A comedy of errors! It’s so ridiculous, but it knows it’s being ridiculous, I cannot help but love it!
The entire series derives humor from:
A note about connections to other things: This 12-episode series is the adaptation of a manga, which was the prequel to a series called Barakamon. Barakamon (which came first) is a comedic slice-of-life following young-adult city-boy Sei Handa who’s been exiled to the countryside to calm his nerves and find inspiration for his calligraphy. (And then there’s culture clashes, the city boy not knowing how to do anything, and found family.) It’s a sweet series with its own humor, but it’s very different from Handa-kun, so if you’re already familiar with Barakamon, this series is much more slapstick. And if you’re not already familiar with Barakamon, you’re probably fine. I read the Handa-kun manga first (before reading or watching anything else), and found it perfectly understandable.
School fan clubs are common in anime, but here we get the Handa Force, a group of 4 classmates who have been inspired by Handa and ¾ of whom believe he’s a genius of unmatched levels.
The fourth member is an average student, who, besides Handa’s one friend who was responsible for making him believe the they-hate-you thing in the first place, is the only student who actually figures out that Handa is just…shy, and nervous and stressed, and that his schoolmates are ascribing motivation that he doesn’t have and are just making Handa’s anxiety worse. And yet, he’s never able to convey this to Handa (or the others) in a way that doesn’t already fit with what they believe, and thus the cycle continues.
It’s a simple gag, but I laughed so much while watching. I loved how it addresses the “why doesn’t someone just explain what’s going on” problem, because if it could be solved that simply, it would just be frustrating to watch. (I hate those sort of communication issues.)
Instead, it’s made obvious: the only person who can really explain is old friend Kawafuji, who intended it as a prank in middle school, but Handa’s innocent spirit believed him so hard he couldn’t take it back. And also, he thinks the whole thing is frikkin hilarious. He’ll explain everything…someday, but for now he’s enjoying the show.
(Handa, for his part, think he’s so unpopular that he refuses to be publicly seen with Kawafuji so Kawafuji won’t suffer by association. This also conveniently means that no one will ask Kawafuji any questions, so nobody is telling lies directly to anyone else, it’s all just everyone going from 0-60 on assumptions.)
There are other characters, but no one has made gifs I can find of the guy whose face almost matches Handa’s and impersonates him for a while, or the athlete who thinks Handa is his nemesis, or the girl who dedicates herself to “erasing” any other girl who dares to get close, or the teacher who gets steadily scruffier as the year goes on…
Verdict
English dub? Yes! They’re all great! I didn’t consciously think about their voices for the entire time I watched, which is good–it means everyone sounded like they fit their character.
Visuals: Light and brightly colored, with good character designs that are distinct enough to make everyone easy to tell apart.
Worth watching? Yes, if you like wacky humor. This was just so ridiculous to me and I liked the predictability that everything would end with everyone having the same ideas (Handa is Great at Everything group vs. Handa’s self-isolation). There was no attempt to make this a deep drama: it set out to be silly, and it did it very well. Plus, at 12 episodes, it doesn’t have time to get stale.
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