Pop Team Epic Review

Pop Team Epic is the anime adaptation of the eponymous 4koma that has been making rounds on the meme side of the internet (particularly 4chan's /a/ board) for the last few years or so. Essentially, the gag of each 4koma features Popuko, the short one, and Pipimi, the tall one often in surreal situations.

I'm no meme expert, so I can't give you a detailed analysis of what happened in each episode of the series, but it's a trip. The humorous segments within each episode are diverse enough, that you don't feel it's a simple adaptation of the comic strip. For example, the show has a segment called Bob Team Epic where everything is badly drawn, and the jokes are played out in that style. Another segment called Japon Mignon (Meaning Cute Japan in French) involves one of the animators who happens to be French (Thibault Tresca) working in the studio presenting the French-inspired animated segment of the show, complete with baguettes and wine. In addition to those, Pop Team Epic also features various live-action segments throughout the episodes. None of it is particularly that funny to me, but it shows how far the staff was willing to go in the name of comedy.

Pop Team Epic tries to be in touch with its internet audience by having its troll humour all over the map, ranging from Japanese pop culture parodies, be it anime or else to breaking the fourth wall, to inside-jokes that only those who are in on it (the Japanese) will get. The producers even went so far to give the voice actors and actresses complete freedom when their lines were concerned.

In short, the series was a celebration of total creative freedom, which is rare in anime productions, and I can respect that. However, in wanting to be way too creative and random, a lot of the jokes just weren't funny. I felt that these segments could have used a little more methodical approach, to the story, pacing and delivery of the jokes in question, without sacrificing its own staff creativity and freedom. This is precisely why there's one particular segment that stood above everything else, because instead of trying the cheap but creative random joke, it did the opposite. It was actually planned all the way since the anime's initial announcement.

In 2017, the staff trolled its audience by announcing that there would be an anime adaptation of Hoshiiro Girldrop, the author of Pop Team Epic's other manga, and even developed a site for it. The story of Hoshiiro Girldrop is typical of your average stereotypical idol anime, and its existence is solely intended to make fun of the prevalence of cliche idol anime nowadays.
Of course, we didn't get an adaptation of Hoshiiro Girldrop in the end, but that of Pop Team Epic. Still, an animated segment of Hoshiiro Girldrop would appear at the end of every episode showing what's going to happen in the next episode of the fake idol anime.

In all Hoshiiro Girldrop segments, the story is as cliche as it gets, and follows the pattern of idol anime, except for episode 11's, where the rom-com between Daichi and Sosogu, the male and female lead suddenly takes a dark turn in a brilliant manner. It's a bit long to explain but the staff here showed a deeper commitment to the Hoshiiro Girldrop joke than any other segment, which is why I believe it to be the best part of the show.

The other parts I enjoyed was mostly up to my personal taste since they parodied a few mecha shows like Votoms and Layzner and even featured some of my favourite voice actors like Tessho Genda and Norio Wakamoto.

Another complaint I have is that the every episode repeats itself in the second half. The first half use female voice actors for Popuko and Pipimi, while the second half uses male voice actors for them. Furthermore, the lines aren't exactly the same, and there can be even differences in the animation and live action segments. The reason for this is the staff apparently planned the episodes for half a slot on TV, but ended getting a full one, hence why they had to fill the rest of the slot up. This isn't desirable, because as I've said earlier, I didn't find a lot of segments funny, but I still had to watch them twice, in case the second half switched things up, which they did.

Pop Team Epic is a series I have trouble giving an informed opinion on, because much of its core relies on the viewer accepting this kind of childish internet humour that's often referential, shallow, nonsensical, meaning that I cannot guarantee that you will actually laugh. But if that's your thing, go right ahead. After all, the show was a big success in Japan, and clearly, that means there's an audience out there that must have really enjoyed what it has to offer.