Michael Hopcroft Posted March 29, 2005 Report Share Posted March 29, 2005 I frequently hear the classic comedy RPG Teenagers from Outer Space referred to as "The Unofficial Uresei Yatsura RPG". if this is true, then the realtively new anime Trouble Chocolate is somebody's TFOS camapign gone horribly, horribly wrong. Cacao (who, despite the name, is male) is a student at a school with 100,000 students and staff, 666 subjects and over a thousand clubs. But that's not one of the important things about him. the improtant things abotu him are that he has a bottomless pit for a stomach, he has untapped natural magical power, and chocolate gets him drunk. This all fits together when a summoning teacher (yes, summoning magic is one of the subjects taught at the school) gives Cacao a demonstratiion (he wants him as a pupil) by summoning a 'wood fairy". Cacao, starving as he always is, grabs a chocolate bar from the teacher's desk, gets wasted on it, and sneezes -- disrputing the ceremony. The spirit posesses a life-sized wooden marionette that happens to be in the room, catches up with Cacao, and instantly falls in love with him. cacao wakes up the next morning with a hangover, a headache, and a wooden girl with bizarre speech habits sleeping in his bed. Cacao is not amused, although he feels alittle better upon discovering that the girl, who calls herself Hinano, is a great cook. I could tell you about the handome rich guy with the private army, navy and air force who is desired by almost every girl on campus except the one he really wants -- Hinano. I could tell you about the extragantly romantic couple who continually place themsevles in cacao's path. I could tell you about the monsters, the sentai team, the kung fu girls, the neormous teacher who looks like Frankenstien's monster and HATES to be distrubed.... I could tell you about all of that. But you'll never believe mel. Heck, I don't believe me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susano Posted March 29, 2005 Report Share Posted March 29, 2005 Re: And now something silly: Trouble Chocolate I have long suspected a great many anime writers are utter and total crack fiends. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hopcroft Posted March 29, 2005 Author Report Share Posted March 29, 2005 Re: And now something silly: Trouble Chocolate I have long suspected a great many anime writers are utter and total crack fiends. Perhaps. The principal problem with Trouble Chocolate is that, while it is funny, you can't help but compare it to the older but clearly superior Urusei Yatsura. Rumiko Takahashi's magnum opus has clrearly had an effect on many manga writers in the nearly three decades since its debut. In this case, entire characters are lifted out of it whole cloth (the rich kid is a virutal carbon copy of the more interesting Shutaro Mendou who plagues Ataru's existence). What is more telling is that Hinano-chan bears a much-more-than-casual resemblance, in all the points that matter, to Lum. Her distinctive speech pattern, the way she clings to Cacao in spite of all reason, and her flashes of awesome destructive power are all remeniscent of Lum. It's hard to tell beyond that what makes her an interesting character. The biggest problem is finding someone to care about. Trouble Chocolate is amusing, but it would have been much better if we had more reason to care what happens to Cacao and Hinano. Urusei Yatsura's anti-hero Ataru Moroboshi, for all his faults, had enough basic decency hidden deep in his heart 9where he could always plausibly deny his existence) that you couldn't help but give a damn what happened to him. The moments of genuine tenderness between him and Lum helped make the entire exercise in chaos worthwhile. In the episodes I've seen, sad to say, Cacao has yet to display any of these qualtiies. Instead of an everyman, he seems like a jerk, unworthy even of a woman with no working parts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted March 29, 2005 Report Share Posted March 29, 2005 Re: And now something silly: Trouble Chocolate This is not even the weirdest anime I've seen or heard of. Not by a long shot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susano Posted March 29, 2005 Report Share Posted March 29, 2005 Re: And now something silly: Trouble Chocolate Perhaps. The principal problem with Trouble Chocolate is that' date=' while it is funny, you can't help but compare it to the older but clearly superior [i']Urusei Yatsura[/i]. Yeah, I saw the connections instantly in your capsule description. I was also think of such utterly out-lunch anime as EXCEL SAGA and FLCL both of which I swear were created by the aforementioned crack fiends. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hopcroft Posted March 29, 2005 Author Report Share Posted March 29, 2005 Re: And now something silly: Trouble Chocolate Yeah' date=' I saw the connections instantly in your capsule description. I was also think of such utterly out-lunch anime as [i']EXCEL SAGA[/i] and FLCL both of which I swear were created by the aforementioned crack fiends. it would take much more than crack to explain Excel Saga. An extreme case of mental illness, perhaps. Excel Saga is sick in ways that no anime could concievably have imagined previousy. Don't watch the final episode in front of your children, your parents or your Significant Other (unless said S.O. has fetishes best left undescribed). I'm not sure you should even watch it in front of yourself. And I can't imagine how you could possibly explain it to the priest at Confession.... I swear, though, that the most blatantly sick-and-twisted anime I've ever seen is Puni Puni Poemy. I think that script must have been smuggled out of the Asylum for the Criminally Insane on soiled napkins, when the guards were distracted with bootlegs of La Blue Girl. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BNakagawa Posted March 30, 2005 Report Share Posted March 30, 2005 Re: And now something silly: Trouble Chocolate I really enjoyed Urusei Yatsura. I couldn't bring myself to watch Trouble Chocolate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hopcroft Posted March 30, 2005 Author Report Share Posted March 30, 2005 Re: And now something silly: Trouble Chocolate I really enjoyed Urusei Yatsura. I couldn't bring myself to watch Trouble Chocolate. Pop in "Beautiful Dreamer". That'll get the bad taste out of your month. It's kind of hard to imagine anything lyrical coming from Trouble Chocolate, unlike some of the best episodes of Urusei Yatsura. The second season episode "Thrilling Summer Date" still gives me goosebumps when I remember it -- especially the ending with Ataru gets his little black book back and finds that he doesn't have it inhis heart to call any of the girls. At that moment, it was crystal clear to me what Ataru's feelings for Lum really were -- even if he was too proud to admit it to himself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlHazred Posted April 4, 2005 Report Share Posted April 4, 2005 Re: And now something silly: Trouble Chocolate The only anime I've seen is Cowboy Bebop, Dragonball Z (because it was the only thing on), about half of the new Ghost in the Shell 2, a few episodes of random anime that shows up on Toonami on Cartoon Network... and Urotsukidoji, Legend of the Overfiend, which a friend of mine described as his favorite movie ever. How do these disgusting, terrible anime shows stack up against Overfiend, that being the only thing I can compare it with? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curufea Posted April 4, 2005 Report Share Posted April 4, 2005 Re: And now something silly: Trouble Chocolate Pretty much the same way the Goon Show compares to Amytiville Horror. Or the same way Shrek compares to Hannibal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hopcroft Posted April 22, 2005 Author Report Share Posted April 22, 2005 Re: And now something silly: Trouble Chocolate The only anime I've seen is Cowboy Bebop' date=' [i']Dragonball Z[/i] (because it was the only thing on), about half of the new Ghost in the Shell 2, a few episodes of random anime that shows up on Toonami on Cartoon Network... and Urotsukidoji, Legend of the Overfiend, which a friend of mine described as his favorite movie ever. How do these disgusting, terrible anime shows stack up against Overfiend, that being the only thing I can compare it with? Excel Saga is not so much disgusting as incredibly bizarre. The good guys are trying to conquer the world, but they have only two agents -- a frenetic ditz and a princess with a slight death problem. They are opposed by a team of bureaucrats, a pair of androids, and a scientist with an extremely unhealthy interest in little girls. Excel's story intersects frequently with that of Pablo, an immigrant laborer who has attracted the favorable attentions of the Great Will of the Universe (she doesn't help him so much as she continually drags him into the sack). Each episode satriizes a different anime genre. The final episode's target seems to be hentai. And one of the most memeorable characters is Menchi -- a little white dog who has been assigned to Excel as an 'emergency food supply". Puni Puni Poemi is the seuqel, sort of, to Excel Saga. it is an OVA sereis about a little girl who disocvers she has magical powers after a stranger hands her a dead fish. It is frenetic, twisted, perverted and some poeple think it's hilarious. However, it wasn't quite to my taste. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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