What They Say
Episode 11: shr-chan wants to leave behind a memorable quote. And everyone comes out for a game of baseball.
Episode 12: Picking the right club is very important!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The finale for the first season of gdgd Fairies was a clever, overly sentimental parody of a lot of anime endings, so I was expecting something of that sort to end the second season as well. It seems the ultimate peak of the show’s creativity was back with the time travel episode, as they didn’t end it on any note that topped that in terms of clever writing or humor. So what we get is a little more conventional than I was expecting, but average gdgd Fairies is still a lot of fun.
The conversation sketch of the 11th episode has shrshr trying to come up with a signature quote. This seems like a topic the first season’s writer would have been much better at, as the skit doesn’t really get as funny as the premise might have been. The second season never really captured the first’s almost Seinfeldian humor, though it may have the edge in the surrealism department. This works great for the Room of Spirit and Time, where the fairies summon up a game of baseball. When their regular pitches are hit by the batter way too easily, the girls decide to spice things up with magic. Things get predictably out of hand when krkr throws a black hole ball that sucks up some of the baseball diamond and flies off into deep space. We’re shown a goofy highlight reel with all of the beloved characters from the second and the first second before the ball hits a giant alarm clock at the end of the universe, shattering space and time.
And once that happens, the fairies wake up and are late for typical Japanese high school! The bending of spacetime has ended up in gdgd Fairies becoming a school comedy! But in this case, we get all of the same kinds of skits, except in a school setting. There are some genuine laughs to be had with the Gym of Spirit and Time, where the fairies try and come up with clubs they’d want to join, and the dubbing swimming pool, with an authentically hilarious animation this time. It all comes to nothing as in the final moments, we see the whole premise was dreamed up as a possible premise for a third season. krkr remains pessimistic as ever, as she states that a third season “probably isn’t happening, though.” We can only hope she’s wrong.
In Summary
gdgd Fairies season 2 ended up being largely as entertaining as the first, although the types of comedy it excelled at changed due to the changing of the staff. The more droll comedy of the first season was replaced by a more manic, more experimental and surreal comic tone. Not all of the experiments worked, but when they did, there were solid laughs to be found. Let’s hope a third season is in the words, because this kind of sketch comedy always has room to try new things.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony VAIO 17″ HD screen
