumbersome. But, it quickly grew on me watching it fight, which, by the way, is somewhat well-animated (although brief). All the mecha so far lack feet, giving them a quality reminiscent of Zone of The Enders mecha. Indeed, the dogfights look a lot like Zone of the Enders as well and this really reinforces the feel that the show could serve remarkably well as the precursor to a toy line or video game franchise. It's really video-gamey in fact. Bones, the production studio, didn't do Nadesico but they did do RahXephon and Eureka Seven, both of which visually echo the design choices in Captain Earth.

The title and ending themes are your typical crooning J-pop numbers. I don't fancy them but the use of male vocals is a refreshing change and the songs aren't irritating, which is extremely important if you are watching video files without bookmarking. Occasionally a song will play in media res and do an admirable job of setting the mood. Comically, the music that plays in the first episode seems to be a cover of Korsakov's Flight of The Bumblebee. That's neat.

In all, I'm thoroughly impressed by what I've watched so far and definitely intend to continue watching. The unique storytelling, compelling visuals, and likable characters make this a must-watch for people who enjoy the concept of giant mecha destroying things.