[ElConvoy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaskedRiderAsakura

I actually think Gou is a step up for the humor in this show.


My main problem with Drive's humor, unlike W's, is that the characters rely too heavily on visuals, editing and sound effects to push the humor, while what made W funny, or at least tolerable, was that the comedy came entirely from the characters themselves. Even for as annoying as Akiko was, I could find situations involving her funny because of how she made the others react. Where you would normally have brooding Terui, whenever he interacted with Akiko, his seriousness as a character was completely undermined. Same thing with Shotaro, who normally tried to put up a cool and collected front, but was taken completely out of his element whenever Akiko pestered him. Akiko herself wasn't funny; the characters' reactions were what was funny. This is partially why I think OOO has the best humor in the franchise; Ankh is like Terui's seriousness and no-nonsense amped up to the eleventh power and his reactions to all of the B.S. going on around him were genuinely great moments.

The same thing isn't happening with Drive for me. The more serious, or at the very least "not-comedy-relief" characters don't really give much of a reaction, so the humor is relying entirely on the visuals, the sound and the editing. The reason I say Gou is a step up is because he's just way too wacky for the other characters to NOT react, as seen in this episode. And I like that. I really hope we get more of that type of humor, as opposed to the barrage of funny faces and weird edits.

And that isnt a coincidence. Setting aside if someone actually enjoy Akikos comedy or not her bits are an actual form of japanese comedy opposed to what we mostly get in Wizard or Drive.

In Double alot of the comedy stems from a certain type of japanese stand-up called "Manzai". This particular type of comedy revolves around a duo of which one is the straight man and the other one is the funny one. This form of stand-up is associated heavily with the japanese city of Osaka and thats where Akiko comes from. All of her jokes are in some form of another just Manzai comedy with her acting like a typical Osaka person (being loud,kinda annoying and overall not that smart) and the Straight Man (Terui/Shotaro) reacting to this.

In Wizard/Drive we have this annoying habit of modern toku shows just having their character be loud and obnoxious for the sake of being loud and pbnoxious thinking this alone is enough to make the audience laugh.