Not Recommended
Have you ever been at a modern art exhibit and felt like the artist just threw paint at the canvas? Many around you proclaim that it's "original," " bold," or "expressive," while they point at the rectangle of incomprehensible shapes and sloppy paint. While they might see something praiseworthy, from where you're standing, it looks like a kindergarten arts and crafts project, where the kids ate a little too much Elmer's paste. Punch Line gives me that feeling, but instead of paint being thrown randomly at a canvas, we have themes and concepts instead. It felt like the creators just threw a bunch of ideas intoa hat after one too many drinks and began selecting random slips of paper from it to form the finished product. A string of loose thoughts, unsupported themes and underutilized concepts that somehow made it past the rough draft stage of some drunken editor's desk, where it was prematurely approved to become a final script. It's a tumultuous mess that tried to contain as many elements as possible and ended up imploding as a result.
Organized chaos isn't impossible to obtain, there has been countless of shows that have proven itself in accomplishing that. As long as the 'chaos' is guided by some kind of subtext or uniformity in each aspect's inclusion, it should turn out fine. However, if there's little in the way of connective tissue to hold the madness together, it doesn't take long before onlookers notice the shortcomings. With elements that do little to nothing to mesh together, it's hard to feel like there's any semblance of being behind Punch Line's existence. It's a project that confuses quirkiness with creative merit. There's no coherency between any of the show's plethora of flavoring, just a bunch of "whys" that are never properly explained. Why cinnamon? Why a bear for a pet? Why super saiyan? Why ghost cats? Why super sentai? Why panties? Why do panty-shots cause the world to explode outside of an obvious innuendo? Why body swaps? Why paradoxical time-travel? Why witchcraft? Why moe robot girl? Why anything? All these needless aspects that the show continuously tosses in felt like it was only there to distract from what little plot it was working with. A dribble of ideas thrown together, hoping a few would stick. And for the occasional instances where the show attempted to answer some of it, thematically it was as conclusive as the writers saying "just because." Punch Line brings up more questions than it answers, a trend that finds itself bleeding over into the main story-line.
For the most part, the show tries to tell a straightforward story about our protagonist, Yuuta Iridatsu, who has to travel through time to stop the impending destruction of Earth by ways of a meteorite strike. While it seems simple enough, it's the inclusion of the aforementioned elements that makes a fairly ordinary tale into a muddled mess. With plot twists and reveals that do absolutely nothing for the show's overall story or the characters involved, these tacked on tidbits ended up being questionable content instead of tasteful flavoring. Flavoring isn't bad by itself, but it needs to be used in moderation, or at least add something to the overall dish. A little dressing on a salad will enhance the taste, but adding too much would just make it into a repulsive swampy soup. Punch Line became that swampy soup, by effectively drowning out its content with too many unwarranted aspects.
Many of the plot points introduced during the show's run-time ended up not mattering in the long run since it was all negated by the "save the world" storyline that was introduced later on. The pointless elements discussed did nothing but further the issue, by taking time away from the narrative to travel down several detours that had no conclusion. It felt like a bait-and-switch from an over-the-top comedy/parody of super sentai, to an angst filled character drama along the lines of The Butterfly Effect. This was made even more jarring from the show's constant tonal shifts. Serious moments were often followed up by comedic gags, that not only downplayed the situation but also negated any tension that was supposed to arise from it. It destroyed any substantial weight behind incidents before it had time to sink in. There are times where serious moments that endangered the characters' lives were built up, only to be resolved by a flash of a girl's panties. It's not funny and it certainly isn't dramatic. The show's constant tonal shifts just kept on butting heads with each other. It made any conflict the show was trying to sell to feel pointless since it was easily washed away by the next scenario. When there's no consequence for life-threatening events, it's hard to get invested in a show's outcome.
But perhaps the biggest misstep of Punch Line was its use of time-travel. Time-travel is something that needs proper measure taken in order to stay relevantly coherent but the time-travel in Punch Line was beyond contrived and paradoxical. Every half-assed attempt to make sense of it only backfired. Since the theory of time-travel is riddled with paradoxes, to begin with, it's hard to put all the blame on the show. There are always loopholes whenever it is used in stories but there are some things that any iteration of time-travel tends to follow. Cardinal rules if you will. May that be the "butterfly effect" commonly found with linear travel or the "grandfather" paradox that's commonly shared with most iterations. Punch Line doesn't follow any of them, which causes it to make little sense when viewed as a whole. The closest thing to the type of time-travel Punch Line used would be parallel world jumping similar to what's used in TV shows like Sliders. But here's the problem, the protagonist already exist in this universe and even interacts with the other version of 'himself'. This should cause a rift in time or an anomaly to form but that never happens... and why you may ask? Well "just because", since it's something the writers seem to have no explanation for as usual. This lack of common sense was perfectly summed up with what I can only describe as the writer's not so subtle explanation via expository dialogue during the show's final moments. Our protagonist tries to explain and tie up the Gundam size plot holes by addressing the audience through the conversation 'he' had with the rest of the side characters. This laughable attempt to bring everything full-circle only shined a light on how improperly put together it was. All the explanation did was bring up more questions that would never get resolved.
If the show had anything going for it, it'll be the art and animation. It was vibrant and energetic. Similar to 2015 Winter season's Rolling Girls, it looked like a child's imagination brought to life. If you weren't watching this with any set standards it would be passable as visual entertainment. Being brought together by the relatively new studio MAPPA, Punch Line is yet another example of their visual prowess. The character designs were all very pleasant and felt well incorporated with the show's art choices. While they weren't all unique, it did have a trademark look about it that help to differentiate itself from other titles.
While it was well presented, for the most part, there were still times where the animation was stilted and stiff. This was more evident towards the middle portion of the show and the earlier slice-of-life episodes. The inconsistency from episode to episode can't be overlooked and hindered it from being better. But thankfully it made up for it by the 3/4 mark where the episodes maintained proper form and MAPPA strutted their stuff.
The soundtrack for Punch Line is your typical J-pop/rock musical selection, with the added bonus of a few keyboard synthesizers and electronic instruments tossed in for good measure. This gave the music a vibe similar to the Euro House music scene, which worked in unison with the visual flare presented throughout the show. While nice for what it was, most of it wasn't used to its fullest potential and could have been incorporated better. Some standout tracks included "Concentration", "Crisis" and "MUHI." It's nothing new and undoubtedly the kind of OST you would have heard many times over, but still did the job nonetheless. The opening theme "PUNCH LINE!" by Shokotan ♥ Denpa Gumi was a very catchy idol-heavy musical number. Like the OST, it worked well with the show's visual presentation. Again, nothing new but still a nice toe-tapping ear-worm.
Overall, the presentation of Punch Line was good and helped to make the nonsensical script more bearable than it would have been without it.
Now, what little appraisal I could offer Punch Line presentation-wise, the same can't be done when addressing the character lineup. With no memorable characteristics or features to speak of, each character was given a basic archetypal role and simple personality quirk to substitute for actual personality. They're no better than the cast of children shows like The Care Bears or Teletubbies, where it seems like their color palette and character design directly corresponded to their simplistic portrayal. They're more like caricatures than actual people.
Yuuta Iridatsu being our protagonist was the only one that was somewhat easy to relate to. Notice I said "somewhat," as there was not much done to flesh out 'his' character. 'He' would most likely be remembered for a plot twist that I dear not spoil here than for 'him' as a person.
Also, the ghost cat was probably the show's way of flipping the bird to the audience. For the entire run-time, he was presented as a guide for our protagonist that seemed to have an ulterior motive. There was no direct focus on the cat's actions but it always felt like it was meddling in the shadows. But it just turned out that the cat was just an expository mouthpiece for giving the audience painfully obvious info dumps, as well as serving as a plot-device for whenever the show(writers) needed to move the story along.
The antagonists for the series was also a let down since, like the rest of the cast, they had no proper characterization or personality to speak of. They were simply bad because the show demanded it and again was another pointless plot twist that didn't matter in the end.
Also, expect A LOT of troll character "death flag" scenes.
As a whole, the cast was a disappointment and forgettable almost immediately after completion. And while the show had some memorable moments, as a whole, it was a title that left me with more of a headache than anything satisfying.
Enjoyment: 5/10
With an inviting 1st episode, I thought I was getting ready to watch a fun super sentai journey with batshit insane presentation and over-the-top altercations but what I got instead was a show that quickly lost steam, a comedic gag that lost its novelty and a plot that went up its own ass. Visually, it was fine but the tonal shifts and misuse of concepts brought my enjoyment down.
Overall: 4/10
The presentation ultimately saved this anime from being completely unwatchable. Where it could have worked as a satirical outlook on fanservice and super sentai flicks, it ended up going a more serious route, while not having the appropriate tone or pedigree of writing needed to back it up. It was an ambitious undertaking that fell short of the mark and squandered its chances of being better by trying to do too much at once. An idea was there but unfortunately, it was poorly realized.
