Kill Me Baby – First Impression

Episode 01 – Dogs and Ninjas Underneath the Cherry Blossoms

“Kill me baby!”
Is that meant to reflect what one is meant to think while watching the show?

Okay, so I might be over reacting with the whole “kill me” part, but for a gag/comedic story, it really wasn’t all that funny.

Review

“Kill Me Baby follows the comedic life of a typical school girl Yasuna and her assassin classmate Sonya. Sonya’s attempt to fit in often fails when her natural assassin instincts kick in and Yasuna’s attempt to be more friendly with Sonya often gets her hurt or intimidated. Kill Me Baby’s cute sense of humor will keep you wanting more.” – My Anime List

This series is an adaptation of a 4-panel style manga (aka Yonkoma), but if you are expecting something like “Lucky Star” or “K-On!” you would be sadly disappointed.

From what I know, Yonkomas rarely have an on-going storyline and most of the time, the stories are short and would end within the 4 panels. From the looks of this first episode, this series reflects the style the manga. Every scene goes by in a quick manner, and whilst I am all for the quick and straight-to-the-point version of things, the humor had fallen flat on me. Heck, I had gotten more enjoyment out of the 3mins scene in “Recorder to Randoseru” than in any of the short stories in this episode.

That is a problem in my mind as the show is meant to be a gag-series and I had found it more lame than enjoyable. Although gag mangas are meant to be simple and easy to understand, they can still be funny and entertaining if done correctly. For instance, the on-running joke about Sonya’s automatic self-defense had gotten old quite quickly and to have to reuse that joke multiple times in one episode was tiring.

One of the biggest problems with this series was also how choppy the transition between the “segments” were. It was pretty obvious where one joke had ended and where the other one started. Instead of developing and adapting the story into being something with more of a flow to it, the show had felt like another of those “animated manga” instead of an animation with little adaptation to done to suit the medium. It would have made things better even if it was by simply slowing down the pace in order to develop the mood.

As for the vibe of the show, let it be known that everything about this series is cute. From the Chibi characters, to the voice actors, to the style of the jokes to the colour palette, everything screamed “C-U-T-E”. =P There is nothing wrong with a cute series, but I just thought that I needed to warn you. Oh, and when I say “cute”, I don’t mean butterflies and girly stuff, I just mean that the produces of the show had a very obvious idea of what they wanted the show to be like – adorable.

The animation is vibrant and simple, and although there is nothing complex about the art, it works for the show. The style of the animation forces the audience to focus on the actual content on the show and characters. The use of certain icons/imagery alongside some stock standard sound effects aids with lifting the impact of the content. And although the lack of background music and silence might feel odd to some, but I felt that it suited this type of show.

As for the characters, they do not really appeal to me. Sonya takes on the role of the typical stoic “no nonsense” character that is paired with her sidekick (Yasuna) who is “all nonsense” and bubbly. To join the pack is a wanna be ninja called Agiri who is constantly fooling around with her ninja equipment and moves. The best part of this episode for me has got to be the narrator, his comic timing is pretty good and his “explanatory” lines were the most humorous elements of this episode.

Overall, if you like gag series filled with cute chibi school girls, then you might want to give the show a try. The humor of the show is just not my cup of tea and the first 3 minutes of the show would give you a pretty good idea of what to expect out of the rest of the episode. I didn’t have any sort of expectations before watching this episode, but now that I’ve seen it, I am not sure if I would continue on with this series. It wasn’t terrible, but it was simply not that entertaining and not my cup of tea. It seems like this is another miss for J.C Staff if their aim was to target the series at an older crowd. But, it might be an entertaining watch for the younger ones.

Episode Rating: 5/10

-ra

Anyone loving this series? It would be interesting to know what you think about it as well.