"You know doctor, we've said "visit the mental clinic!" a lot in this anime!" - Asuna Ahh, Comical Psychosomatic Medicine. This show was truly an underrated gem for the Spring 2015 season, and a real shame that not many people know about it. As a five minute and thirty second short that aired each week chock full of psychology tidbits and factoids with two main characters spitting lines out faster than the brain can process the first slide of the first scene, Comical Psychosomatic Medicine is definitely "out there". While there's nothing in the way of a story, each episode is dedicated to a different malady, disorder,or mental illness such as pedophilia, schizophrenia, panic disorders, fetishism, social anxiety, stages of grieving, seasonal affective disorder, stalking, and more!
The episodes generally share a similar layout- the main characters Ryou and his nurse Asuna (along with her super dysfunctional family, sisters Himeru and Iyashi, and their BDSM addicted pervy grandpa, Sukizou!) explain a different condition very rapidly, then go through different methods of real world treatments, medications, and therapies for them. Other characters make an appearance throughout the series, including some cameos from Ladybeard!
What was particularly striking about the anime was how well the writers did their homework. They give legitimate and accurate analyses and explanations of real psychological (and psychiatric) topics, including real life medications and therapies prescribed to persons affected by them. They also quote from well known and scholarly sources, such as the DSM IV (curiously the 4 and not the 5, whatev) Kaplan's Pocket Handbook of Clinical Psychiatry, and various studies that have been done.
While this sounds boring as waking up at 4am to watch a Congressional filibuster on CSPAN, it's actually really funny- they don't call it comical for no reason, afterall. The jokes typically stem from Asuna's airheadedness and her sisters' weird fetishes where they misunderstand what Dr. Ryou says and mistake it for something sexual or strange. They even explain why everyone seems to love the tsundere girls - the cognitive consistency theory by Deutsch and Solomon! CPM is full of puns, so if you want to punish someone for them, stay away! Look out for that 4th wall coming down on your head too!
The wacky characters, and the informative, but fun way of presenting info on many illnesses is a great formula, and it consistently made me laugh with the crazy antics, particularly of the BDSM grandpa character. While no masterpiece, CPM definitely is a hidden gem of an otherwise pretty lackluster season, and a definite recommendation for anyone who wants to learn a little while they laugh.
"So quit watching this anime and go get some sun to improve your mental health!" - Asuna
MeMexicanSpearman
August 6, 2016
Recommended
Comical Psychosomatic Medicine is a show that does very well at explaining a lot of the basics of these mental complications and presents it in an inviting, fun, and funny way that keeps the viewer engaged and the tone light. The characters all have their own special charm, and are kept consistent. The art is well made and looks clean and presentable to the viewer. The art only changes drastically for emphasis. The voice acting is very well done, and I never noticed it really break. There isn't a starting theme, on count of this being a five minute show, but the ending theme ithas is pretty good. The theme wasn't particularly memorable, but it was nice to hear, musically. Nothing in this anime is particularly objectionable, and that's shown clearly in the enjoyment category. Now, this definitely is Comical Psychosomatic Medicine's best quality. This is primarily due to my personal love of the humor, and isn't purely objective. I can completely understand if some people may not like the humor in this show for it is rather raunchy and relies on knowledge of pop culture for many of the punchlines, but there was hardly a time where I didn't laugh at the joke presented. When I didn't, it was still obviously intended to be funny and there was never a time where I felt like they outright failed at the joke, and it was never cringe-inducing.
TL;DR: Very funny show at presenting mental illness.
ThTheta-Seeker
June 27, 2015
Recommended
Learning stuff while watching anime.........is that only a dream? Not anymore, this anime has realized that dream. For me this is the 1st anime I have actually learnt anything from........that is after excluding life lessons from SoL anime and somethings about Japanese history. The anime is pretty funny and most of the episodes (especially towards the end of the series) left me smiling. The jokes seem to have a pattern though: most of the times settings are introduced and then suddenly twisted into a joke.......even so, they are enjoyable and 20 ep which are just 5 mins long are not enough to get you bored ofthat pattern.
The anime is short and enjoyable, so even if you want to just relax, you can watch this show.
So, what do we learn? The anime informs you about mental illnesses/stresses and tells us how we can deal with them. The problems they talk about are around us and some of them wouldn't even be usually considered as mental illness (like some of the problems are just as simple as stress or even fear/laziness of getting up and going to work/school). So, the things they talk about can be useful to us (even if we do not have any mental illness.)
Each episode is just 5 min long and deals with a particular problem. The information is very easy to digest as it is imparted in a cheerful and comical manner.
Story (7): The anime almost has no story. Whatever little story it has is a setting used to impart information and be a joke at the same time.
Art and Sound (7): Good enough for the purpose of this anime.
Characters (7): The characters are enjoyable to watch and weird enough to be funny. Again good enough for the purpose of the anime.
Enjoyment and Overall (9): I am rating this 9 because the anime has cleared its objective of explaining things and creating more awareness of mental illness in a fun way. Even otherwise I enjoyed the jokes a lot.
This isn't a super awesome anime (arguably like Code Geass or Death Note). Nor does this make you board the feels train (again arguable like Anohana or Angel Beats). It is a short and funny anime which is also informative.
You can watch it only for the joke or only for the info or both. I do not think that you would regret watching this anime.
Mixed Feelings
Ever want to know about mental disorders?, did you want to have a large order of fanservice and comedy on the side?..well this is the best you get! The comical humor for this anime short ranges from "meta-ecchi" jokes, character jabs and just plain old pop culture references through puns or the references appearing in the meta sense, due to this your comedy WILL vary as it can quickly change from ecchi jokes to actually talking about mental disorders with some puns thrown in/character jabs. The runtime for each episode is 5 minutes long thus you can get through this anime short in no lessthan 2 hours. The characters are pretty typical of anime although wacky in their own quirky ways as well, such as Ryou who is the main exposition guy but isn't given the screentime due to the meta-fanservice in the way to the ditzy Asuna making puns and comically jabbing at Ryou to one of Asuna's sister and one of the other three assistants of Ryou, Iyashi voiced by ''Yoko Hisaka'' being the shameless sadist fanservice girl to the last of Asuna's sisters Himeru voiced by ''Maaya Uchida'' being the shy depressed eccentric one, LA's favourite would have to have been Asuna only because of the awkward puns she makes diverting the attention from Ryou almost instantly. The animation is "ok" from the character designs to the barely there backgrounds unless a reference is needed. The voice acting well, for this LA will say due to the short length of each episode, ALL the voice actors tend to quickly say their lines and LA can easily say that it's acceptable due to how short the anime short is and for the fact that each episode needs to say the information about the mental disorder at hand AND do multiple jokes and puns and REACT to it all in 5 minutes, the quickness of many of the vocal work is warranted and makes each episodes fly by...whether it be with your sanity or not. So LA will probably say this as honest as possible, if ya wanna know about actual facts about mental disorders with huge bits of Japanese puns, character jabs, meta-fanservice and references all condensed in 5 minutes TIMES by 20 then you get Comical Psychosomatic Medicine. If your reading this anime review and is interested then visit the mental clinic~!...or not, LA isn't a psychologist...
