Meganebu!

Title:Meganebu!
メガネブ!
Overall:Unevaluated
Keywords: , , , ,
Notables: AKABANE Kenji
KIMURA Ryohei
MIYATA Kouki
SUWABE Junichi
TAMARU Atsushi
The boys of the 'Glasses Club' believe they are on the brink of achieving every teenage boy's dream--a pair of X-ray glasses that can see through girls' clothes!

Episode Details 
1893
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Unevaluated Stretch [series:2811#628]
(Nine episodes watched):

Initially, I wasn't sure what to make of this bizarre show which flits back and forth between reality and daydreams. There were some laughs; it would probably be worth watching. But when I thought back about it after watching one or more other shows, I found myself with a distinct smirk on my face. There's something special about Meganebu, with it's wacky tone and fast pace. Some shows which try to move in a hurry just confuse me and make it difficult to enjoy them, but this one seemed to be handling the pacing well, because that didn't happen. Dropping heavy objects on a person's foot is not funny at all, however. It looks like the X-ray glasses scheme has come to an end after one episode, and I wonder where the show will go from here; but if it goes in the same manner as it did in this episode, it should be fun.

I find this show gets a little tiresome at times, when I want the comic action to pick up and move more rapidly along. But the jokes are original. Getting a grip on just how in touch with reality these guys are may play a major part in determining how much I enjoy the show.

After watching episode three the thought occurred to me that it must be very easy to make a mediocre comedy, easier than most other forms of anime, but very hard to make a truly good one, harder than making a good anime of any other sort. Humor is such a temperamental, tricky thing, an art rather than a science, that completely pleasing the viewer must be almost impossible. The thought came to me as I wondered why shows like Meganebu, which had clearly put a lot of effort into themselves, summoned so few thoughts from me and got so little thanks for their effort. Perhaps comedy is a largely thankless task, in which you can make people laugh for a moment but you will probably be forgotten before long, while drama remains in the memory for a good while longer. Anyway, episode three was clever and amusing; it looks like this show will indeed be able to come up with episode plots which have something to do with glasses.

Episodes seem to consist of a pair of sub-topics, each of which has something to do with glasses; like how to politely draw the club leader's attention to the fact that he has inadvertently violated one of his own sacred laws, in episode four. The show seems to rest around halfway between reality and insanity. The reverence which the guys hold for glasses is absurd, but that's the fun; the premise is sort of 'if people held glasses in awe, how would they behave?'.

The quality of the episodes varies a little. Episode nine, about a school field trip to Okinawa, seemed to have lots of little 'smile jokes', but never really made me laugh out loud. The club member with an unhealthy infatuation for club leader Toma annoys me. I feel sorry for Mr. 'fake glasses', the freshman who has perfect eyesight and just wears glasses so that he can be a club member.

I wonder, if I spoke Japanese, and didn't have to read subtitles, would this show (and others) be funnier? Enjoying comedy anime seems unusually difficult in comparison to action, and I don't exactly understand why this should be. Maybe timing is important and having to continually pause screws it up. Or maybe the quality just isn't all that great, and most of the good jokes go to live-action TV.

My favorite line (so far): "I was pretending to help"

Last updated Wednesday, December 18 2013. Created Sunday, October 20 2013.

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