I was not expecting it to be a musical. The first song came out of nowhere and I could not stop laughing. Actually, every song made me laugh. The spoken dialogue makes you cringe until you have no other choice but to smile at how ridiculous and melodramatic it is. Some of the deliveries are wonderfully confusing-- are they serious, but being spoken in an unserious tone? Or vice versa? Keeps you on your toes, you know?
I have yet to recall more than one or two names. You mostly attribute each person to their trope/mental illness. For example, one person is the tough guy, one is the best friend, and another is a sadist for some reason.
Some songs are literally twenty seconds. Others are a couple of minutes. Again, it keeps you guessing. For all of this show's cliches, you have to give it credit for never being boring.
Not a single "devil" or villain is even remotely intimidating. It's perfect. They all fail to do their jobs both tonally and physically, and it kind of makes you want to be friends with all of them for trying their best. Maybe except the sadist.
I adore the random "engrish" that always finds somewhere new to sneak into the next song. I'm sure it's more profound in Japanese, but the English phrases that jump into the songs are some of the most unintentionally funny lyrics I've ever heard that make absolutely no sense with the rest of the number.
But what is undeniably the best thing about this series is the action. I don't understand how, but that also made me burst into laughter every single time there was an on-screen fight. Half the time, they're singing while fighting, which immediately strips the scene of any tension whatsoever. The first fight was amazing-- the hunky class president was (very slowly) jumping all over the place, kicking, hitting-- he even snapped a dude's arm in half, which was surprisingly brutal. Actually, there's a lot of gore in this show, especially in the last half. But then at the very end he literally snaps his fingers, and the bad guys disintegrate immediately. He could have annihilated everyone with this method, but the sheer fact that he actively chose to draw out the battle was very flattering as an audience member. It was like he really cared to entertain us.
A lousy day can be an amazing day with a show like this. Someone somewhere out there in Japan woke up and decided to bring their fanfiction to life. I genuinely hope this was a passion project, because it deserves praise for being able to make someone as jaded as me smile every time I think about it.
Minus one star for the incest side story.
