Katanashi Family Values
It’s hard to put my finger on exactly what it is I find so delightful about Working!. I’ve always been a fan of the slice-of-life moe comedy genre, ever since the Azumanga Daioh days (yes, yes, I’m aware of the debate over the definition of “slice-of-life” but I’m not going to weigh into it here, and just use it as a term that everyone understands for now), and it disappoints me a little that the genre is now so maligned (but when the genre’s face at the moment is K-On!, I guess I can’t blame people). Since the days of Azumanga Daioh, titles like the zany Ichigo Mashimaro and Minami-ke have carried on the traditions of the genre, while the slightly less zany Hidamari Sketch and Sketchbook (which are both eccentric in their own ways, but are executed with more poise and subduedness) have shown that, when the genre wants to, it can have a surprising amount of depth. Ten episodes in (I haven’t seen the latest ep yet) and it surprises me quite a bit when I stand here and say that Working! also has depth. It is, at the very least, a good example of what makes the genre so charming, in my mind. (Minor spoiler warning for the tagged titles.)
Working! was panned pretty hard when it started, unfairly so, because to me a lot of the potshots looked like criticisms of the overall genre rather than the title itself. Admittedly, it did take a bit of time to build up steam, but at the moment, I think it’s comparable in a lot of ways to Minami-ke, and I mean that as high praise. The similarities in tone and looks are fairly obvious and while I wouldn’t quite say it’s as funny as the first season of Minami-ke was (which was a rather clever and sharp comedy in a lot of ways) it’s not that far off. Both series place a pretty interesting emphasis on the concept of family, and how it goes a long way towards defining characters.
Aware enough to point out its own logic flaws. A sign of a smart comedy.
At the time, Minami-ke‘s premise was unconventionally banal, and I mean that as a compliment. While most slice-of-life moe anime were set in high schools and centered around a group of four or five girls whose very existences are tenuous when they’re not in school, Minami-ke focused mainly on the 16 hours a day its main characters spent outside the classroom… and these characters, sisters, were all different ages and attended different schools. Between the jokes we get a good idea of what makes the household of three work and what ties the sisters together, but the fact that they go their different ways when they go to school means that there are all these separate little subplots involving Chiaki, Kana and Haruka’s classmates, that occasionally crisscross when they meet up for study sessions or to hang out at the Minami apartment. The fact that the story doesn’t rely on a high school setting opens up its scope, and the jokes about living at home and dealing with family, siblings in particular, and the unexpected, yet banal challenges that go along with it, like making dinner, watching TV and sharing the bathroom were, at the time, really refreshing for the genre. It also helped though that the first season of Minami-ke had the execution to make it work well.
Working!‘s scope is slightly more limited than Minami-ke, but I don’t mind the idea of them setting the show almost exclusively in a family diner, with something like half-a-dozen minor exceptions at most. Just as home is a forgotten refuge in most similar anime that Minami-ke wanted to put the magnifying glass over, most of the time the main teenage character in a standard anime will spend maybe a couple of minutes per episode at work in a restaurant, which is basically the place where they can quietly collect their thoughts except in the instance when they’re friends drop in to annoy them… and that’s in the cases where the main character even has a job. And while Working! is keenly aware that any workplace is its own busy microcosm, the show is funny because of… well, the same thing that makes any anime comedy funny: its characters.
Hirohashi Ryou makes this character. Another impressive performance from a seiyuu who's just been on fire for the last three years or so.
Some slice-of-life moe series have been criticized for inconsistent characterization, but this is something that Working! has got pitch perfect. In large part, this is because Working! cares about the characters’ pasts and the influences their families have had over them, and has gone to reasonable efforts to sew these backstories into the characters. The cast are a collection of oddballs doing oddball things, which is what the entire genre is built on, but the fact that their eccentricities have explanations makes it easier to invest in these characters, and actually find it funny when they get up to various antics. It also helps that, as people, we’re shown that they actually function sufficiently that they can run a restaurant together. It’s always good when anime gets away from serving us yet another moeblob who can’t tie her own shoelaces.
Family is vital to the make up of each of the characters. Poplar is named because her mother wanted her to be as tall as a tree. She’s a humourous character, but she’s progressively become less important to the show. I find it kinda funny how people (jokingly) make threads in /a/ about starting new jobs in family restaurants expecting to find a cute, short, well-endowed waitress, because I think this pretty much gets to the root of Poplar’s character: she’s wish-fulfillment. The irony is that she’s very specific type of wish-fulfillment made exclusively for Takanashi. She’s everything that Takanashi could dream of because she’s cute, small and childish, just like the children and other small things that Takanashi likes, but unlike children she’ll never change and grow up. While Takanashi is enamoured by the antics of his permaloli senpai at work, he’s watching his younger sister Nazuna grow up extremely quickly right before his eyes at home. His fear is that she’ll become much like their older sisters and the small signs, such as her huge height for her age, her resourcefulness and the uncanny control she has over her sisters (which isn’t sinister at this stage, but Takanashi probably believes it could be if left unchecked) are there.
Then there's chaos.
They could have made an entire anime about the Takanashi household, almost, and I really hope we get at least one more episode about them. It’s a large family of five siblings (and no parents, whose fates are known, something other anime where the parents are MIA often tread around) and despite the fact that we’ve only seen a few glimpses of their home life, the dynamics are already fairly well fleshed out. Nazuna and Souta seem to be the closest of the siblings, with Nazuna offering Souta aid and advice to help him deal with the other three sisters, but the scary thoughts of what Nazuna might be like when she gets older haunt Souta. But the relationship I find the most entertaining is the one between the two eldest sisters, Kazue and Izumi. Kazue is a hard, intimidating woman (she’s a lawyer, which says it all), while Izumi dresses in a depressing black mourning dress and writes romance novels, despite being lovelorn herself and struggling for inspiration. While it hasn’t been stated explicitly, I get the feeling that Izumi is (or at least sees herself) as a tortured artist and it’s clear why this would annoy Kazue, who I’d imagine would be all about structures, career and success. The greatest ironic difference between Kazue and Izumi is that Izumi writes romance from (as far as I can tell) an inexperienced standpoint, but Kazue has been there, done that, and experienced the bitter reality of relationships when her own marriage ended in divorce. It all makes for great, antagonistic chemistry and tension between these two, but given that blood is thicker than etc, they manage to live together and love each other as sisters. It all kinda comes full circle by the fact that Kazue, as hard as she is, bends to almost every whim of the cute and charming Nazuna. Oh, and Kozue is an alcoholic university student, which just kinda makes trouble for everyone. Hmm… yeah, seriously, this family is begging to have a spin off series made about them.
It’s a strange group of characters at Wagnaria when we have Otou who’s been looking for his missing wife for years and Inami who fears men to the point that her impulsive response is violence, yet neither are the weirdest character in the show (that prize goes to Yamada). Inami is another character whose primary characteristic is explained by the influence of her family… her father specifically. But I also wouldn’t have expected at the outset that she’d become the primary romantic possibility for Takanashi… the only one, in fact, now that the show has very deftly swept Poplar (and anyone else who might come between them) to one side. I can see why people might not have liked Inami at first, but her character development has been surprisingly profound (these types of shows aren’t known for profound character development) and I’m certainly to the point now where I strongly approve of Takanashi x Inami. She’s changed because of him, and that change has been accelerated by the acts of kindness that have come in between his decreasingly terse words… acts of kindness which have usually been delivered on the end of a plastic claw pick-up tool. I don’t hold much hope of these two becoming a couple in the three or so episodes I’ve yet to see, but I’d love to see it happen.
No doubt this series has improved a lot since its outset, but the early criticism seems pretty deserved. A lot of people, myself included, found the pilot amusing but were cautious about it evolving into anything other than repeating the quirks of its characters ad nauseum. That’s exactly what the second episode did, and the next few weren’t good enough to make up for it.
It started getting better when the orange haired one started trying to take responsibilty, combined with the introduction of Hirohashi Ryo’s character and the Takanashi sisters (who should get a Minami-ke spin-off).
I have to admit something: I kinda disliked the show from the onset, just like some viewers. The beef I had against Working!! initially was how it didn’t have a proper footing with its humor material. Takanashi’s fondness for small, cute stuff just seems like one of his idiosyncrasies but it looks random from the show’s overall humor standpoint. Poplar didn’t really play a significant role either; she was neither kooky nor funny to watch; she was merely there to push Takanashi’s buttons. Souma had the bad habit of being nosy, but this trait didn’t go anyway after an episode.
However, halfway through the show, I began to love the show. It’s that kind of slice-of-life that grows on me because the characters do undergo some changes in their character, particularly the Taka-Inami pairing. Especially in this relationship, I think we would agree that irony plays a big role in making this show funny: Inami is clearly a violent girl judging from her androphobic outbursts, but you can’t really call her violent in terms of her personality (this is before you found out about her background). Takanashi hates her outbursts, but he never thought of staying away from her for good even when she’s not his type. Clearly, he isn’t such a shallow person and he became a respectable person when he helped to confront her fears (albeit with unusual means).
Frankly, I enjoy seeing the awkward tension between Todoroki and Satou everytime they speak to each other the most. Todoroki is completely oblivious to Satou’s feelings for her, but Satou actually wants her to be that way. He has a crush on her but he shrugs it off for Todoroki’s benefit, since he doesn’t think it’s a big deal anyway. I kinda respect him for it, but it’s awfully funny to see how Todoroki keeps rubbing it into his face when she talks about manager.
I really like Working!! for some reason. I suspect that part of it has to do with the show’s ability to balance characters I don’t have to commit myself to (Popura-chan, Souma for example) with some characters I’m really interested in learning more about (Yamada, Inami, Todoroki). Not to mention the beautiful Takanashi family.
I completely agree that in a sense there’s something about this show that reminds me of Minami-ke as well. From a comedic standpoint, that’s great (good thing Working!! doesn’t have the same animation fail that the last Minami-ke did).
But maybe the way the drama is sort of carried in the comedy is far more interesting to me than a lot of series. I can’t stand K-ON or Lucky Star because, quite frankly, my everyday life is filled with fun, crazy people; I always find myself laughing a lot. So when I watch these so called comedy/slice-of-life blends, I always find them to be extremely dull in a sense. No conflict.
But what I like about Working!! is the way the relationships work in the series. Takanashi x Inami is great, especially since we all first gave little credit to Takanashi being anything more than a lolicon. Satou x Yachiyo makes the somewhat overdone mysterious/nonchalant superior (Kyoko) and loyal follower (Yachiyo) relationship have an extra dimention. Overall, I think it’s simply brought together well for some reason. I’m looking forward to the last few episodes.
You haven’t spoken too much about Yamada, which I understand, but she deserves a mention as well.
Yamada is an absolutely brilliant character. I love everything about her, from her self-referential third-person pronoun usage (no doubt a self-defense mechanism to reinforce the fact that she IS Yamada in everyone’s minds) to her lazy, bum-around nature (with a perpetual “intern” badge on her uniform to accentuate her non-official status at the restaurant.) Even in the weird world of Wagneria, Yamada transcends absurdity and enters the realm of surrealism with her shenanigans.
I personally enjoy watching Yachiyo slowly crush Satou’s spirit every time she mentions Kyoko in front of him. I respect the guy for keeping his mouth shut, and keeping things non-awkward in the workplace. A true bro, if you will.
Kind of disappointed that Souma’s been pushed to the wayside. Given Kamiya’s (arguably unhuman) recording schedule, I don’t blame the directors. I think Souma’s comical sinisty should be exploited for more humorous effect in the show.
I really like Takenashi x Inami, but I’m hoping for no resolution on that. Working is too lulzy to suddenly give us a clear-cut pairing between two of the main character. I hope Inami keeps beating the shit out of him until the very last minute— just the way it should be.
Finally, I’ve been in an argument with a friend of mine over Taneshima’s tits. To be honest, I find her character design fascinating— small, cute and disgustingly well-endowed. Her character design may represent a kind of “gap-moe”— something that viewers find attractive beacuse of its novelty or unexpected nature.
All in all, though, Working is this season’s winner. I had high hopes for other shows, but this one takes the cake. The humor’s smart, the characters are adorable, the animation’s silky smooth— there’s not much more I can ask for from a show like this.
@AuroraFlame
Yeah, it didn’t start great. But I don’t think the show was ever so bad that it deserved (for example) unfavourable comparisons with K-On!. It found its feet though, with a good mix of character dynamics, which is a really good thing.
@AC
I could have lengthened this article by another 500 words or so if I started writing about the Chief, and the ironic love triangle she’s in the middle of. She’s another character who is, to a fair extent, defined by family. Her sword is representative of her cutlery dealing family, and the trouble it got her into as a kid is what lead to her meeting Kyouko. It’s also funny how Yamada sees her as the “mother” in her desired soap opera family. As far as Satou is concerned, I laughed when he was friendzoned in ep 10. The universe hates Satou for liking Yachiyo, and boy does it make him suffer.
@Kylaran
Do you also really love to skip out on work?
The last two seasons of Minami-ke haven’t been anywhere near as good as the first, and that doesn’t just go for animation. As far as K-On! goes, well I have my opinions, and I’m not going to pass up this opportunity to air them. It’s the anime equivalent of standing water if you ask me. People try to attribute depth to it, claiming it’s a coming-of-age story which uses music as a vehicle, yet when you look at it alongside something like BECK, which was emphatic, on-message and executed with poise, it just comes off as hollow and insipid in comparison. So people run the other way, trying to claim it’s nothing more than a cute fun comedy about antics, but when you compare it with shows like Minami-ke’s first season and Working! or the two “Sketch” anime, it comes up incredibly short here too… left looking just lazy, derivative and bereft of any genuine charm. It’s one of the most cynical and transparent examples of moe fanservice I think I’ve ever seen, so it bemuses me that people want to dress it up as something more noble or meaningful than it really is. It’s all well and good for people to like moe fanservice if they want, but to put it on some sort of pedestal…? Please, that’s an insult to similar slice-of-life moe comedies that are actually either well executed or creatively ambitious.
@Akira
Gap-moe. Now there’s an interesting idea. I disagree about Takenashi x Inami but maybe that’s because I have misplaced expectations about the romance in this series. This ain’t a romance by any stretch of the imagination, it’s a comedy, but I do like to see couples actually get together, being the sort of person who doesn’t thinks that it really count as romance until the characters do become a couple. Everything else, though, totally agree (with the exception of Working! being this season’s winner, which is a big call, though it certainly is up there). It’s incredible that a show like this has managed to serve up so much smart comedy and so many aspects worthy of discussion, seeing as how it looked rather generic at the beginning.
@Sorrow-kun
People tried to justify K-On!’s worth by comparing it with BECK? What the deuce?? K-On! is a poor example of slice-of-life for lazy writing, zero character development and being blatant moe blob that aims at pushing moe fans’ buttons only. BECK is in the class of its own, period.
Furthermore, K-ON!! (note it’s the second season) is just as bad, if not worst. I don’t think K-ON!! can even be compared to music-themed shows anymore; it hardly even show them making music! It even has a whole episode about the band coping with summer heat. SUMMER HEAT! From where I come from, it’s summer everyday. My point is, we’re basically watching a show about girls living their lives, and their lives aren’t even as exciting as our RL activities.
And with this, I have plenty to talk about for the review.
Inami is one of those characters that needed character development because most eon know how Inam’s fear for men started. If it happened in real life, then we have child services come to their doorstep for not properly raising their children?
Working is simply a different breed of slice of life and best not to be compared with slice of life anime that takes place at a school setting. It’s like comparing Sora no Woto with K-ON! when Sora no Woto have a different setting and premise.