Punch Line

Episodes 1 & 2

Note: Because I did a write-up up on the first episode for the Spring Preview Guide, this review will mostly focus on episode 2.

Did the first episode of this original Niotamina project leave you scratching your head about what is actually going on in this setting? Don't expect relief from episode 2, as it only muddles the picture further. Combine the two and you have a bizarrely random work which gives the sense that it might eventually have a point and actual plot to it but is going to take its sweet time in getting there.

Whereas the first episode focused primarily on Yuta, in the second one he shares the screen time equally with the other members of Korai House (his apartment building). He has additional conversations with the perverted cat spirit Chiranosuke, who seems to relish describing everything in terms of breasts, eating breast-shaped pudding, and letting slip another peek at kitty porn on his computer (which Yuta is now accusing him of doing deliberately). He also reveals that, for some strange reason, spirit powers are enhanced in the presence of cinnamon, which just happens to be flung into the air in one Korai House resident's room at one point. Otherwise the episode takes more of a look at each of the other girls. Chichibu, the green-haired woman from the first episode, is a fake exorcist who comes from a family of spiritualists and laments that she doesn't have the spirit sense that her mother and grandmother did. Meika is the short landlady who is also a genius inventor and gets hooked on a self-help program called Cheermancy, which has to do with why she is wearing a pigeon mask in the screen shot. Pink-haired Mikatan, an idol singer from the group She's Mei, doesn't get into her alter ego here. The other girl, Ito, is a NEET recluse (not quite a hikkikimori because she does go out, apparently) who has a bear cub in her apartment which she found just like one would find a lost kitten. She also is apparently not going to school because of something which happened there, which is doubtlessly connected to her name ominously turning up on an online “Harakiri List” at the end of the episode.

The tone of the episode is nearly as much all over the place as its focus is. Big chunks of the episode are clearly intended to be humorous, and indeed, it can generate some laughs; the pigeon/chicken-head dance in particular is just so odd that it's hard not to laugh at it. Ito's attempts to convince others that she doesn't have a pet (which isn't allowed) also get amusingly strange, too. In other places, though, it takes itself quite a bit more seriously, such as in Yuta's flashbacks about early interactions with Ito or the “Harakiri List” business at the end. Mixed in with those are the bits of fan service, such as the occasional panty shots and the whole business with the breast-shaped pudding, and an enormous wealth of off-kilter visual detail; exactly why does Chichibu have a life-sized statue/mannequin of a man (which can vaguely be seen behind the pigeon-head Meika in the screen shot) standing, dressed immaculately, in her apartment, for instance? And why do two Korai House members just happen to have pigeon and chicken head masks, respectively? The names of various characters are apparently also complex puns, but I don't know enough Japanese to explain them properly.

I am inclined to think that driving viewers batty with these kind of details is the point, and certainly the series' eclecticism helps it stand out; nothing else this season really resembles Punch Line. How carefully calculated this all is, or whether this is just a “throw it all out and see what sticks” approach, remains to be seen, although these two episodes do give a sense akin to sorting out the pieces of a puzzle box whose contents have just been dumped on the table. The artwork is pretty sharp and the characterizations are already starting to flesh out, so it definitely has the tools it needs, but I am going to stay conservative on grading this one until we get a better indication of what it actually is trying to do.

Rating: B-

Punch Line is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.