It's stunning that this 6 part series remains so underwatched given it's incredibly high quality all across the board. With professional actors and high quality camerawork and post, this is far from the amateur film project it appears to be. I suspect it is the product of more than a couple of film school graduates.
2 Kawaii 4 Comfort is, at a surface level, about weeaboos. Weeaboos are people so into their anime, manga, and other items of Japanese culture that they do things like use Japanese phrases and words out of context, behave like characters from media they watch or read, and generally would be considered quite odd outside of their contained communities.
However, what 2K4C really does is uses this frame of weebs going to a convention to provide a very dark and raw outsider drama as a traumatic car crash kicks off tensions and personal issues within the group and it's members.
Our cast comprises of 4/5 characters of varying degrees of weeb. From one who is only going to compete in a game tournament and is barely a weeb, to the cosplayer (someone who dresses up in elaborate costumes) who lives and breathes being 'kawaii' (the Japanese word for cute). I say 4/5 as one of them is really only present in the first episode and then doesn't show up for most of the series.
Each of these characters is deeply flawed in a perfect encapsulation of a youth culture that has grown up with video games and dependent on the internet. While it is specifically focused on a subset who have become obsessed with Japanese culture, it is still an accurate representation in general. Speaking as a 23 year old with a history of similar isolation and quite a great deal of exposure to people closely matching the characters in the show.
They are all socially isolated and have severe self-confidence issues as well as other individual problems. The convention they attend is their escape from reality. Allowing them to fully lose themselves in their passions.When this fantasy land is shattered, they are forced to deal with the issues they are always running from. Almost always in ways that are painfully real and raw.
The writers of this show have a deep understanding of what I means to feel outside of society or rejected. And what it means to always been in need of an escape. They write their characters with a brevity of detail that keeps every moment of dialog or interaction impactful. It's great to see a show that manages to pack this much personality and character development into such a short episode length.
They also understand that tragedy and comedy are bedfellows, if not often one and the same. Many of the moments in this show that will be painful to some many also be hilarious to others. It does also have it's legitimately comedic moments sprinkled in and these often are a welcome relief from the constant serious tone.
I give this a solid 8/10 and would recommend this to anyone who related to anything said in the above paragraphs. While it would help to have an understanding of western anime subculture to understand some of the nuances, the show really doesn't depend on it at all. It's really just a framing device for the broader drama. At its heart this is a solid, moving, and impactful drama show.
The first episode is a little slow. And honestly doesn't capture what the show is about. The show really saves itself in episodes 2-6, but the first is rather misleading. It serves it's purpose as a gentle introduction to the characters but personally I feel it takes too long to get to the meat of the conflict that drives the show and comes off as portraying the show as a 'so bad it's good' cringe fest portraying a frequently looked down upon subgroup of people and missing the gripping drama that really holds the show together.
Either way, if you want a solid show about personal tragedies and drama with a tinge of comedy than this is a great bet.
