“Graduating from Goma-chan”
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:
The series had some decent moments the last time around, and potential since it touched on Sugao remembering parts of his life overseas with Chit-chan, but it fell into the trap that most of the time spent there did. Its focus on the sensei character was a detriment to the show as it took away from more enjoyable material, from Sugao himself or his parents along with other characters that were there, particularly Chit-chan and her interactions with Sugao. So that episode just didn’t work for me, which made me quite happy that this one delves into some very fun stuff involving the group as a whole.
The problem here is that Sakata’s brother is just so into Goma-chan that it’s getting into a really uncomfortable level now. He’s pestering Goma-chan constantly and it’s becoming a distraction and annoyance to a lot of them. So the kids come up with a plan to try and help him graduate from being so into Goma-chan to something else, which is comical since he’s just got Goma-chan on such a pedestal. It’s fun watching them come up with ideas and trying to get something from the adults as well such as with Tendou, but little works and most are just distractions that would shift him from one obsession to another, or in addition to it. You feel for Goma-chan as he just can’t catch a break, but when they go with an idea of redirection from Uncle Akio it just puts the kids in Sakata’s brother’s sites.
In Summary:
I like that the episode plays with the fact that nobody knows Sakata’s brothers’ name (it’s Koichi) and that we get to see just how he deals with his obsession. You can see some bad behavior in here that can be problematic as he grows up but it plays well here because it’s not shown to be something to aspire to and that the kids are actively trying to break him from it. Not that they’re really able to since it’s a steady and reliable gag, but they elevated it up to a big level here and dealing with it by reducing it helps some. It’s a cute episode that lets the kids just have a lot of fun and frustration.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll