Anime: Working!!

Note: This review is based on RAWs.



Originally drawn as a 4-koma manga by Takatsu Karino and later adapted to anime form by Hiraike Yoshimasa (Mayoi Neko Overrun) Working!![/b] is a daily life, gag show picturing a couple of slightly eccentric people doing a part-time job in a café. Our protagonist, Takanashi, otherwise a completely normal and honest high school student is also obsessed by all things that are small and cute. One day he is invited to do a part-time job in the previously mentioned café by a loli-looking schoolmate of his and he, kind of, accepts that, mostly due to her being "kawaii" rather than honestly wanting to do any work. Anyway, his new life at the Wagnaria café starts and he meets a lot of new people, has funny situations befall him and kinda leads his boring life further. That's all this show is about.

Is Working!! good? It's kind of hard to tell, it depends on what you are looking for. Is Working funny? It has funny moments, but is pretty daily life'ish simple for the most part. Is Working!! memorable? Hell, no, there are tons of gag shows around and most of the characters it offers are already tried and true archetypes. Is Working!! interesting? Not according to my scale, you have one or two nice jokes here and there, but it's your usual run of the mill most of the time. Is Working!! worth watching? Let's be frank here, no. There are much better daily life shows hanging around, just as there are tons of funnier shows here. I must say I wasn't particularly expecting much from a 4-koma manga, but still, nothing really solid ever happens in Working!!. The cast is stereotypical, I swear I've seen most of the people in the show somewhere else, and there is only one character who ever gets something of a backdrop and development. The story is just the same thing over and over again, Takanashi goes to work and... kind of falls in dozens of some very mildly funny situations, usually involving one of the other character's eccentric quirks which aren't particularly interesting either. That's it. The story starts with a *puff* and ends with a *puff* without anything really worth noting ever happening. The show could have still gone through if its gags were brilliant, but all Working!! offers is some smile level jokes at best.

Animation: 6/10

Animation done by A-1 Pictures (Ookiku Furikabutte) is nice if not exceptional... though you might as well call it bland. Since pretty much the whole story happens inside the shop our characters work in, the number of backgrounds is very limited. Not only you'll never see any real picturesque outdoor environments, you'll hardly ever see anything other than the pinkish gray insides of the shop. And even those backgrounds aren't particularly well detailed... well, they are, to an extent, as you can see little stuff like plates, boxes of chopsticks and other things you'd expect to see in a café. But even though they are indeed drawn, their lines are purposely blurred to save time used for drawing details. The color palette is neither too bright, nor grayish enough to convey realistic feel, but I must say this in-between of the two worlds atmosphere suits Working!! pretty well.

Character designs are cute, but simplistic. You'll probably find one or two girls to like, but it's unlikely you'll end up decorating your room with their posters. This wobbly artwork the painter uses in this show makes the character designs look a little bit unstable, but at the same time escapes any unintended deformation which otherwise looks really bad in shows which use overly stable designs. Work on expressions is fine, characters react to every single thing in the way you'd expect them to and comedic relief deformation of faces is well applied. Overall, characters blend extremely well into the backgrounds, and even though that's a good thing, it also kind of makes them less memorable. Due to the genre Working!! doesn't have a whole lot of scenes were characters move, and the ones that it has aren't particularly spectacular. A pretty low frame rate makes some scenes look choppy and a little bit awkward, but you'll hardly notice that unless you'll really pay attention. Otherwise, well, I suppose it's okay for a show for which movement is the least of its worries.

Sound: 5/10

Apart from the relatively nice seiyuu team Working!! has hardly anything to offer in its audio department. Energetic OP kind of suits the show, but is otherwise an annoying song and the ED is hardly worth noting. Background music composed by Monaca is as boring as it gets, you'll hardly remember a single theme from the show as all it has are one-rhythm songs which fade into the background.

The male seiyuu team, however, is quite impressive, offering big names like Fukuyama Jun and Kamiya Hiroshi on the spot. Even Nakata Jouji has a few stand-in performances here and there. The female team, on the other hand, is nowhere near as memorable, with Kitamura Eri being the only really famous actress in the cast. The overall feel of the voices in the show kind of leans the same way as the names do, having the stage mostly dominated by the male cast.

Story: 4/10

Since the show is based on 4-koma comedy manga there's not much of a consecutive plot to even talk about. The whole show basically follows Takanashi's new and funny experiences in this odd café he ended working in. There is little connection between the episodes and about the only thing that actually advances is the relationship between the main character and Inami, the girl who has a punch-all-males on sight sickness. Turning this show into a light-hearted love story near the end... which doesn't really go anywhere anyway as the show ends up cut short. Either way, it all ends up solely on how much you enjoy the jokes, and I must say I found the café setting a little bit too dull for my comedic tastes. All jokes basically come from a bunch of slightly odd people who try blend in the world of normality, and I must say, their level of weirdness is something you would rather expect from a live action gag show rather than an anime (heck, we have male nun terminators in Arakawa and in Working!! being a lazy shop manager is considered weird). Anyway, while I certainly found myself smiling during some of the better scenes I don't remember laughing out loud a single time, and I suppose that's not particularly good for a show that bases itself on comedy, is it. Well, either way, Working!! is still a relatively fun show, and even if it's not something to change your life or make you laugh to death, it's a show you might want to watch if you a big fan of uneventful daily life comedies. Don't even think about touching it otherwise.

Characters: 6/10

Apart from his obsession with little and cute things (lolicon), Takanashi has little to no original traits to offer. He is just a normal, slightly obnoxious high school student who works part-time in the café. He also is about the only one from the cast to ever raise a voice of reason being surrounded by those not particularly your everyday people. That about sums him up, that's it.

There is a whole lot of heroines in this show, and I must say I would have liked to see them having some back-stories, as now, apart from Inami, I know little to nothing about them, short of their workplace attitude. Well, I guess that's the limit of 4-koma, but still... Heroines in essence have plenty of charm, but I get the feeling the lack of fleshing-out kind of wastes their potential and makes them much easier to forget than they were supposed to be. Their humorous quirks, however, are well expressed, Taneshima is oversensitive when it comes to height, Inami punches any male person who comes as close as 1 meter radius near her, all Kyouko does is eat sweet things being completely irresponsible, and Yachiyo who carries katana everywhere for some reason is obsessed with serving all of the Kyouko's needs. I even ended up liking Yamada whose main quirk was, well, just to be somewhat weird in the head sometimes. Takanashi also has four eccentric sisters which come on screen from time to time, but their influence to the plot is hardly existent. There are other two males characters in the shop, but both are hardly interesting. ...Hmm, when I put it like that the cast feels even duller than it really is, heh. It's dull alright, but the overall feel Working's dialogues emit is alright enough; don't watch it at night though or you might end up crashing down.

Myers-Briggs personality type indicator:

Satou Jun - ISTP (D)
Yamada Aoi - ENTP (D)
Inami Mahiru - ISFP (D)
Souma Hiroomi - INTP (D)
Shirafuji Kyouka - ISTP (E)
Todoroki Yachiyo - ENFJ (D)
Takanashi Souta - ISTP (D)
Taneshima Poplar - ESFJ (D)

Show Spoiler

Value: 4/10

...Uh, it had plenty of boring moments the first time around, there is no way I'm going through all these mild jokes ever again. Not to mention, the more serious side of the plot never existed to begin with. You'll also notice little to no originality whatsoever, be it characters... or the plot if you can even call it like that. I mean, if you are so bored, just get a part-time job yourself, and not only you'll experience more than half of the things Working!! shows, you will get money for that as well, talk about value!

1. Conclusion[/u]:[/b] Rated for 13 year olds and older Working!! is your daily life, gag show destined to be completely forgotten after its last episode airs. Gags are far from hilarious, there is no real plot to begin with, characters are stereotypical and production values are mediocre. Unless you are some sort of daily life café otaku you should forget about this show, there are tons of funnier anime out there waiting for you, darn it. If you want something really funny just check Arakawa Under the Bridge which incidentally aired at the same time as this show, or give Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu! and Bobobo a try. Hell, Gintama is also much funnier than this. Oh yeah, and if you are fan of daily life, check out Hachimitsu to Clover, that one might as well be an epitome of the genre.

[/ol]

Overview

Ever worked at a restaurant? One that is filled with a random cast of cliched characters? Well that really sums up working :).

Well no, but to put it simply it is a slice of life, comedy taking place in a restaurant called Wagnaria. The anime depends heavily on its casts and the random situations they are put in.

The whole thing starts with Takanashi Souta the main male character who runs into a short and cute girl Taneshima Poplar. Taneshima is looking for ppl. for colleagues to work at her restaurant. Unfortunately, she is mistaken for a lost child and the hilarity begins.

The anime itself is quite short and spends more then half the time introducing new characters. The actual development of characters isn't very big, but surprisingly I was satisfied with how they dealt with the many characters.

I would definitely recommend this to fans of short comedies or someone who just needs something nice and easy to watch.... NO thinking required!!

SCORES!

Animation
Its alright, I mean its not the best you have ever seen, but it fits for the most part. The anime doesn't really depend on this to get along so the more simple the better I feel.

Backgrounds
They really have few backgrounds since the vast majority of the anime takes place in the restaurant or sometimes in Takanashi's house. They aren't very colorful and well... they look like rooms what more can I say?

Character sets
At one glance they are pretty average and don't have many interesting points. I mean you have your chibi Taneshima, then you have 3 normal looking boys. The only character who is a bit unique is Todoroki who carries around a katana. In terms of camera angles, the bodies are distorted sometimes at certain angles. Most of the time its pretty good though.

Motion
They are pretty stationary, unless they are moving around to serve customers. The most movement they have is when Takanashi gets hit by Inami, which btw is fairly ridiculous. I enjoy how the damage she causes usually stays though for at least a few scenes after the event.

Sound
It was good. I enjoyed it and think that they didn't need to add or change anything.

OP/ED
The opening and ending are both upbeat and happy songs. They really fit the nature of the anime and I liked them both. Although for me the ending was much more fun, not to mention the hilarious cut pictures they add with the song. I can't really complain about either though.

Voice acting
The voices all fit who they should. My favorite voice was Taneshima done by Asumi Kana, can't get enough of cute girly VA'ing!! The least impressive for me was Takanashi who had an uninteresting and normal voice.

Story
I don't have anything to say about the story since, if you think about it they had none. The anime thrived on character development and situational events. You could watch a middle episode and still understand much of what is happening.

Character
The balk of the anime was based off of the characters and they did a fair job in having screen time for all of them!

Main Characters
The two main characters are Takanashi and Inami, although in reality many of the characters almost get the same amount of screen time as them. Takanashi is your average high school boy except he has a huge LOLI fetish. He also has a few other secrets and is the punching bag of Inami. Inami is a shy high school girl who is allergic to men, she attacks them whenever they get too close. Basically much of the story is built around Takanashi trying to help Inami get over her fear of men. They do a good job in keeping you entertained while slowly changing the characters.

Side Characters
You have a whole cast of other characters that include Souma who seems nice but knows everyone's secrets, Taneshima the chibi, Todoroki who loves the Kyouko, Kyouko the manager for the store, Satou the "chef" who loves Todoroki, a few other workers int he store and the 4 sisters of Takanashi. Almost every character gets at least a little introduction and a few good scenes. Some develop more then others, but I think they gave the sides characters quite a far treatment.

Value and Enjoyment
Do you learn anything from this anime? Absolutely not its purely for shits and giggles. I could see myself rewatching it again cause they had some good moments. Either way don't try to take it even half seriously cause, you can't. I did enjoy the anime quite a bit. It was fun and suited my taste for the moment. It reminded me of Minami Ke actually, which is another comedy title I really enjoyed. So if you give it a go! well enjoy guys.