Shelf Life

You Da Bomb

Good Luck Girl! is not without a slate of flaws, but it is one of the most surprisingly fun and charming shows to have emerged from the wacky-hijinks-and-screwball-otaku-humor camp of comedies in the last couple of years. In its setup and execution, it feels almost like a romantic comedy... only instead of boy-meets-girl/boy-falls-in-love, it's more like... god-meets-girl/they-fight-for-eternity.

The premise is simple, yet efficient. Sakura Ichiko has always had luck on her side. She's great at school and sports, she's gorgeous and has giant tits, and she comes from a fabulously wealthy family. As one might also guess, she's also spoiled and shallow, mean and insufferable, and in general, kind of an intolerable bitch. Luckily, someone has come to sort that out—the dirty and scrappy Momiji, a poverty god whose job it is to make sure good and bad luck are evenly distributed in the world. In classic anime fashion, she decides she's going to move into Sakura's place and even ends up transferring into her class. From there on, it's a screwy madcap comedy, as the two girls chase each other around in a never-ending cat-and-mouse game. After all, one of them may be a god, but the other has fortune on her side.

Comedy-wise, Good Luck Girl! has moments of genius, but like many slapstick, high-energy comedies, it also has a few too many moments of repetition. While its hilarious seeing Momiji trying to use old-timey classics like the ol' heavy-object-balanced-on-top-of-a-door trick, the series does invariably run out of ways for the girls to harangue each other. The addition of several supernatural sidekicks and visitors helps, but they too are a little one-note. For those who enjoy anime references in their anime, Good Luck Girl! is rife with them, borrowing from hits like Dragonball Z, Prince of Tennis, and others. To its credit, rather than just being the quote-and-dump type of nerd-pandering humor that referential humor shows tend to be, this series actually takes the extra step in working them into the series so they're relatively standalone. For instance, even if you'd never watched a minute of, say, Fist of the North Star, you'd still get the joke of girls' faces contorting into hyper-masculine men and scowling at each other. (Though if you've never watched a minute of Fist of the North Star, this is a malady that should be remedied.)

However, despite the million jokes a second that are constantly being fired out of the series, it's the slower moments that are the best. There are several episodes that take a much-needed break from all the energy and focus more on the softer side of things. We finally see why Sakura is such a terrible person, and granted, even though the flashback is kind of dumb, it adds an extra dimension to an otherwise flat character. It's that character trajectory of Sakura from shallow snob to caring friend that makes the series so rewarding to watch, and while it's not exactly groundbreaking story telling, it is the only reliable way to positively elevate a show whose go-to gag is watching a girl trying to ram a humungous syringe into someone.

Good Luck Girl is perhaps not the kind of show you'd find yourself desperately wanting to watch every year. Its jokes are good enough to make the first (or second) run funny, but I'm not sure their novelty would last much longer than that. And while the dramatic aspects of the series help carry the show past the finish line, it's not exactly life-changing enough that it would hold up to repeat viewings. However, it is one of the most amusing comedies I've seen in recent times, and I can't help but urge everyone to check out an episode or two at some point. [TOP]

In a bizarre twist of happenstance, Ryuta goes to the convenience store, only to wake up on a jungle island. As contrivance would have it, he learns that he's somehow been whisked into something resembling a real-life version of BTOOOM, where the only way to leave the island is to be the last man standing. To use an easy comparison, it's like Battle Royale, except everyone has to fight using only specialty bombs. Fortunately for Ryuta, his in-game bomb-throwing skills correlate enough with his physical ability to throw, making him a natural at this nightmare he's woken up in.

Along the way, we meet several new characters, some of them good (like sexy fanservice-bait Himiko, who bears a striking resemblance to Ryuta's e-waifu), but most of them bad. In fact, so many of the characters on the island turn out to be manipulative, untrustworthy psychopaths that 90% of the tension in the series is just waiting to see whether or not each new addition to the cast can be trusted. It's a solid platform for built-in tension, and before you know it, you realize you're a lot more worried for the characters' safeties than you ever would have anticipated.

The subject of Himiko is an interesting one. She's a smart girl and an obviously strong one, but it can't be denied that she's partly written into the series because a Sexy Girl was needed. She's scared of men because of past (and present) rape attempts, and while it's certainly heartening to see her defend herself from these situations, I can't help but think that these scenes are drawn a little too suggestively, and with no pretension of hiding why they're there. There's little reason to depict the scenes with the salacious, first-person POVs they're treated with, other than to scintillate. One could argue, “but she fights back!” but it's not transparent whatsoever why the scenes drag on as long as they do, or why they're drawn in the manner that they are.

BTOOOM! also suffers a bit from character development problems. Ryuta is a stock NEET-turned-badass-hero fantasy fulfillment character (who of course saves Himiko physically and emotionally), and never quite gets around to fully examining why he's such a pill. And, considering that everyone on the island was placed there for a reason, the characters that we meet are hardly more than just a running tally of the terrible dregs of humanity, like murderers and rapists. Even the ones with backstories are hardly more than just tools for shock and disgust.

At the same time, BTOOOM! is also deeply riveting, in the way that only action-soaked, bomb-blasted popcorn flicks can be. We can't help but be sucked into this survival story, not because Ryuta is a hero worth championing, but because we're distracting by all the beeping bombs, knife-fights, and weirdos on the island. It's a series that not only delivers the best when one doesn't think about it, but also completely falls apart when one does. Every single time the show even sort of tries to explain why people are on the island, it crumbles under the weight of its own horseshit.

Perhaps in a nutshell, that's the best way to encapsulate the appeal of BTOOOM! It's great and awesome, as long as you don't think about it. Is it incredibly fun to watch? Oh, absolutely. Will you have a good time? Undeniably. Is it a well-written show with three-dimensional characters and a thought-provoking story? Lord, no. The less synapses you fire, the better your enjoyment of the series. But sometimes, that's just what the doctor ordered.[TOP]