Working!!

Series Review – Working’!!

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Working’!! (ワーキング’!!)

Well, if there’s one thing this second season of Working did right, it’s that the creators diversified the jokes away from the Takanashi-Inami jokes that dominated the first season. The lack of diversity in jokes was a huge weakness to the first season, and this one manages to avoid such caveats without much trouble. Instead, there are a ton of jokes focused on the quirks to the rest of the cast, and it’s the interactions amongst the cast that kept this more fun that the first season.

That being said, the weakness that arises here would be that Working is too focused on making jokes out of the quirks of the main cast. Once you get really familiar with the cast’s character quirks, the jokes can quickly get predictable and boring. To remedy this, the creators went through the trouble of introducing a few more members to the main cast, the most notable ones being the manager’s lackeys, and Yamada’s older brother. The Takanashi sisters also got far more involved in this season, and seeing the Wagnaria cast from their perspective was refreshing to say the least. These new characters became the centerpiece of many of the jokes in the later half of this series, and helped immensely with refreshing the overused formula that Working had been using for it’s gags up until this point.

I also appreciate how this season took a more understated approach to it’s romances, such as the romance between Satou and Yachiyo, as well as the continuing relationship between Takanashi and Inami. They didn’t completely dominate the overall atmosphere to the show, and instead, proved to be nice additions that added to the charm of the characters themselves. What I’m appreciative of the most here, though, would be the more prominent role Yamada took in this series. Just as she ended up being the character that rejuvenated the first season midway through, she continued to be quite the hilarious character with her devious little less-than-informed schemes. Her brother proved to do the same, though not to the same degree as the devious younger sister. Watching the character interactions is the true strength to this show, and the way in which their dialogue is written allows for a bunch of great genuine smiles and laughs.

One thing that should definitely mentioned is how Working manages to use it’s setting quite effectively, with the family restaurant setting allowing for a ton of fun gags that wouldn’t work quite as well somewhere else. The workplace atmosphere is captured quite well in this show, only it’s mixed in with plenty of devious little moments between members of the cast. It’s a surprisingly potent formula that makes this character-driven comedy enjoyable with each passing episode.

In the end, Working’s second season is a much welcomed improvement over the first. Many of the first season’s flaws were ironed out, and there were no real production quality issues to note here. This show is very much a character-driven comedy series, and this show manages to pull that off with flying colors. Most comedy series tend to stumble in their second season, much like Ika Musume sort of did, as well as a ton of other comedy series out there. Working managed to avoid that for the most part, all while bringing some laughs with each passing week. This series wasn’t as daring and bold as other comedies, such as Ben-to, but it certainly was a joy to follow in it’s own right.

Animation/Art: 8.0/10

Music: 7.5/10

Setting: 8.0/10

Characters: 8.0/10

Story: 7.0/10

Overall Enjoyment: 7.6/10

Quick Impressions – Working’!? – 05

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Episode 05 –

Hah, once again this show decides to focus on a character that isn’t usually the main focus. In this case, the episode is about the manager and her insatiable hunger for parfaits, omelets, cake, and whatever else there is around to eat. Of course, this causes a ton of problems for a restaurant, where running out of food is a bad thing, so seeing the cast bully the manager a bit actually got me grinning quite a bit. Who would’ve thought that Satou would turn into another minion to get food from? lol.

That, and there’s Katanashi’s obsession with cute things kicking into high gear this episode. You know, if you think about it, Katanashi this episode would very much qualify as a pedophile… Kind of disturbing if you think about it. I’m not sure if I found his obsession over the lost cute girl was funny, or just plain wrong. Nonetheless, we all know he had the best of intentions (or so I’d hope….), so seeing how he fawned over the little girl was fun.

And then of course, Yamada was as lazy as ever. Will she seriously willingly do any good work around the restaurant? We should totally get Otoo to come around again, then she’ll be begging for some adoption papers 😛

Quick Impressions – Working’!! – 04

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Episode 04 –

Usually Working’s gags focus in on three characters: Inami, Takanashi, and Poplar. Thus, seeing an episode with a majority of screentime devoted to Satou and Todoroki took me by surprise, though I can’t say it was a bad thing. Satou has a rather sharp tongue, and is a no nonsense guy. Seeing him being put in some rather uncomfortable positions was pretty hilarious, especially with his reactions to the depressed Todoroki. There’s simply a bunch of love triangles and misunderstandings here, which is further exacerbated by the quirky traits of the cast. Nothing positively hilarious here, but I did get a few good laughs.

Mainly, I burst out laughing when Yamada came onto the scene requesting those adoption papers from an episode or two ago. Phew, you gotta love Yamada’s lazy, scheming, irresponsible, superficial ways; she has some of the best gags out of the series. Of course, though, the bits where Satou was stressing out over Todoroki was quite fun too. It’s not too often when you see Satou lose his cool, so seeing it here was pretty awesome.

The only real issue I see with this series so far is that it’s far too reliant on the quirky nature of the cast; the humor can quickly grow stale if the series doesn’t change things up here and there. But hey, as of now it’s been pretty fun. Not as good as other comedies this season, but still an entertaining gag show.

Screenshots are later in the post.

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Quick Impressions – Working’!! – 03

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Episode 03 –

And here we get a nice indepth look at the Takanashi family. And it’s quite a dysfunctional family too, for the most part. Surprisingly enough, it’s the youngest one, and the guy, that are the most level-headed in the family, with everybody else quirky in their own way. You’ve got to love how these characters interact with each other, especially with Souta’s rather nonchalant treatment of his sisters. The gags turned out to surprisingly fun, even if a majority of the episode focused in on Izumi (the sister with no physical stamina).

I mean, Izumi is just wayy too paranoid and overprotective of Souta, but that is what makes the episode rather fun. Her silly antics for the majority of the episode were amusing to say the least, though the icing on the cake was probably her comments about Souta’s apparent relationship with the chibi Poplar. The most fun part of the episode, though, had to be the part with Nazuna working at the restaurant. Nazuna is surprisingly smart and deceptive in her own way, appealing to both Yamada and Poplar’s inferiority complexes by calling them “senpai” and “onee-chan” respectively. Nazuna would do very well in the real workforce if she can appeal to her superiors at a job like she did here, lol.

Man though, Souta sure does have it rough. I mean, he has four sisters to look after, where three of them are dysfunctional in some way or form. Talk about family responsibilities… Well, at least they’re a fun bunch to watch. Now I just wish I was able to see why Souta was asking Nazuna what she did to Poplar and Yamada. Based on him asking the question after returning home from work, I’d bet that he had quite the day at Wagnaria, lol.

Screenshots are later in the post.

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First Impressions – Working’!! – 01

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Episode 01 (Preair) –

Well, it looks like we’re starting off the Fall season of anime a bit early with this preair episode of Working. The actual series will be debuting in October, so this is pretty much just a sneak peek at the beginnings to the second season. And as expected, this series doesn’t seem to be deviating from the humor-centric equation that made the first season such a success in Japan.

The one thing that made the original series a ton of fun is the somewhat large main cast, where each character had their own little quirks and funny moments. This season seems to be continuing the trend, where we get to see a good mix of gags from each member of the cast, ranging from Takanashi’s chibi fetish, to Popula’s complex of shortness, to Inami’s androphobia, and to Yamada’s silly little antics. This episode did a good job in highlighting the quirky personalities of each character, and blended their interactions well to produce some clever little gags.

There are already signs of gags being reused though, which could turn out bad in the long run for this series. At least there’s still Yamada, who usually manages to change things up quite a bit and lead up to some rather unique punchlines. Having less focus on Inami is probably a good thing after the heavy overabuse of her androphobia-related gags last season.

In terms of animation, it seems that A-1 Pictures has done a terrific job so far, though first episodes always tend to be higher budget to impress first time watchers. There is a lot of detail put into the backgrounds and the setting itself, so as of now budget doesn’t seem to be an issue. We’ll have to see whether this trend continues or not.

In the end, this first episode did exactly what it set out to do – introduce the cast and showcase all of their quirky interactions with each other. It’s quite something how this series takes something as boring as running a simple family restaurant, and turns it into a crazy mix of strange interactions and energetic gags. There’s fun stuff like the “X” on Yamada’s forehead, to Inami’s “less than a bug”, and Popura’s constant complex over her height gags. There is a new director for this new series though, so I’m not quite sure if that will translate into notable changes this second season. For now, I guess it’s a game of wait and see.

First Impressions: 7.5/10

P.S. One thing I do find completely stupid is how an apostrophe (‘) is what differentiates this season from the first one. I guess it’s better that K-ON’s second “!” to differentiate it from the first season =_=;

Screenshots are later in the post.

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