The Fall 2016 Anime Preview Guide

WWW.WAGNARIA!!

Daisuke Higashida's life should be going well; he's enrolled in a good high school, and he enjoys studying. Unfortunately, his father just lost his job, which means Daisuke now has to pay for his own cell phone, train pass, and just about everything else he might want or need. He reluctantly picks up a part-time job at a certain chain restaurant, but it's not long before he realizes that his coworkers aren't exactly normal. One of the waitresses can see ghosts and treats them like customers, the manager is an idiot, and the chief waitress is downright terrifying. With so many offbeat personalities to deal with, this job might not be worth the pay. WWW.WAGNARIA!! is based on a web manga spinoff of Wagnaria!! and can be found streaming on Crunchyroll, Saturdays at 12:00 PM EST.

Paul Jensen

Rating: 3.5

It may be best to think of WWW.WAGNARIA!! as a spiritual successor to the original Wagnaria!! restaurant comedy than as a direct sequel. Apart from a “blink and you'll miss it” cameo by original protagonist Takanashi at the beginning of this episode, this new series features an entirely new cast in a new (if familiar-looking) restaurant. That puts it in a similar situation to last season's Love Live! Sunshine!!, meaning it has the same challenges to overcome. Walking in the footsteps of a successful series is no easy task, but WWW.WAGNARIA!! makes a decent case for itself in this first episode.

While the characters may be different, the formula remains the same: take a bunch of quirky personalities, place them all in the same room, and let the mild-mannered mayhem ensue. The conversational humor benefits from good timing and solid dialogue, and the ensemble cast offers a wide range of personalities. As the new guy at the restaurant, Daisuke works well as our window into the show's world and reacts to each new situation with an appropriate amount of shock and frustration. Any comedy that can make the audience laugh in its first episode is on the right track.

Of course, borrowing the strengths of the original Wagnaria!! also means inheriting some of its weaknesses. The leisurely pace of this episode won't work for everyone, especially viewers who are looking for a more high-energy style of comedy. One episode also isn't enough time to establish the kind of emotional relationships that made the old series work as well as it did. There's some decent comedic chemistry built into this new cast of oddballs, but it looks as if it may take a while to really endear them to the audience.

Only time will tell if WWW.WAGNARIA!! can make the old formula work one more time, but most of the necessary ingredients appear to be in place. Its ability to succeed in the long term will depend on how quickly it can get all of its characters working in sync to produce that natural, almost effortless style of comedy. For the time being, however, it looks like a good bet for fans of its predecessor, and it stands well enough on its own that newcomers should be able to enjoy it with little to no background knowledge.