Working!!

One of the series I was curious about this spring season was “Working!!”, a comedy anime based on the 4koma manga by Karino Takatsu. Although the first episode already had a pre-airing earlier on but I only watched it recently.

A pure comedy, the show focuses on the antics of the various employees at a family restaurant called Wagnaria, especially the energetic yet undersized Taneshima Poplar and new staff member Takanashi Souta.

Right off the bat adored the irresistibly cute Poplar and seeing her antics was lovely, especially her interaction with all the other characters and Souta.

While Souta may indeed be easily identified as the new addition to the team who must get to know his colleagues and their rather unique quirks, he’s not really the standard character that serves as the voice of reason with whom the viewer can relate to as he too is shown to have his own unique character traits.

Or should we rather say fetishes? Still who can blame him, with Poplar being such an endearing girl.

While many shall no doubt scream moe upon seeing Poplar and condemn the series based only on the silly reason it has a moe character, do keep in mind the 4koma manga started serialization way back in 2005 before the current moe boom.

Nonetheless Poplar is just one adorable moe overdose, so incredibly cute and nice voice acting by Asumi Kana who you may remember as Mikoto from “Kämpfer” or Anzu from “Aria The Origination”.

Can’t deny that the manager Kyouko is also right up my alley in terms of characters that appeal to me, her whole indifferent but easily irritated yakuza persona was hilarious.
Gather in that aspect “Working!!” may just cater to my preferred character fetishes. While I am not often keen on such diminutive girls like Poplar, she’s so lively and bubbly though, who could ever resist?

Hope we get to see more of Yachiyo, her visual appearance and demeanour gave her a similar aura to Haruka from “Minami-ke”. Actually Yachiyo is voiced by Kitamura Eri who also voiced characters like Uchida in “Minami-ke”, Allean in “Queen’s Blade”, Hinata in “Kanamemo” or Kureha in last season’s “So-Ra-No-Wo-To”.

Seeing Yachiyo work as a waitress while carrying around a katana was something, wonder how that will play out in future episodes.

Looking forward to see more of Mahiru, her character looks like a total hoot though I do wonder if her attacking Souta won’t wear thin quite fast if used as a running gag.

Do think that part of the excellent comedy dynamic between Poplar and Souta is partly thanks to their respective voice acting, Souta being voiced by Fukuyama Jun who everyone will remember from stellar roles such as Lelouch from “Code Geass” and Lawrence in “Spice & Wolf”

Animation by A-1 Pictures was quite good, and did like the catchy opening song “Someone else” which actually featured as the ending theme for this first episode.

Am confident I will enjoy this so far hilarious comedy which while it will no doubt work with tried and true formulas, could bring quite a bit of laughs and offer us quirky and unique characters.