Week 13 - Presentations

The presentations this week were rather interesting, but it was a fun set of information since we got to explore Japanese comedy. As far as I have noticed, Japanese comedy runs on the premise of over the top and absurdist themes. Some popular anime I can name that exhibit this type of humor is One Punch Man, Kill la Kill, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, and Pop Team Epic. I often find it hard to explain this type of humor to people who have never experienced anime, but it captivates many who have.

Both One Punch Man and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure feature certain concepts that I find specifically entertaining. Both anime tend to play off typical shounen anime tropes, where the main characters are men who are ridiculously overpowered in some way, not to mention their narratives are driven by their diverse cast of side characters that are just as strong and just as well written. Despite both series being absurd in nature, OPM is set apart from Jojo through its fight scenes. Jojo fights are driven by a battle of wits, and OPM fights are simply ended when Saitama comes in and ends everything with one single punch, which typically leads to less drawn out situations.

At the end of the day, there are a ton of comedy driven Japanese anime that really cater to their sense of humor. I really enjoyed how one of the presentations dove into the different types of Japanese humor. I found it extremely informational, because it's a topic I never looked into because I just figured it's stuff they found funny.