How much humor can we get from a 4-panel humor manga about a manga author and his assistants? So far, not much at all.
What They Say:
A hilarious slice of life comedy that leisurely depicts the day-to-day life of manga artist Aito Yuuki and his assistant, Ashisu Sahoto!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
So, it’s time for Saori Hayami series number 2 for this season! This time, it’s Mangaka-san to Assistant-san: The Animation, which is helpfully translated as The Comic Artist and Assistants. Based on the 4-panel manga by Hiroyuki, the story focuses on Yuuki Aito, a manga author who is having some troubles trying to be realistic in portraying his characters and their actions, so he asks for help from his assistant, Ashisu Sahoto, in role-playing actions in order to get a better sense of realism. Now, we get a half-length episode series (each installment clocks in at around 13 minutes) animated by ZEXCS.
Opening scene: A manga artist at his desk, deep in thought. His female assistant is hard at work with line work. At the end of his deep pondering, he exclaims: “I want to grope some breasts.”
• • •
After the cute and cheerful opening animation set to a tune by StylipS, we see Yuuki quickly state “Umm, I don’t mean that in a dirty way.” Really? Apparently, he’s never had any experience groping a woman’s breasts, so he’s asking his female assistant Ashisu (and here, there must be some word pun to her name as “Ashisu-san” when pronounced in proper Japanese style sounds like “a-shi-san,” which is about as close as the Japanese can get to saying the English word “assistant”) to lend him a hand…er…allow him to use his hand. This is unabashedly perverted and rather off-putting. At least they are pretty straightforward about it. Of course, she’s not about to agree, so he instead asks her to grope herself while he can watch, to see what it looks like. Ashisu reluctantly agrees to that (only after Yuuki throws a depression fit), but then he steps over the line when he reaches out and gropes her, to which she responds (rightfully) with violence.
This ends the segment (we get quick titles for the small segments which I’m not going to bother recording all the time, but shows that the animation is itself revealing the 4-panel origins of the material), so we quickly transition to another. Here, we meet his editor, Mihari Otosuna, who is lashing into him for writing what is a laughably bad scenario (a boy asks a girl to see her panties and she just agrees–seriously, this is incredibly stupid as Mihari points out).
And here, right when I was about to file this show in the circular filing cabinet, it showed a spark of self-awareness as both Mihari and Ashisu turn on Yuuki, who is the kind of clueless, perverted, and chauvinistic male who believes that a girl who is in love with you will willingly show you her panties on demand as well as put up with breast groping with nothing more than a mild verbal reproach. Mihari labels such a girl disgusting and Ashisu has a rather cold glance for Yuuki as well. This was a nice bit of reproach and criticism launched at such a viewpoint, but then the show (and presumably the original comic) softens the criticism by having Yuuki exclaim “Can’t we at least have our dreams in manga?!”
The diminution of the criticism of the standard chauvinist viewpoint is further extended and reinforced when Yuuki talks about dreams (really? His dreams are just to be a shallow pervert?) and asks Mihari her dream. While she starts with something about publishing manga that many people will like, it moves on to the male fantasy of what we would like women to fantasize about: being married to a nice guy and having a couple of kids, living in a decent house. At least it then takes Yuuki down a slight notch when he reveals his “big” dream: which is to have one girl confess her love to him. Mihari wishes him good luck with that.
So, this is going to be blatantly sexist lewdness from our clueless manga author, occasionally criticized by his female assistant and editor, played for laughs, since this clearly meant to be a comedy. This is meant to be funny? I can’t quite grasp how, since I’m not finding it funny at all. I think I’ll just skip over the next segment entirely, which is about whether he should draw panties completely, or just glimpses of them. The final of the four segments is basically about Yuuki being perverted and Mihari hitting him. I really need not say more than that.
Wow, that was pretty bad. Yuuki being a perverted jerk, his assistant being a level-headed, but naively helping aide, and his editor being a (rightfully) outraged foil, responding sometimes with violence…that’s the entire basis of the comedy of The Comic Artist and Assistants. That’s it? Yes, that’s it. I’m not going to fault this show for its blatant sexism and lewdness since it’s entirely upfront about it. What I’m going to fault it for is not being in the least funny. Yuuki is just a single-dimensional jerk, a perverted loser who will likely remain a virgin for his entire life (kiss goodbye that dream of a girl confessing her love to you, unless your author ordains it). Ashisu is like a faithful servant, demurely saying “Yes, sir” to almost all of his requests, even the outrageous ones, though showing disapproval with her expressions. Mihari is just another one-dimensional stereotype, the violent woman who responds to lewdness with violence (though she has much more justification for physically lashing out compared to many characters of this type).
The animation from ZEXCS is of an acceptable standard, with the bright and cheerful color palette that is common for comedies. The voice acting from Yoshitsugu Masuoka as the perverted but clueless Yuuki is appropriate for him (including a slightly odd pitch to his voice at times, showing what a dweeb Yuuki is), while Saori Hayami’s Ashisu as very muted and Arisa Noto’s Mihari is all outrage and exasperation. The opening and ending themes by StylipS are unremarkable. Frankly, the technical elements, animation and voice acting, are much better than the pile of trash that masquerades as comedy in this show deserves. At least this was only 13 minutes long. I’m not sure I could have stood much more. What I do know is that if this does not find its humor by next episode, I think I can find something else to watch on Monday afternoons.
In Summary:
There are some 4-panel comedies that work and there are some that do not. This is one of the latter. While it is in-your-face with its pervertedness, that’s not the real problem with The Comic Artist and Assistants, though that will certainly be a problem for some viewers. The much more serious hurdle is that the show is simply not funny. Not in the least.
Grade: D
Streamed by: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Apple iMac with 4GB RAM, Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard
