Poputepipikku 2nd Season

The legendary kuso anime has returned. You know your show is confident in its kuso-ness when the intro to one of the episodes starts with a man emerging from a toilet cubicle. Like its first season, the show is segmented into a main anime-original part, a few straight adaptations, and some quirky one-off segments, each animated by a different team. Unfortunately, French-kun is no longer working at Kamikaze Douga, so he was sorely missed. The main anime original segment is generally a step up from the first season. They are longer now and are usually guest-animated to parody different styles of anime, which lends the showa great deal of variety. A personal highlight is episode 3's B-side, where the ad-libbing elevates the short into something truly special. The 4koma adaptations by Space Cat and Kamikaze Douga are fine as usual. As I've mentioned in my earlier review, the jokes don't translate well into an animated format and really only work in a 4koma format. They are fine for what they are, but honestly I feel they are mostly there so the show can have some form of similarity to its source material. Sometimes the seiyuu ad-libbing can provide a new experience to the adaptation, but rarely does it exhibit the creativeness and imagination seen in the original segments. There are certainly less of them though compared to the first season. The other segments are hit and miss. Pop Team Epic Boy's Side is funny the first time, and not really subsequently. The show does recognize this and kills it off in a hilariously PTE fashion, but the replacement being random ad reads isn't much better. The after credits segments are a treat. King Records does release an extended (but timed) version of this as a bonus on their Youtube channel which has the seiyuu pairs talk freely for about 3 minutes. These are charming and it's often nice to hear from older, less active seiyuus talk about their performances. Outside of that there is a lack of other creative segments outside of these. Pop Team Cooking has a few runs, and the stop motion dancing only appears once, the faux video game style a few times. But that's all in terms of memorable segments. I don't play FFXIV, and I know bkub loves the thing, but I just didn't get the FFXIV segments. The ad reads are...questionable. The out of place guitar shop in the middle of nowhere in Episode 7 was hilarious, but everything else was just a straight ad read. Didn't like those. Bob Epic Team is brilliant as usual. Nay, it is the greatest thing in the entire year. Episode 7 is some miraculous legendary episode that has to be experienced first hand without spoilers. As with the first season, the show is practically a seiyuu showcase show. King Records must have some deep pockets to even hire seiyuus not even contracted with them. There are a bunch of dream combinations here, and hell, they even got Char to voice one line as a gag. Not all performances are equal, some of them are basic line reads, but the best of them feature unique ad-libs and references to the pair's own work and why they were chosen in the first place. As a seiyuu fan, it's always fun to hear from seiyuus you don't normally hear from anymore due to the industry constantly focusing on up-and-coming talents, and older seiyuu being more expensive to hire. Despite its occasional shortcomings, Pop Team Epic still shows it can still be relevant in the new nightmare world that is 2022. Surreal, mad, yet sometimes comforting, it provides an experience quite unlike any other that does test the notion on what "anime" really is all about. I still miss Hoshiiro Girldrop though. Maybe in the OVA...

"Well, your happy little fairytale future... doesn't exist!" -- the following is a discussion on how the landscape of not only anime, but animation itself has been altered. reader discretion is advised. -- Names that frequently fill the minds of people when they think of "animation" vary from person to person. Whether they be founders, directors, artists, voice actors, or anything in-between, the pillars of this industry aren't agreed upon universally. With something as subjective as media, it makes sense for there not to be one individual at the top of the totem poll... well, until now. Shouta Aoi has crafted something once deemed impossible with "Endless Love",a show that'll be recognized from here on out as a milestone in the medium. Frequently, new shows emerge that are expected to attracts fans from far and wide, crowd-pleasers, but never to this scale. Aoi has taken something many "visionaries" before were afraid to tackle, the subject of time. Time is a daily occurrence. It's passing as I type this, it's passing as you read this, and who possibly could be monitoring it? Well, I hope it isn't the fiends at Time Patrol, the evil doers who're trying to control time! It's a flow, something that should go on without any outside intervention, but the Time Patrol sees it as something to be harnessed, to defy the law of time itself. Imagine a world where time isn't left to exist independently, a world where time is monopolized and treated like something personal when, in fact, its universal. Luckily, Aoi is here to put a stop to these meddlers. Equipped with his signature pocket watch, dastardly good looks, and a killer voice, nothing can stop him. An object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an unbalanced force, or so they say because I haven't seen Aoi stop yet! He can transform into a being of otherworldly proportions, a hero we need but don't deserve. Selflessly chucking himself into the heat of danger, there's never a dull moment or emotion wasted. Your heart will yearn as he defends the innocent, your fists will pump when he puts the bad guys behind bars, and your eyes will rain tears when it finally ends. ... and that's how I feel now. Aoi wasn't around for long, he left too soon. All good things must come to an end. Nothing great lasts forever. We can just be happy that it happened. Thank you, Aoi. From me, on behalf of everyone, thank you. Now what the hell is a "Poputepipikku"?

Finally some good anime. Unfortunately, this is not as good as the first season, but it is still very funny and with lots of unexpected references. Change is a good thing from time to time, but the format is the same as the one used at the first season of the show although it is still fast paced and with that it still works pretty fine. Lots of different art styles are put to the mix along a funny tokusatsu parody. Kind of cool what they did at the end of every episode with the funny free talk with the voice actors, but this time wasa bit hard for me to recognize most of them. I still find hilarious when in the recap they cast old guys to dub the girls. My cultural baggage is not as rich, but the "weirdness" did the job very well, haha. AC-bu is back with the Bobunemimimmi corner (Bob Epic Team), and again, they deliver some of the best jokes and skits along with a breathtaking sequence with Hellshake Yano. Seriously, this is so good. Let's hope the 3º season is on the way because this series is overflowing with creativity, and is such a silly and funny show that became a confort watch for me. I'm biased, but can't help but give it a 9 out a 10.

I truly and genuinely believe that Pop Team Epic is one of the single greatest pieces of collaborative media of all time. Season 2 upgrades the variety aspect of the show from season 1 into a full-on anthology, with almost a dozen different studios getting to take the reins and tell their own Pop Team Epic-themed story. The show does not stop to laugh at itself even once, continuing from bit to bit without hesitation. Each episode leaves you with a feeling of "oh my god, they really went there, that was incredible" in the best possible way. Multiple of the anthology segments could verywell be their own shows, especially Here We Go! Biggus McHugeGuy Combination and of course the absolutely spectacular Endless Love. I have more respect for everyone involved with this project than can be put into words. Watch Pop Team Epic.

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