Review | Asobi Asobase: Workshop Of Fun

« NEVER TRUST THE OPENING ». This was a major mini-lesson that I got from watching this show so I decided to start my review from there. When first going through the opening song, I got misled by the fluffy, soft, girly mood that is going on thinking that it will open out to a romance/drama kind of anime, until I realized that it’s turning into the wildest and most hilarious show I’ve watched in 2018 and beyond. 

Asobi Asobase –English: Workshop Of Fun- is an ingenious comedy Anime TV show showcasing the unusual daily life of three middle school girls who gathered in a trivial classmates’ situation to grow later into best club buddies. Kasumi Nomura is the bespectacled beauty who appeared at first as a composed, smart book-nerd with a serious demeanor, but alas, she was very bad at English, also a Yaoi fangirl (￢‿￢) and occasionally a cold, sadistic, violent monster once provoked. 

Olivia is the blonde airhead transfer student who just wanted to chill and mess with people ┐(￣∀￣)┌ . Her parents live in America but she has always lived in Japan and doesn’t speak a word of English. That being the case, she started a prank where she spoke in very broken Japanese all the time giving everyone the impression that she’s a native American. When she tried to provoke Kasumi though, it backfired on her and she ended up being coerced for English tutoring. Kasumi then suggests starting a club where they learn English from Olivia and Japanese Pastimes from Kasumi. 

Hanako, on the other hand, will just go for anything that will get her close to become one of the “popular girls” she’s obsessed with. Hanako is studious and apparently rich alas, she constantly comes up with over-the-top ideas that are usually eccentric or hobotastic. She is also constantly envious of Kasumi’s breasts and can release a perfect version of a mandrake shriek from the Harry Potter series ( ﾟДﾟ). The discussion is settled with Olivia’s fingers getting partially destroyed from thumb wrestling with Kasumi and later on, with Hanako’s usual outlandish interventions, the Pastimers Club was formed where most but not all of the comedy happens.

The anime is episodic with 3 ‘contents’ per episode and the plot overall is not chronological but most contents will make references to previous ones so I recommend watching everything in order.

Next is my favorite element of the show: the voice acting. I just find it very brilliantly executed. It is incredibly rich and varied, very expressive and largely entertaining in combination with some uniquely amusing visual reactions and effects. Many interesting supporting characters will appear each time (Maeda the ‘thing’, single sensei, the horny student council rep and a lot more) so you continuously keep witnessing a weird thing after the other…

I could really keep babbling on about this show all day long but for the sake of brevity, I am gonna finish by saying that Asobi Asobase was, without a doubt, one of the most awesome experiences for me and after rewatching it countless times, here I am writing my first review on it, so I apologize if it lacked in logical flow and whatnot    (￣∇￣).