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:
After a minor break once again owing to daytime kids scheduling, Shonen Ashibe is back for another round of fun. It really does surprise me that the show works as well as it does and that it feels empty when we have a skip week. It’s also simply boggling that we’re 88 episodes into it when I initially expected it to be just another one-cour show that would come and go, just aimed at younger audiences. The series really does some great stuff with its cast in how it configures it stories and works the dynamic between so many of them so that even this far in it still feels very fresh. That’s not easy and few shows really manage to do it well.
With this episode, we get some nice time with Sugao at the start that makes you grin before it shifts into the school side with all the kids showing off their craft projects. The problem is that when Ashibe shows off his it’s actually Sugao’s, which surprises him as it wasn’t the one he thought he was bringing. He’s actually innocent in this mistake – at least at first. That he embraces it after hesitating isn’t a surprise as a lot of kids would go that way. But what it does is create a secret that now eats him up inside. And that just keeps growing as it’s getting shown off beyond the classroom and he’s getting more and more recognition for it. The mix of that, his bluster, and giving us some time with his dreamscape as it turns to nightmares is delightful before things all work toward an expected (and comical) conclusion.
In Summary:
The series plays with a simple morality tale that’s pretty cute here. Anyone who grew up on similar kids entertainment can find all the usuall hallmarks here and it works well as everything just keeps getting worse and worse for the kid. And you do feel for him a little bit but that he just keeps going with it makes him less sympathetic the more it goes on. Yet watching him suffer more and more – and serving as a warning for kids that are watching – makes for a lot of fun when he has his full on meltdown. It’s a cute if predictable episode but it’s a well-executed one through and through.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
