BoBoBo-Bo Bo-BoBo vol. 2: Scream for Ice Cream — anime review
It takes a special kind of weird to make me crack up. It’s the type of comedy that is so out of left field, so unpredictably off the wall it challenges viewers to even describe its humor. Shows like Aqua Teen and early South Park pull this off wonderfully. You either get these shows, or you’re left hopelessly in the dark. Joining these esteemed ranks (for myself at least) is Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, the manga turned anime featuring a golden-afro’d hero with 6’ long nose hairs of steel, and a crazed imagination rivaling that of the Muppet Babies (If you haven’t already, check out my review of Bobobo Volume 1). Granted, anime is a place for all sorts of oddball delights, so the comparison to “odd” American creations such as those above may for some prove completely invalid. However, the show is bonkers to such a degree as to frighten your friends and family…even those who dig Excel Saga.
To minimize the risk of repeating myself, I’ll just jump right in. Picking up where Bo-Nafide Protector left off, this disc opens with Bobobo and crew fresh off their first altercation with one of Baldy-Bald’s Hair-Hunt goons. Over the course of the four episodes presented, they will battle a Green-Tea soup alien, more hair hunt guards, be struck with a nefarious hair-loss beam (which induces a Ringu-like countdown to hair loss), and meet a couple new buddies, including the soft-serve ice cream headed Softon. Along the way, you can expect the usual glut of lapses into absurdity, including inexplicable metamorphoses, lengthy film parodies, and, of course, cross dressing.
While Bobobo is marketed as a kids show, there’s a lot here for adults to enjoy. As mentioned above, the film parodies are a joy to watch, spoofing everything from American speedster dramas to Japanese supernatural-martial arts fests. Furthermore, a lot of the humor plays off of genre clichés. For example, in Softon’s introduction he’s shown in typical vengeance film fashion. He’s imposingly framed, determinedly clutching a locket whose photo depicts two young females. Instead of “I’ll get those guys…,” he growls “Why do I have this? I don’t even have kids.” It’s absurd, but in the moment it’s provides more than a chuckle. And the show works harder than your average weirdo comedy, generating honest laughs without venturing into the realm of the cheap and vulgar. It’s crazed, but clean enough to watch in good company.
As we all well know, gonzo is quite a hard thing to maintain for any substantial amount of time. Eventually the fun just runs out. While the first disc of Bobobo had me rolling in the ailes, I was left wondering if it might turn out to be an instance of the comedic early peak. Having now viewed the second disc, I think the Bobobo fun is just getting started.
The DVD
Illumitoon presents BoBoBo-Bo Bo-BoBo in a 1.33:1 transfer maintaining its original television aspect ratio. As with the first disc, colors are impressively bright and sharp, and the audio is nice and clear. Unlike the first disc, this features a genuine subtitling of the original Japanese language track and all kanji writing on screen (it’s worth noting that Illumitoon has recently fixed this, and is offering a trade in program for its Dubtitled editions of Bobobo vol. 1). This is quite cool, however having by this point grown accustomed to the American voices, I ended up combo-ing the Japanese subtitles with the American dub, in order to decipher the writing on screen. Furthermore, there’s still a bit of action subtitling (ie: subtitling laughs). It would be great if Illumitoon could in the future provide a subtitle track for the screen-kanji only. Still, this is a nice move in the right direction, and worth a bit of praise.
Included on the disc as extras are Kanji versions of the Bobobo opening and closing credit sequences, a series of character bios, and trailers for other Illumnitoon releases. It’s not much, but more than the first DVD.
For some of you I was a little too lenient regarding the strange issues with Illumitoon’s first DVD of Bobobo. I still think that given the show’s sheer entertainment value and Illumitoon’s relative newness to the DVD playing field the allowances I made were valid. I’m still not too keen on the cover art, but seeing the improvements made with this disc, I’d say they’re on the right track, and should be hitting their full stride soon. This second volume of Bobobo offers a great show, a far more solid translation, and a very nice transfer. All in all: a decent disc.
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