Posted by OP Sequence
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OP: 「PUNCH☆MIND☆HAPPINESS」 by Happy Clover (Hanamori Yumiri, Shiraishi Haruka, Yasuno Kiyono, Yamamura Hibiku, Yoshioka Mayu)
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「四月七日 不幸な入学初日」 (Gatsu Nanoka Fukouna Nyuugaku Shonichi)
“An Unfortunate First Day of School”
You want moe? I got your moe right here!
A Series of Moe Events
Anne Happy♪, little musical symbol optional, is one of this season’s entries into the “cute girls doing comedic things” genre. Here, the twist is that they’re all boundlessly unlucky, and that’s funny because that’s how comedy works, right? I’ll get to that in a minute. Before that, let’s clear the basics. Them girls are cute. They’re kawaii as fuck. Hanakoizumi Anne (Hanamori Yumiri) reminds me of Yuki from Gakkou Gurashi! (genki, delusional), and the others are cute too, this ain’t rocket science, mission accomplished. The animation is nice too. All solid so far.
Pain is Hilarious
“Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.” — Mel Brooks
Let me preface and say that I was kind of food coma-ing while I watched this, so I wasn’t in the best mood for laughter. (Mostly I just wanted a nap.) When the comedy worked for me, it was when it was its mot outrageous, such as when Yuki—I mean, Hanako accidentally crushed Kumegawa Botan’s (Yasuno Kiyono) hand. It didn’t work so much when it was too mundane; then, it was just unfortunate. I also don’t know how well Hanako’s personality works with this kind of comedy, because it oscillates between feeling like the universe is bullying her (nobody likes a bully) and it being her own damn fault. I’d say the comedy worked more often than not, at least to the point where I’m left with a favorable impression, but neither was I blown away. That could be as much because I was full of delicious home cooked foods as anything about this episode, though.
Looking Ahead
I’m interested in seeing what the other two girls’ major malfunctions are, but other’n that, I feel like we’ve learned what this series is about, and part of what it’s about is that Hibarigaoka Ruri (Shiraishi Haruka) has a construction sign fetish. Which, uh. That’s certainly a decision an author can make. I’m not sure why they would make it. It’s bizarre in a way that’s puzzling rather than hilarious. But hey, you do you, Anne Happy♪ author. It takes all kinds, right? *backs away slowly*
tl;dr: @StiltsOutLoud – It’s a series of moe events. The name of the game: comedic sociopathy. The universe is out to get them #annehappy 01
Random thoughts:
- That OP was kawaii as fuck too.
- I’ve got a huge rant on the concept of luck, but I’m going to hold back. That’s not the point here. This is a comedy. It’s a comedy. It’s a comedy Stilts, a comedy. Hold it together…
My first novel, Wage Slave Rebellion, is available now. (More info—now in paperback!) Sign up for my email list for a FREE sequel novella. Over at stephenwgee.com, the last four posts: Even if you see it coming, it can still work, Batman does not kill. Superman does not kill., Inside Out: What Emotion Drives You?, and Superhot: Storytelling through gameplay.
ED Sequence
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ED: 「明日でいいから」 (Ashita de Ii kara) by Happy Clover (Hanamori Yumiri, Shiraishi Haruka, Yasuno Kiyono, Yamamura Hibiku, Yoshioka Mayu)
Preview
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End Card
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I’m so happy that we have so many slice of life series this season, we had almost nothing last season except for Ooya-san.
I hate to disagree with a comedy genius like Mel Brooks, but he’s only 2/3rds right. The falling in a sewer is funny if you know the person really isn’t hurt. Consider the Three Stooges. Getting your eyes poked is going to ether blind you or send you to the emergency room but we watch it knowing that Curly isn’t hurt (permanently) in real life. Botan’s hand is broken but by the end of the episode she’s all better. Same goes for Anna: bitten by dog, scratched by cat but I don’t see any damage by the end of the day.
Ruri’s fetish does confuse me though. A construction sign? That’s not what I’d call bad luck. I’d call it a case of OCD. Now if she wound up having accidents around construction sites…
You didn’t mention the teacher. Saccharine sweet, but really scary at one point. “Achtung! You vill be happy! Ve haf ways of making you!”
The cardinal rule of comedy is “it depends.” Are you going to tell me Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy isn’t funny, even though the ENTIRE EARTH (except for that one British twat and Trillian) are vaporized for an interstellar highway in the first chapter? You could say if you want. It’s a legitimate opinion, and comedy is subjective. But quite a lot of people like that book, and it’s not for its intense drama. Mel Brooks is right, but it always depends. The comment is instructive regardless.
Yeah, Hitchhikers’s isn’t funny. ;P I’m kidding. You’re right. It depends and it is subjective. Some people love Tom and Jerry (or Itchy and Scratchy) and others can’t stand them.
I would say though that satire is a special case as is absurdity. I did reflect on what I’d written later when I thought about Vinzinni’s death in the Princess Bride. Hilarious scene, but only because it was so OTT. In Konosuba
Show Spoiler ▼
No, he’s right. It’s a question of empathy. It’s easy to laugh at pain, but it needs to be something so ridiculous that you couldn’t picture it happening to yourself. If you can’t empathize with the pain, then it’s comedic, otherwise it’s dramatic. That’s why it’s rare to find something funny when it happens to you.
Take for instance Stilt’s painful-sounding attempts to convince himself that this is a comedy. There’s no way I can empathize with that pain, because there’s no way this show is primarily a comedy. Hence his (ostensible) pain is comedic to me.
Exactly! (I’m going to assume you were saying Mel Brooks is right, btw.) That’s why falling in the sewer is funny—it’s so absurd that something would happen that it becomes funny.
And granted on the comedy thing, lol! I wasn’t feeling it at the time, but I was also just tired, so kinda took a swing on the comedy thing. I’ll figure out next episode whether I really think it’s funny or not, alas.
You could also say it’s situational. Consider a friend to steps on a rake and winds up in the emergency room with a hole in his foot and a broken nose. Not funny to most people. Then lets say that it was his own fault for leaving the rake there and didn’t see it because he was too busy lecturing you on safety and being aware of things like that. Even though I’d empathize with his pain, I’d also find it funny.
The class isn’t… precisely about dealing with bad luck, per se, although certainly that falls within its perview. It’s… misfortune, which we often think of as being bad luck anyway. Translations are hard. The term used can certainly refer to luck, but can also be more general in saying “Bad things that aren’t under their control, which aren’t necessarily “luck” as we think of them, but which can affect their lives and render them unhappy.”
Putting that aside, think about it for a bit. Ruri’s apparently had to transfer schools more than once, and the impression given is that she hasn’t been able to keep friends once they found out about her fetish. Basically, she has “bad luck” (so to speak) with relationships. Not necessarily romantic relationships, but any kind: she can’t get close to people. It’s not as dramatic as the other two girls, but I think it renders her eligible for that class.
After I commented I thought about the issue of “bad luck” vs “misfortune” and agree that it might be a question of translation or definition. Hanako is unlucky in that her actions wind up having negative consequences instead of the positive outcome she’s trying to achieve. Ruri’s obsession is more unfortunate than unlucky IMO. It didn’t happen to her. It’s just part of who she is. Now the other students finding out would probably be called unlucky. Given those definitions I’d say that Botan also rates as unfortunate in that she has a weak body that is damaged easily, but others might use the term unlucky also.
When that teacher wrote 幸福 on the board, I immediately thought of this vocaloid song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ684QmPkoc
I thought this episode was worth a chuckle or two.
I figured there had to be a trope for Anne (“Hanako”). After a bit of checking, I’ma go with Unluckily Lucky. Gets herself into sometimes spectacularly bad situations: sometimes by chance, sometimes by her own foolishness, sometimes by the apparent whims of some unknown deity who just hates her… and yet she just as miraculously will manage to get out of them with minimal-to-no harm, depending just as much on things that are completely out of her control. I think that’s our girl.
No moe!! pleasee No Moe!,, i just …can’t ……..take it!
Hanako’s name is Anne, not Anna.
Oh right. I forgot to mention:
So far the only spate of bad luck Hanako’s had is that beam she got caught on somehow breaking…steel beams do not break like that unless they were already broken and someone stuck it back on with glue or something instead of welding it back in place. Literally everything else has been her own fault; a consequence of her being a clumsy, airheaded animal lover who’s hated by animals. From what I’ve seen in this episode, she is as lucky as she claims to be, and that final scene confirms it. Seat number be damned.
Oh, and the title of the OP is weird af. And it also spoiled the whole construction sign business, to the point I started wondering why they even bothered trying to hide it when all suspense was killed by that spoiler.
Mistype, thanks for catching that. Fixed.
And to be fair, I’m not sure how much comedy that reveal would have mined even if it had been held back, so we probably didn’t lose much from the spoiler OP.
https://randomc.net/image/Anne%20Happy/Anne%20Happy%20-%2001%20-%20Large%2022.jpg
HAH! Cat Twanking!
Seems like she is kinda prone to being abuse by animals or sort…
This is just too adorable.
After watching this I only have one thing to say.
MOE KIIIII~LLL!!
The healing anime of this season.
Someone send help. I can’t stop watching that OP.
Fuck so good.
The character designs reminded me instantly of Baka to Test. I don’t know anything about this show, but from the pictures, it just screams Baka to Test.
Ah, it’s the same studio(Silver Link) who made Baka to Test that’s why.. And the same director too.
From the looking of the Screenshots i would expect some “Akkkaaarriinnnnn” 🙂
If Kuma Miko is my pick for cutest ED of the season, cutest OP for me is definitely Anne Happy. I really gotta give props to Silver Link. Whenever I see them in the staff, I always expect their opening animations to be fun to watch. While watching this I can just imagine Touma going “fukou da!” It was actually easy to remember the three of them based on their bad luck quirks. Anne’s bad luck with animals reminds me so much of Sakaki from Azumanga Daioh, and saying Botan has a weak body is an understatement if a simple handshake can break her hand bones. From the opening we know one of the main cast has a bad sense of direction. Now I wonder what the girl with short grey hair is unlucky of.
Anne-Happy, Un-Happy… you don’t suppose they really were going for the English “sounds alike’ pun there – do you?
They were. The series is called Unhappy sometimes.
You know, after giving it some thought today, it occurred to me that Ruri’s interest in the character on construction signs is not that strange. She has, essentially, fallen in love with an imaginary, 2-dimensional character. As members of the anime fandom, should we not be able to respect that? Sure, the sign isn’t animated, but still. It is not so outlandish or uncommon for someone to imagine a personality and character based on a piece of artwork or two of an individual, and to become fascinated with that idealized character that they’ve imagined for that piece of artwork. That happens. Ruri’s situation is played up a bit because of the… banality, so to speak, of the piece of artwork she’s become enamored with, but still, I say we are in no position to judge her.
Two differences. One, fictional characters with personalities and stories are more complete simulacrums of living humans (or at least, living beings), so when someone becomes enamored with one, it can be argued that they have an emotional connection with another emotional being, even if that being happens to be fictional. With a traffic barrier, this personality would have to be entirely intuited from a single still picture, which sure, doable, but is correspondingly a bit more odd.
Second, when someone lusts after a 2D waifu enough that it damages their life, they get a serious case of side-eye regardless. Most people, I like to think, are joking when they talk about their waifus. Hopefully.
Still, you’re right that there’s not that much of a difference. Honestly, it’s a little too close to some people’s reality, to the point that I don’t really find it funny. They needed to go further. Like she’s lusting after non-euclidean geometry or something. Don’t half-ass it!