OP Sequence

OP: 「あの娘にドロップキック」 (Anoko ni Drop Kick) by Jashin★Girls (Suzuki Aina, Oomori Nichika, Kubota Miyu, Kozakai Yurie, Omigawa Chiaki, Sasaki Rico, Iida Riho)

Jashin-chan Dropkick is the story of a devil who is trying to kill the human who summoned her, so she can go back to hell. Jashin-chan (Suzuki Aina) is the devil; she’s got a snake tail, she’s terrible at planning, and she can regenerate, which is very good because she needs it a lot. Hanazono Yurine (Oomori Nichika) is the human, a gothloli with a horror fetish who is soft spoken and real good at murder. Also in the cast: Medusa (Kubota Miyu), the gentle, shy, and kind-hearted devil who’s wealth and trust is abused by Jashin-chan (and who dresses like she’s an Egyptian pharaoh, for some reason); Pekora (Kozakai Yurie), a meek and constantly-flustered angel who lost her halo, and so can’t return to heaven until she finds it; and Minos (Omigawa Chiaki), a cow devil who is also there. Together they eat hot pots, and witness the one-sided brawl between Yurine and Jashin-chan.

I lay all that out for you because the show doesn’t, at least not initially. It does by the end of the episode, you learn all of the above by then, but it starts with Jashin-chan having already been summoned, and her stated goal of killing Yurine already in progress, and starting in medias res didn’t work for me. Which surprises me! It feels like a lengthy introduction shouldn’t be necessary for a comedy to work, but I didn’t crack a smile until I learned everybody’s names and figured out who they were. That’s not to say it was a bad decision—in fact, for a lot of people I expect it was the right call—it just didn’t work for me. Comedy is subjective, etc.

As for the type of comedy, it’s heavy on the slapstick, where Jashin-chan has a bad plan, executes it badly, and Yurine punishes her for it. Not much more to say right now, the show hasn’t used its central shtick often enough to need to branch out, so this episode was mainly that. If violent slapstick isn’t your jam, this may not be either. Though I can’t say what the comedy will extend to once more characters and situations are added.

I probably won’t be covering this series personally (I need a quieter season after the last one), but I’ll probably watch a few more episodes at least. Thanks for reading!

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ED Sequence

ED: 「Home Sweet Home!」 by Yutarou Miura x Hyadain

Preview

12 Comments

  1. I think it was a pretty bizarre choice to start in media res, and one that basically doesn’t work. I’m not sure that the slapstick violence is coming across well either, but I’d probably have to rewatch Dokuro-chan and Dai Mahou Touge to put my finger on exactly why. Anyway, I had fairly high hopes for this series, but right now I’m disappointed. Three episode rule, I guess, just in case it goes back to the start for some reason.

    Angelus
    1. If they don’t immediately go back and start from the beginning next episode I’m going to be really confused. I don’t know if they figured throwing all of the characters at the audience off the bat would somehow serve as a better hook rather than having Yurine beating on Jashin for a full episode but throwing so many weirdos at the audience without any proper introductions or context was jarring even for someone that has read the source material.

      qwert
  2. I watched the anime without reading the manga first, but yet I’ve been hooked on the hyper-violent humor. I went and read the first couple of translated volumes and can say that nothing was really lost and if you don’t mind being thrown into the middle of things, you’ll be fine with this adaptation.

    Sufficient to say, that if you didn’t like enjoy the humor of being thrown into the middle of things in this show, you’d probably not have enjoyed it if it followed the linear story of the manga. However, if you did like the first episode of the anime, it will just get so much better!

  3. Hmmmm….. not enough Excalibog.

    And to poster “Angelus”.
    Ive rewatched those series a couple of years ago. They really werent that great imo.
    Id say they seemed good because of a mix of Nostalgia and possibly super violent comedy anime was a relatively new thing then.

    But i will say this, Dokoro chan had the HANDS DOWN WINNER as far as themes went!

    SING WITH ME NOW!! “PiPIRU PIRU PIPIPI PIRUPIII!!! PIPIRU PIRU PIPIPI PIRUPIIIIII!” …i think?

    BROOKLYN otaku
  4. The humor could’ve been much better, but there were some points that were very funny like characters acknowledging the censors and monologues, the shaver being mistaken for a taser, and the Evil Dead 2 reference. Would’ve liked to have seen more of Minos, but from what I know, she is a newer character, so they wouldn’t play all of her cards right away.

    Choya
  5. I like it. Don’t get why it’s a problem starting in the middle since it’s easy enough to pick up what’s going on. What really sells this is Suzuki Aina as Jashin, as she just turns up her hyper-ness up to 11 (not to mention in all the LL livestream, she’s just as funny and boisterous).

    Nork22

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