“Say Cheese!”
What They Say:
Ashibe and his friends are on a field trip to the mountains. Looks like Yumiko-chan’s dad has followed them to take pictures of his daughter. Not being able to take good pictures, Ashibe is determined to learn…
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With a Goma-heavy episode the last time around, the show shifts to other areas this time. That’s definitely one of the advantages of the show in that it’s not solely about Ashibe’s adventures with Goma but rather the group as a whole with the two of them as the primary ones. After all, this is a series that gave Sugao a couple of episodes almost entirely to himself, something that definitely made me a bigger fan of the property overall. Being able to spread the focus a bit and not get trapped by gag of the week stuff surrounding the somewhat domesticated seal is a good thing.
With this episode, we’re off to the mountains as part of a field trip for the kids. It’s certainly fun seeing how they all get along and how Tendou is all hyper attentive to everything since he’s sort of in his element, much to the dismay of the female teachers and often the students as well. While the show does lean on Tendou a bit too much for some of the weird comedy it’s also something that I find I can forgive simply because it does work and is amusing since he’s such a caricature of these kinds of teachers. His love of molding students and showing off all that he’s capable of is certainly the best. And it’s definitely better than one of the parents that’s following them as he’s just wanting to take pictures of his daughter since she’s so cute, much to her own dismay.
Picture taking does factor into the first half pretty well and we get the second half with Ashibe and the others wanting to learn how to take better pictures going forward since their trip pictures are kind of grim. They do get a help from uncle Akio, but more in just how not to be when it comes to pictures. The show takes a really weird bonding turn but you can’t help but to laugh as it’s very much old school comedy from this genre going back decades. The show does a decent job overall of showing Ashibe the right path to be on when it comes to taking pictures while also ensuring that we see plenty of the bad path and how problematic it is for a lot of kids with certain parents – and even certain friends.
In Summary:
Shonen Ashibe has a cute episode that works in a good number of the extended cast here while making sure that Ashibe is the central focus while also ensuring that Goma has a very good role while not being at the forefront of things. There’s a lot of cute bits, a lot of silly bits, and a lot of creepy bits that will make you laugh but also make you a bit wary of normalizing such behavior as cute and silly.
Sugao Watch: My heart truly aches as there are no Sugao scenes at all.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
