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Take the basic ingredients for a high school anime. Add a sprinkling of supernatural mystery and leave to simmer for one episode. Apply liberal quantities of character depth and dry wit, and mix well. Finally, add the adorable romance. Season with high-quality sound editing and a pinch of premium animation. One serving per week.

Schrodinger’s Bunny: The Anime

RDNDoBGS is a cut above the rest. It poses the concept of Puberty Syndrome: a supernatural phenomenon that affects adolescents according to their personalities and issues. From here, it asks what would happen if ordinary people, with ordinary life troubles, found that their problems had gained a new and ... impossible dimension.

Any good storyteller knows that plot and theme are two very different things. The plot of Your Name, for example, is about a supernatural event effecting two unsuspecting students, but the central theme is the unusual relationship created between them. Invisibunny follows a very similar formula. The supernatural element is secondary to the people it effects. It’s one thing to understand a strange concept, and quite another to see how different personalities react. That, I would say, is what makes shows like these so watchable.

The character design is masterfully done. Sakuta and Mai are not generic placeholders, nor do they have exaggerated personalities built purely for entertainment value. They are intelligent, witty, and completely in control of their own selves. Sakuta’s deadpan sarcasm is a joy to watch, as is Mai’s savage honesty. By simply watching these two discuss their backgrounds and the issues surrounding their situation, the chemistry between them evolves organically. The supporting characters are varied and interesting as well. Even in the emotional chaos of the first three episodes, the story still finds time to develop them.

On the technical side, sound and visuals are on point. The look of the animation is nothing fancy, but it doesn’t need to be. Every detail that needs to be there is there. This is a subtle delicacy, not a feast for the eyes. But the audio is the real hero here. Both the OP and the ED match the tone of the music to the animation. In the OP, Sakuta runs against the backdrop of an energetic beat. In the ED, Mai strolls along to the melody of a jazz number. Even the background music, which is subtle and easy to miss, enhances the atmosphere according to the action. As an added twist, the ED changes according to whichever character is the focus of the current arc.

Though we’re only a few episodes into Sakuta’s Bizarre Adventure at the time of writing, it seems to me that the show will run in a series of small arcs, as one case of Puberty Syndrome after another raises its head. If Deadpanman and Bunnygirl maintains its level of excellence for the entire run, It might become the best of the season.

Osmosis Clones: An Unserious Review

There are plenty of unusual demographics in anime. There are mecha fans, hopeless romantics, hentai addicts, so on and so forth. Cells At Work tailors to a very specific demographic indeed: the shounen-fan-medical-student.

Cells At Work tries its hand at fusing comedy with shounen tropes. Although neither of these do anything outstanding, they gel together well. The comedy is enough to make you smile without breaking your ribs, and the fight scenes are typical bloodfests. But the real quirk here is the science behind it all. It’s easy to see that the writers have done serious research into the field. The anthropomorphised ... biological accuracy is enough to make a pathologist squeal in delight. Proper cell names are used, entire episodes are based around physiological conditions, and the presentation grabs the attention of viewers who couldn’t give two dendrites about biology.

As clever as the underlying facts are, they can obstruct the narrative from time to time. Whenever something new and interesting happens, the action will freeze to make time for an explanation of what this cell is, and why it’s doing what it’s doing. Call me a purist, but I’d rather not have my epic shounen fights paused so that Lovely Narrator Lady can explain why Staphylococcus Aureus is a nasty pathogen. “Show-don’t-tell” is a staple of good storytelling – one that Cells At Work sometimes forgets. Even then, the narrative doesn’t have mush to boast about anyway. It’s heavily serialised with minimal continuity and frequent flashbacks. While not necessarily bad, there are a few missed opportunities for decent character arcs.

Speaking of characters, they’re the real heart (haha) of the show. Our cellular main characters Red Blood Cell and Neutrophil (White Blood Cell) make for some entertaining viewing. Neutrophil is the classic badass soldier with a heart of gold, while Red Cell is made entirely of sugar, haemoglobin, and waifu material. I do wish Red Cell were a little less ditsy, and that Neutrophil didn’t have to run to her rescue every other episode, but the chemistry (enough of these puns) between these two is enough to make up for it. This show’s characters, both main and supporting, are consistently engaging. Episode 7 had me feeling actual human emotions. For a villain, no less. That hasn’t happened since Thanos.

Cells At Work has plenty of errors in its genetic makeup, but its core skeleton is solid and reliable. It has heart. It has nerve. It has brainpower to match. If you’re looking for a red-blooded shounen anime with high levels of dopamine, direct your retinas no further than this show.

On a related note, I think I have a pun infection.

Depression;Gate 0: An Unserious Review

The heart wrenching, time looping, mind melting titan of anime has returned, and holy gel-nanas does it deliver. In case it needs saying, this series only makes sense after watching the original season and the “Divide by Zero” alternate episode 23. Do yourself a favour and make sure you’ve seen that suffer-fest before delving into this one.

Steins;Gate 0 feels so very much like the original. The cast are as lovable as ever, the tone can switch from light to dark in an instant, and the world line theory is still just as absorbing. But the real separation between this series and ... its predecessor is a very noticeable hole in the shape of two personalities: Makise Kurisu and Hououin Kyouma.

Where the original creates character tension by pitting these two against each other, Zero accomplishes the same by simply highlighting their absence. Shadows of Kurisu’s presence remain in the form of her lab colleague Hiyajo, and Amadeus, the AI based off her pre-Japan memories. As for Kyouma, he remains locked away inside Rintaro’s mind, buried under layers of fear and regret. Zero plays on this absence time and time again. There are so many references to things lost that it’s no wonder Rintaro can’t get a hold of himself.

The story re-treads much of the same ground. The early episodes feel like the heady days of gel-nanas, Alpacaman and too-too-roo! But it’s a false happiness marred by a painful past and a terrible, inevitable future. And after a few personal crises and interventions by “The Organisation,” the members of the Future Gadget Laboratory get their lab coats into gear to thwart World War III once again. It’s all very familiar, but with a much darker, less optimistic feel.

If I had to pin down the central theme of the show, I would say that many of the characters have trouble facing up to reality. Okabe Rintaro is the obvious example: he’s so far-gone that he’s willing to abandon Hououin Kyouma, his research, his lab, and his past, all while consciously forgetting about the apocalypse to come. But there are others. Super Hax0r Daru and the ever-adorable Mayushii have similar hurdles to overcome. Only when their delusions are banished can these characters grow and achieve their potential.

Steins;Gate 0 doesn’t manage to innovate in the same way as its predecessor, but the way it builds on its past makes it a worthy successor to one of the greatest anime titles of all time.
Mission accomplished. El Psy Congroo.

Asobi Asobase: An Unserious Review (minor spoilers)

I have a terrible weakness for comedy. It’s probably a genetic mutation, much like my meme addiction. Asobi Asobase ticks all the boxes for me. It takes absurdist comedy in one hand, a pair of scissors in the other, and proceeds to run around claiming innocence.

When watching that diabetes-inducing OP for the first time, one would be inclined to think this was a charming little light comedy for kids. This is, in fact, the first joke. The reality is not “cute girls doing cute things,” but rather “cute girls pouring bleach into your brain.” Asobi Asobase sets a table ... with all the genre trimmings, offers the viewer a menu of tropes, and then recruits them into the Axis Cult. Adult humour is acted out by children, the smartest character is bat-balls-barmy, and innocent games always result in mayhem. The old “bait-and-switch” style of humour can trip over its own momentum in some shows, but Asobi Asobase carries it off successfully for a whole season.

The lead characters of this adorable acid trip of a show are Hanako “Screaming Meme” Honda, Kasumi “Filth Senpai” Nomura, and Olivia, the Social Moth of America. The three form a club, make immediate enemies of the student council, get invaded by other clubs, and accidentally burn down buildings. Each episode is split up into three or four parts that act like individual comedy sketches. The result is something like Monty Python’s Flying Circus; there are occasional fourth wall breaks, nonsensical situations with arbitrary resolutions, and characters with all the common sense of a directionally challenged salmon. It’s a fast moving structure that suits the style of comedy well. While trying to process the last gag, the action will move on to another before you can say nani.

If there were one gripe I had with this show, it would be that the story doesn’t really go anywhere. Most of the sketches are non-linear; you could shuffle and rearrange them and nobody would notice. That said, there is a tiny thread of continuity connecting one episode to the next. It isn’t a traditional story in the sense of a beginning, middle and end. It has a beginning, lots of middle, and no end whatsoever. On one hand, this seems a little unsatisfying. On the other, it creates the illusion that these three lunatics will remain this way forever: playing games, making trouble, and turning their whole world into a massive meme.

There are many ways to put an intelligent piece of work together. A moving romance speaks to the heart. A compelling sci-fi speaks to the mind. Asobi Asobase is an adrenaline shot straight to the diaphragm. Enjoy the laughter spasms.