Random #7

 Uramichi Oniisan

Now that it's the new year, have you ever had worries about the future? Well, why not watch an anime that pokes fun at life and the troubles of growing old 

Have you ever wanted to be honest at work and say anything on your mind? Have you ever not felt a hundred percent and want to tell everyone how you feel? Well, this anime called Uramichi Oniisan is about Uramichi Omota and the other adults who work with children on a television show where they entertain them and give advice. However, Uramichi goes on tangents about his depressive thoughts, which is done in a way that makes it into surreal humour and flips it so suddenly which makes it extremely hilarious.

One day while bored out of my mind, I came across this anime from an instagram reel of the voice actor just genuinely dying of laughter, and they left it in; which made me want to watch this.

It goes to show that this anime is a fun watch because the voice actors were just messing around and having a genuinely funny time without being super serious. This comedy anime has dry humour and cynical jokes about life while being juxtaposed onto a show about overly superficial and happy vibes. Imagine a silver tongue sly character playing a role of a super upbeat character, that's the essence of this anime, but with comedy. The anime is relatable to the average person because we all wanted to say what we're thinking, instead of what we're supposed to say. Which makes this anime super unique and stands out because this type of anime in a comedic way has never been done and pulled off like this.

Not to mention it has Tomokazu Sugita in, who's the voice of Gintoki from Gintama as the side character and Levi's voice actor doing the main character, but he has a higher tone than Levi, but you can still recognise it. It shows the talent behind this anime, and was destined to be a recipe for comedy gold right from the start. Now that I think about it, this anime does have Gintama style of comedy with its own style, which makes me glad that Gintama's spirit is still traveling through the ethos of the anime universe. The cast is well into their 20s or 30s having their own midlife crises, and pretending to try at their job, except for the Uramichi who breaks during working. This anime is truly a breath of fresh air for the industry, as it appeals to an older demographic, while also not being so appealing for older folks that it's not relatable for younger people. It's a happy medium that anyone could watch and find funny, and may hit home for the adults. It's a comedy anime that you shouldn't skip over as it's hilarious xD

Grand Blue Dreaming

This manga is for a mature adult audience. Grand Blue or sometimes called Grand Blue Dreaming (not to be confused with Granblue Fantasy) is a 2014 manga that includes slapstick and surreal humour that is targeted to a more mature adult audience for its inappropriate themes and jokes. The manga is about a guy called Iori who moves in with his cousins and gets coerced into joining a diving club. Now I've talked about a diving anime before so I can tell you this one is very unique. It’s like if you combined with Azazel-san, Gintama, Prison School and mixed in with Amanchu but with males in. Iori is forced to join the club, and wants to distance himself from the tomfoolery but instead ends up always being the worst one; the manga includes absurdity at every corner with crude jokes that are mostly inappropriate or opposite of exception or straight up illegal but done so well that it is hilarious. There’s juxtaposition all the time with comedy, with it having a plot of diving and the process also mirrored with the nudism, crude jokes, degenerate stuff and also faces that would give Kakegurui a run for its money. This is a manga and anime that will make even the person with no sense of humour laugh their asses off because of how ridiculous this manga is, if you know what prison school is then that’s the type of ridiculousness you’d expect. In my opinion, it’s in the top 10 of comedy manga you could read if you’re old enough to read it.

As I was reading it, I noticed that there was not a lot of diving, just drinking a lot like college kids which reminded me a bit of Fairy Tail when they get together at tables as they’re having fun and making jokes with each other. It is even more funny that everything is normalised like they are barely dressed and go to college, as they can take some reality away to have its crazy jokes unfold with Iori not learning his lesson and repeating the mistake which you wouldn't expect to make you laugh more. It’s not just a false advertisement of a club, but actually has chapters of the diving lessons, where you get to see the awe of the sea and everything around. As someone who is deathly scared of the ocean, anime manga like these make me fall in love with the sea and everything in with its soothing nature like Grand Blue, Aria and Amanchu. It’s an awesome manga to check for young adults or older.

Gendo Ikari From Evangelion

The villain I will be talking about is a character that would be evil in nearly everyone’s eyes when they watch this anime, this anime being Neon Genesis Evangelion. Shinji’s dad or Gendo Ikari, as much as he was neglectable to his son, his actions make more sense when you actually finally understand the lore of Neon Genesis. A man who is so head-strung in his own wishes that he puts a bunch of kids through abuse may be evil to everyone but I think what his plan involved outweighed these small details for the benefits of humanity. Where he also wanted to be with his wife again as he made Rei from Lilith and his wife, in the end of evangelion he tries to merge himself with Rei/Yui and gets denied and admits he was afraid to confront his son. Gendo went through the trauma of his loss and his job, he became bad with people because of his focus on reconnecting with his wife, in the end I feel like he actually woke up from Rei rejecting him. In the end he wanted forgiveness and did his retribution. He sacrificed himself after his plans with his wife failed and died, not joining the singularity as a punishment.

The human instrumentality project is passed over to the control of shinji where he is traumatised that he rejects the plan and decides to stay while everyone gets absorbed into Lilith as one body and soul. Gendo may have been too hindsight by work to help his son but he wanted to save everyone from the third impact and his wife. People who have the will to come back can come back to earth, however shinji kills asuka, and basically because of his own stubbornness kills the rest of humanity as some would interpret. As the end of Evangelion is very much vague and left up to the audience to understand, Shinji could very much be more evil accidentally than his father plus the hospital scene that Shinji did. I feel like everyone in the series has trauma and because of this everyone thought of themselves as the world was on the verge of ending. So I don’t think anyone is to blame but oh boy doesn’t the original series make you want to hate Shinji for being a little baby, but you can understand because of what he's been through and his age. Now this is my understanding of the story, you may completely disagree and that’s fine because that’s what NGE is about. It’s meant to be up in the air for you to make your own conclusions.

Thanks for Reading!