Arakawa Under the Bridge x Bridge

Title:Arakawa Under the Bridge x Bridge
荒川アンダー ザ ブリッジ×ブリッジ (Japanese)
Overall:Buy
Keywords: , , , , ,
Notables: Animation - Shaft
KAMIYA Hiroshi
R1 License - NIS America
SAKAMOTO Maaya
In the dry riverbed of Arakawa River, undefeated elite Ichinomiya Kou (aka Rick) met the lovely homeless girl Nino, a self-declared Venusian. Their awkward love stirs up trouble among the other strange inhabitants of the riverbed.
Summary Courtesy of Anime News Network


Animated by Shaft.
Started airing in October 2010 for 13 episodes.
Sequel to Arakawa Under the Bridge.
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Rent 9 8 8 7 8 8 Dreamer [series:2403#2279]
Having really enjoyed the first installment and it's craziness, I was ready for a second round. It's still as crazy as ever but still a really funny as hell and enjoyable series.

Art, Animation & Character Designs
Artwork was exactly like the first installment. Good artwork, a bit on the surreal side (mainly the OP sequence). Character designs were equally as good and definitely weird, unique characters. But what really brought them to life was their facial expressions. Outrageous and gut wrenching at times.

Music
The OP was an interesting piece with female vocals. I'm not sure how to categorize it. It's just as silly as the series. The soundtrack throughout had various light pianos, banjos, guitars and other sorta up-beat compositions that helped in the series silly nature.

Series and Episode Story
Oh my god, this series is just so hilariously dumb! Not just dumb but stupid dumb! It had me cracking up from the sheer stupidity of our characters and the stupid antics. Take for example episode 8. Nino and Amazoness were running around with sticks and drawing big circles in the dirt to show how much they love "Recruit". You just have to see it to appreciate it's stupidity and gut-wrenching humor. It seems this series has increased the dosage of slapstick & offbeat humor from the first installment.

In terms of the plot, it didn't have any. Rather, it was episodic with a very minor plot development 3/4 the way through about taking a trip to Venus. However, it fizzled out pretty quickly. This was perfectly fine as any plot would honestly go against the nature of the anime. By the end (at the end), you get to see an interesting sequence that suggest that our protagonist (Ric), just might..... (spoiler)have been dreaming the whole entire first and second season. If this "is" the case, then it gives the series more believability in its bizarre setting and characters. Otherwise, it's just an amusing ending.

One of the greatest lines ever... (Ric): "Brotherly bonds torn apart by gelatine".

Overall, I really enjoyed this series and I got a ton of good laughs out of it. It's an aquired taste but if you enjoyed the first installment, you'll enjoy this one as well.

Last updated Tuesday, March 01 2011. Created Tuesday, March 01 2011.
Buy 8 7 8 8 7 7 Ggultra2764 [series:2403#1552]
This second season to Arakawa Under the Bridge retains the bizarre gag humor found within the first season as Kou still gets regularly flabbergasted at the antics of the bridge residents. The show introduces a couple new characters in the form of Amazoness and the Earth Defense Troop Captain, as well as making characters appearing in the final episode of the first season (Billy, Jacqueline and Last Samurai) appearing more frequently. Earth Defense Troop Captain serves as a parody of manga artists while Amazoness butts in to attempt to complicate Kou and Nino's relationship. The comedy to Arakawa did appear to get a bit more bizarre than the first season with its parodies of fight anime/ manga titles towards the end of the show. The antics still did well at hooking me into the series and the show retains the quality of its visuals from back in the spring. Still, there are a couple things I have to nitpick about. The show appeared to be going into a plot arc involving the Arakawa residents preparing for a trip to Venus with some secrets that Nino and the Village Chief are hiding. However, these developments don't really get any kind of resolution as the show instead switched over to more comical filler. And much like the first season, season two of Arakawa is still an acquired taste as not all will be able to get into the show's gag comedy. If you enjoyed the first season of Arakawa Under the Bridge, you should still be able to enjoy the bizarre antics of the characters in this second season.

Last updated Friday, December 31 2010. Created Friday, December 31 2010.

Other Sites
NameURL
Official TV-Tokyo site for Arakawa Season 2 (Japanese) http://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/anime/arakawa_ub2/

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