Snack Basue

If you're looking for a quick summary, the show is funnier than the incredibly low score would have you to believe (At the time of writing this, it's sitting at 58% average score). If you're really into Japanese culture and you're really well versed on the classics of Otaku culture you'll definitely get a lot out of this show.

But if you're looking for a breakdown on specifics, I'll go more in depth now.

First, I'll get the negatives out of the way - it looks cheap - That doesn't mean it is cheap, because the animation isn't anything that's standout - but it doesn't look the greatest. That's simply something you'll have to get used to. I've certainly seen shows that are animated worse than this, but if you're the kind of person to get turned off by artstyle, you can stop here and move on.

Second, there is no plot. Some comedy anime have an overarching plot to it that some people rely on to stay engaged with the property - this is not one of them. The series focuses on Snack Basue and the customers it serves who have increasingly absurd things to say. There are maybe two characters who have a vaguely ongoing storyline, but the story is extremely unimportant.

With that out of the way, I'll talk about the rest of the series now!

The characters are charming enough - and this is in no small part due to the incredible vocal performance of Rie Takahashi as Akemi, but that's not to discount the other characters. Also of particular standout to me are Yohei Azakami as Yamada and Saito Kimiko as the Mama of the bar, but no one does a bad job. I'd only really warn about Morita, he's the "pervert" character of the show. While I certainly have no issue with him, some may have issue with his main gag being that he's a sad lonely virgin who really wants to bang the MC. This series never makes him do anything physical to anyone, but be warned if you dislike those characters.

But the real standout of the show is the dialogue - as with all comedy anime; the comedy is heavily based on the dialogue. The jokes of the show fall into two categories: Those heavily based in reference and the others.

All of the jokes are delivered in the standard Japanese Manzai "character A says something weird, character B calls them out in a dramatic fashion" manner - if you've watched a comedy anime, you've definitely seen it before. This show will not land for you if you're already not a fan of that - however... I am one of those people.

The referential jokes go deep, I'd say you need a deep understanding on Japanese Culture in general - especially Japanese internet culture - to get the most out of this show. Plenty of the jokes come from referencing classic games or anime such as Dragon Quest or common tropes in Japanese media such as Isekai plotlines with a good dash of random American stuff that had some popularity there such as TMNT. Hell, every episode ends with one or more of the characters doing Karaoke of older Japanese music.

If that's your cup of tea, you're in luck since the other half of the jokes are much easier to understand, usually they're dirty jokes with cheap punchlines (which I love) but there's also some other ones usually made by calling out how ridiculous some of the characters can be. It's pretty normal stuff, really!

So, are you a big time weeb looking for an anime that will test your cultural knowledge? Or an older japanese salaryman looking for a good cheap laugh or three? Look no further than Snack Basue! Quite frankly a show that deserves better, but it's hard to recommend without having the knowledge of the references!