What They Say:
A comedy manga, “Shonen Ashibe,” that follows the friendship between baby spotted seal Goma-chan and first-grade student Ashiya Ashibe. First serialized in 1988 and adapted to anime in 1991, the adorable Goma-chan created a massive following and a spotted seal boom. This spring, Goma-chan returns to “Tentere Anime.” A cute, pleasant story of Ashibe and Goma-chan and their unusual school and their neighbors. Sometimes endearing, sometimes bizarre, it’s a fun anime for the whole family!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Getting the show going once again after a break last week was welcome and focusing on Yuma as a great detective definitely delivered the laughs. Yuma’s a fun enough character in small doses but they scaled up well with him as the episode played out by using him as the foundation but not the sole focus and center of it. And that’s one of the things that has served the show well in that there’s a deep bench of characters to work with and very few that leave me cringing when they get the focus because it’s just a one-off usually and others will have plenty of a role in it as well. So when it does cycle back to Ashibe it feels fresh in seeing what he’s up to.
With this episode, it’s some real fun for Ashibe as he and Ma put together a booth at the flea market. And that means it’s time to put out lots of things to sell of theirs, which he has fun with even when it comes to toys of his that he’s not playing with anymore. Of course, he puts unrealistic prices on everything and it all goes comically downhill from there. There’s plenty of fun in seeing Ashibe trying to hawk things and the haggling doesn’t go well either because he’s not exactly great with it since the subtext is him either wanting to be rich or not sell any of his own stuff. Of course, mistakes enter the mix as well and Goma-chan with a 100 yen sticker on him means a fast and unexpected sale that puts Ashibe into quite the tailspin. You know it’ll all work out but it’s a fun moment of panic.
In Summary:
While the episode doesn’t go for anything big or outlandish that you might expect it to do it plays the humor closer to home and personal in a way that really does connect. It’s fun to watch as Ashibe tries to “game” the system to keep his stuff while dealing with the way he does it. There are cute moments and there’s some growth along the way as well. It’s all low stakes to be sure but it’s delightful.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
