Chio-chan no Tsuugakuro – 04

There’s probably enough that I laugh at in Chio-chan to keep me watching (at least for now), but maybe not to keep me writing about it.  I’m not crazy about the way it manages to cram gratuitous panty shots into every episode, but at least there was nothing as skeevy as the Kabbadi sempai from last week this time.  This show is fairly funny, but the humor already feels a little repetitive, and after only four eps that’s not a great sign.

I’m OK with Andou-san as a recurring character, because while his segments can be same-y too, at least he’s amusing.  The bit about people from the Shouwa era and their newspapers was the cleverest gag of the episode for me.  The cigarette chapter struck me as a two-minute joke stretched to about ten minutes, and in the end it seemed like an awful lot of buildup for a payoff that frankly wasn’t that funny.

I think Chio-chan no Tsuugakuro would be well-served by broadening the cast, because that seems like the most likely way of keeping the humor from getting too stale.  I like Manana-san well enough (and it’s great to get a rare Omigawa Chiaki appearance – I’m in the minority that like her as a seiyuu), but her interaction with Chio never really seems to change much.  This show desperately needs as much variety as it can get, and that probably has to come from the cast.  I’ll keep an eye on it, but probably not continue to cover it.

Tenrou: Sirius the Jaeger – 03

I’m likewise on the fence and leaning “no” with Tenrou: Sirius the Jaeger as a blogging candidate, though I think it’s a little more likely I stay with this show.  Frankly I just don’t think much of the writing.  Both the characters and the situations seem pretty trite, very much by the book.  Andou Masahirou is obviously a director of prodigious talent but he’s not a writer as far as I know, which means that to an extent he’s only as good as the material he’s given to work with.  And that’s the main problem with Sirius the Jaeger.

This episode certainly pushed one of my buttons this week by exposition through explanation – which is almost always a sign of a mediocre writer.  And the backstory with Yuri and his brother suffered through some of the same issues as last week’s sidebar with the heart surgeon and his daughter.  It was again very paint-by-numbers, with characters looking, doing and saying exactly what you’d expect them to and push-button emotional moments right on schedule.

Right now, the whole series is just too formulaic to really take off.  There may be enough intrigue in the premise to sustain momentum, depending on how it’s developed, and of course the look of the show continues to be among the best of the season.  But I want more if I’m going to keep covering – need more.  I have faith in Andou-sensei, but I’m not sure there’s much he can do to elevate this material as much as it seems to need elevating.