Due to the massive influence of the United States in world affairs, non-Americans often pay keen attention to the affairs of American politics. Donald Trump's surprise victory in the 2016 presidential election shocked the world, and his personality and public statements both online and offline have provided a great deal of fodder for his critics around the world to ridicule. However, the problem with satirizing Donald Trump is that the real thing is almost always more absurd and over-the-top. Late night television is at its lowest point in decades, with SNL being nigh-unwatchable, and political cartoons, while rarely funny or well-drawn, are in an especially dire state.

From a Japanese perspective, Donald Trump validates every stereotype of the crass, boorish American, and he has similarly become the subject of quite a few satirical portrayals in television, manga, and at least one animated short--Yo! Daitouryou Trap-kun. Directed by Takashi Taniguchi, whose most notable project is the 2016 anime short Onara Gorou, which follows the adventures of a sentient fart cloud, Yo! Daitouryou Trap-kun offers similarly scatological humor, depicting Donald Trump (named "Trap-kun"--despite the word's connotations in Western anime fandom, there is no crossdressing and the name is simply wordplay) as a transfer student at a Japanese middle or high school.

As he is introduced in the first episode, he floats into the classroom (there is very little in the way of animation in this short), pulls down his pants to fart in the teacher's face before urinating in the classroom (his penis is censored via pixelation, similar to Japanese pornography), and finally revealing that he carries a bento (boxed lunch) inside his skull. Also, he is rapping. The second episode takes place on the school grounds during physical education class. Trap-kun is very excited to exercise, and once again begins to rap before flirting with a girl, removing his pants and leaping on to another boy's head as it slips into his anus, before finally revealing that his hair is a five-kilogram weight. Both episodes are around forty seconds long, feature very, very cheap animation, and offer absolutely nothing beyond the scatological humor of Trap-kun farting and pissing.

This was worth an initial chuckle, but unfortunately, after a combined minute and a half, is just not very funny. I could complain that it has "nothing to say", but a serious attempt at political satire probably would have been even worse given what the state of modern politics has done to comedy in the United States. This is by no means a good short anime, but at least it doesn't try to be one.