Amidst the flurry of Nanoha StrikerS subs (which I’m beginning to regret having stopped blogging) another subbed episode of Doujin Work appeared, which along with Zetsubo Sensei, is one of the most neglected series this season in terms of fansubs.

Episode Rating: 7/10

Najimi sits beside Tsuyuri on the train with a baitingly large smile on her face, after a few seconds of Tsuyuri not noticing, Najimi wonders aloud whether Tsuyuri’s not curious about why she’s smiling so much. Tsuyuri gives in and asks Najimi about her smile, to which she replies that she won. Tsuyuri’s illogical thought process somehow turns that into something about a Columbian Horned Frog, but Najimi is talking about her rivalry at the last doujin market where she outsold her rival, even though it was only one copy to Hoshi.

With that, we’re given a little background on Najimi’s rival, Nidou Kaneru, who is a normal office working lady by day and an amateur doujin artist by night. Her drawings aren’t the greatest and her books don’t sell very well, much like Najimi, but she continues to pursue her passion happily.

Najimi continues her bragging spree with Justice and Sora, but Justice is too busy being his normal pedo self to notice. But Najimi is just glad that he’s returned to his normal self after she fully explained the reason why she went to a hotel with Hoshi. As for Justice, he continues to be wary about Hoshi, but is glad that he managed to give him his 500 page manga and hopes that it will guide him along the right path.

The three of them arrive at an art store where Najimi picks up a book that apparently has illustration techniques to surpass a rival, and by a twist of fate, Kaneru shows up looking for the exact same book. The two fight over it for a while, Kaneru trying everything from illogical reasoning to a game of rock-paper-scissors to try and get the book. When Justice shows up, Najimi finally decides to give Kaneru the book because she can always learn from Justice. When she hears this, Kaneru asks Justice to teach her as well, to which he humbly agrees to, much to Najimi’s frustration.

And so Justice, Najimi, Tsuyuri and Sora gather at Kaneru’s house for a lesson only to have a half asleep Kaneru answer the door rambling on about her stuffed bear being a soldier of justice.

After apologizing for answering the door half asleep and for anything embarrassing she may have said, they start the lesson. After Justice sees a sample of her work and not so subtly hints that it sucks, he concludes the problem is that Kaneru and Najimi have trouble drawing with a 3D perspective, which prompts Kaneru to fold her drawing into an origami paper crane. Justice shows them an example of what he really means, and using that as inspiration, everyone is instructed to draw a page so he can critique their work.

After they’re done with the lesson in doujin, Tsuyuri suddenly points to the window, simply saying “bear”. Kaneru looks over exploding in a red blush when she realizes she left her bear print underwear out in the open to dry. She reaches for the pantsu, tearing the curtain down in the process, when she goes to fix the curtain she knocks over a plant, and when she goes to pick up the plant she trips and sends her wastebasket and its contents flying all over the place. In short, Kaneru is a clutz.

Thoughts

This series is on a downhill slide, the jokes are becoming stale and the characters are still two dimensional (no pun intended) and boring. As if we didn’t already have a crappy doujin artist in the cast, they decide to add another one. Kaneru is basically the same character as Najimi, except she’s clumsy and even more airheaded than Najimi, a feat which I didn’t think was possible in the world of Doujin Work.

The jokes in Doujin Work really don’t have any variety. It boils down to either Najimi being her usual stupid self, Tsuyuri being her usual stoic and blunt self or Justice being his usual lolicon self. Either that or the jokes go on such a tangent that they fly completely over my head, like the whole bit about the Columbian Horned Frog. I’m positive that I’m missing a cultural reference or maybe a really obvious pun, but in either case it came out of nowhere.

I hope Doujin Work has more to offer in the future than “JUSTISUUUU <3...SOOOORA <3" for 15 minutes at a time, though I'm not really getting my hopes up. If series that are more fun to blog and actually get consistent subs in the coming fall season, it's likely that I'll stop blogging Doujin Work altogether. I apologize in advance to everyone watching it, yep, all 10 of you.

~ Shirukii ~

I bet you all forgot that I would be blogging this, because I sure did. This episode probably would have gone unblogged as well if it hadn’t been for Claymore being late (Eclipse’s TL is apparently having some hardware problems).

But what better day to do a Doujin Work post than today, August 17th in Japan, the opening day of the 72nd Summer Comiket!

Episode Rating: 7.5/10

Najimi’s part time job is going well, the concept for her next manga is finished and her second doujinshi event is fast approaching. However, she feels like there’s something missing, something to bring out the passion and motivation in her, Tsuyuri suggests getting a rival.

The scene cuts to Tsuyuri and Justice on the train, Justice looking noticeably depressed. Tsuyuri asks what’s wrong and Justice tells her how he saw Najimi and Hoshi together at a love hotel district checking into a hotel together. Tsuyuri probably knows that there’s a logical explanation to the situation, but as always, chooses to toy around and add to the misunderstanding instead.

The three of them along with Sora get together at Najimi’s place to help her with her manga and Tsuyuri takes the opportunity to throw out some easily misunderstood conversation like “Two people doing it together is more fun that doing it alone” and “When three people do it, it starts to get a little abnormal”.

When they notice that Najimi’s manga has a couple going into a hotel together in one scene, Justice loses it, calls Najimi a pervert and storms out. After he leaves, Najimi explains the reason she went to a hotel with Hoshi was so she would be able to draw a hotel room in her manga and reassures Sora and Tsuyuri that there’s nothing going on between them.

Justice decides that he’ll deal with Hoshi the only way he knows how, through manga, and decides to write a 500 page manga on the beauty of pure love. He ends up having to call Najimi and Tsuyuri for help because he is sleep deprived and nowhere near finished, but they prove to be of little help and he has to finish it by himself in the end.

At the next doujinshi event, Najimi meets another artist on the same level as her (read: absolutely talentless) and a rivalry is born. The two take a look at each other’s work and though they are polite and supportive on the surface, they both laugh at the lack of talent the other has on the inside. And so the race is on to see who sells the most manga that day, but with their status as unknowns and their lack of talent, it’s a challenge that in the end will probably be decided by the sale of a single copy.

Meanwhile, Hoshi is looking for Najimi’s booth when he sees a huge shipment of doujinshi come in, which turn out to be Justice’s. When the two catch each other’s eye, Hoshi ends up running away.

When Sora calls Justice and explains that Hoshi and Najimi took pictures when they went to the hotel, but didn’t explain that there was nothing perverted going on, Justice loses it and goes after Hoshi, chasing him everywhere what looks like an attempt to beat him to death with a copy of his 500 page manga.

Thoughts

As I noted in my first impressions post for Doujin Work, it’s not exactly what I would call laugh out loud funny. It relies on basic humor often centered around misunderstandings and bad timing on the part of characters. But even so, it has a sort of “so stupid it’s funny” kind of charm that I happen to like. Also, by restricting the show to 15 minutes per episode, it prevents the show from feeling like it’s dragging on forever, unlike a certain food animu that is often hit or miss in that regard, although it has been getting a lot better lately with the addition of several awesome side characters.

Tsuyuri was pretty funny in this episode, but I feel like she’s becoming a one trick pony. All she’s done in these past 5 episodes is sit there like a stoic android non-chalantly saying things that start/add to misunderstandings mainly between Justice and Najimi. It’s funny, but it’s getting a little old. But in that sense, I suppose you could say the same about any of the characters, they all have rather two dimensional personalities (and character designs, lol).

As for Justice, he continues to be a complete pedo. How old is he anyways? Najimi can’t be much older than her early twenties and Justice, who looks like he’s in his mid thirties, obviously has the hots for her. But then again, he said they were childhood friends, so maybe he just -looks- really old, but is around the same age as Najimi in reality. But still, the same excuse can’t be applied to Sora.

I wonder if Doujin Work will remain random until the end, in true 4koma style. Judging from the ‘plot’ so far, and the fact that there are only 7 half episodes left, I don’t see Doujin Work working towards developing any substance, let alone a conclusive ending. But I suppose that’s for the best, I can’t imagine Doujin Work doing so, what keeps it from failing is the fact that it doesn’t take itself seriously.

I really need to find the manga though, apparently its leaps and bounds ahead of the anime in terms of hilarity. Unfortunately it’s not licensed, and my first pass at searching the intertubes has produced nothing D=

Side note* Sorry for the downtime yesterday, animeblogger.net and all the blogs hosted on it went down for about 6 hours last night. This was supposed to be posted yesterday, when the Comiket comment made a little more sense, but meh, it still stands.

~ Shirukii ~

(’_________________’X)

The most recent poll to decide what series would round out my Summer 07 schedule ended up being a one on one between Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei and Doujin Work. Well, Zetsubo Sensei won, but I have decided to exercise my right of tyranny and pick Doujin Work instead.

The reason is simple, I couldn’t manage to bring together a coherent post about Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei together, and believe me, I tried.

With SHAFT at the helm of Zetsubo Sensei, I can’t say that I didn’t expect it to be another mash up of vague anime/manga/culture references like the subtle Hidamari Sketch one pictured above. Seems like any anime situated in a school setting is doomed to this fate (ie. Negima!?, Pani Poni Dash, Hidamari Sketch), and while it’s not at all a bad thing, it’s near impossible to blog.

What I ended up with when I tried was something like this:

Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei 03

As if the Pink Supervisor’s class wasn’t strange enough, a blond haired transfer student who happens to suffer from multiple personality disorder is added to the mix. Meanwhile stalker-tan continues to stalk, Fuura continues to be overly optimistic, there’s a new girl who only communicates via text messages, and an illegal immigrant sneaks into the class roster.

But such things are trivial, instead, I concentrated on trying to identify the multitude of references used throughout the episode. Only to fail, recognizing a mere 5 out of the seemingly infinite amount.

I think this one’s pretty obvious.

Gurren Lagann quote, also the bracketed (moe) is most likely a reference to the Lucky Star: Moe Drill game for the Nintendo DS.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.

FUSION HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Another Gurren Lagann quote and one from Full Metal Alchemist. I also like to think that they’re making fun of L*S with “Food Luck”, but that’s a stretch.

* * *

So there you have it, barring picking out references for another 10 episodes, I think the potential for Zetsubo Sensei’s entries are kinda limited. So unless the masses say otherwise, victory to Doujin Work!

~ Shirukii ~

Doujin Work is another series based off a 4koma, and given the first impression that Lucky Star left, I was wary of my expectations heading into this one. While I can’t say say Doujin Work blew me away, it came off pretty well and left me sort of wanting more, so all things considered, I liked it.

Doujin work is centered around Nanajimi Osana (great name or GREATEST name?) who is introduced to the world of doujinshi.

The ordeal starts innocently enough, with Osana recounting the story of how she lost her job to her friend Tsuyuri. But well into the story she realizes that Tsuyuri is half asleep and not paying attention at all.

Tsuyuri explains that she barely got any sleep last night, and when Osana jokingly suggests it was because she was doing something perverted, Tsuyuri surprisingly confirms that that is exactly the reason. Osana’s questioning and Tsuyuri’s vague replies end up creating a whole misunderstanding which leads Osana (and the surrounding passengers) to believe that Tsuyuri was pleasuring herself all night long.

Things are only worsened when Tsuyuri invites Osana to help her, offering a job of sorts. Osana gives a thanks but no thanks reply and begins to scurry off, but is tempted by Tsuyuri’s promise of a 20,000 yen (~$160 USD) compensation.

After losing a whole night’s sleep worrying what Tsuyuri had in mind, Osana is relieved to hear that she was talking about drawing doujinshi manga. Because most of her work is centered on rape, Tsuyuri sticks with her explanation that she was doing perverted things by drawing all night.

So the help Osana enlisted for is sitting at a dealer’s table at Comiket, helping Tsuyuri sell her merchandise under the circle name ‘Pantsu Revolution’. Obviously embarrassed at the material she’s involved in selling, Osana is noticeably out of place. Until an old childhood friend of Osana, Justice, and his loli companion, Sora, drop by to say hi to Tsuyuri.

But rather than seeing her childhood friend, Osana is cheered up by Tsuyuri’s explanation that doujinshi circles can make in the tens of millions of yen per Comiket if they become popular. Being a materialistic money hoarding person, Osana lights up at the prospect of raking so much cash by drawing comics and decides to charge into the world of doujinshi with the ultimate goal of PROFIT!

First Impressions

While Doujinshi Work wasn’t laugh out loud funny, it was entertaining in that “so stupid it’s funny” way. Tsuyuri’s vague description of her night and the resulting misunderstanding was great, usually in circumstances like that the character realizes what they’re saying midway through and end up a blushing mess. Tsuyuri’s ability to stay calm, oblivious to what her story may insinuate to the perverted mind was pretty lulz.

And then there’s osananajimi, whose love for money is so strong that she chances at a lesbian experience with her friend to score a quick buck. There’s tons of comedic potential in her character and her inability to plan out the ‘???’ in half baked plan:

1. Draw doujinshi
2. ???
3. PROFIT!

I just hope the series doesn’t take itself too seriously and focuses on one shot gags instead of trying to build up a coherent story, if it does the latter I can only seeing it becoming a half-assed Comic Party rip off.

Technical aspects of Doujin work were terrible but fitting. The animation kept true to its 4koma roots and kept the backgrounds and extras only mildly animated, a technique we’ve grown used to in L*S. The animation and character designs of the foreground weren’t anything special either, but their rough feel really makes it seem like an amateur 4koma in motion.

One things that I thought they did great was the use of the manga stills. I haven’t seen this technique used since FLCL, probably since it can’t be used to any effect under normal circumstances. But for quick and often nonsensical scenes like these, it’s a nice alternative to full animation (and it saves budget!).

The music was just weird though, the OP and ED were kind of catchy, but rather forgettable. But that one track that started playing when the two set up shop was quite the WTF!? moment.

It looks like I’ll keep watching Doujin Work, as long as it stays a gag comedy I think it’ll be an interesting watch. Also, the episodes are only 14 minutes long, which works well because it flows well with the truncated feel of a 4koma, and if it ends up sucking, I’ll be relieved that not much time was wasted watching it.

Also, to the bloggers out there and anyone discussing Doujin Work, am I the only one who misspells Tsuyuri’s name as Tsuruya -EVERY SINGLE TIME- I type it T_T!?

Aside: This was another one of those entries that was spontaneously written in the wee hours of the morning. If there are any inconsistencies or mistakes in my grammar, summary or general ramblings, just give me a heads up and I’ll fix it when I’m back from work.

~ Shirukii ~