Anime / Tesagure! Bukatsu-mono

Stand Up!!!!^note (Left to Right) Back row: Aoi Takahashi, Mobuko Sonota, and Koharu Tanaka. Front row: Yua Suzuki and Hina Satou

Now, the camera quickly pans up from the bottom and the title logo shows up with a thud!

Tesagure! Bukatsu-mono is a comedy anime that is themed around a group of high school girls trying to come up with a club that they would like to make and join together. Newcomer Koharu is introduced to the enthusiastic club president Yua, the calm vice-president Hina, and the energetic Aoi who are all members of the "Tesaguri (Groping) Club". Each episode is themed around a club subject (baseball, theater, rugby, etc.) where the girls try to come up with activities around that theme while discussing the tropes and stereotypes of those genres. With increasingly meta topics and a zany cast, the show was popular enough to gain two additional seasons. Fans have described the show as being an animated podcast or radio show.

Tesagure! Bukatsu-mono was the first season, which aired in 2013. The setting is Koharu’s first year at her new school. In real life, Tesagure! featured a lot of adlib by the voice actresses and was animated using MikuMikuDance and prescoring^note recording dialog before animating (an unusual animation technique for Japan).

Tesagure! Bukatsu-mono Encore was the second season that was suddenly greenlit for 2014. The season is a mostly similar take at the show with some Character Exaggeration and new topics, along with a side plot centered around Aoi.

Tesagure! Bukatsu-mono Spin-off Puru Purun Charm to Asobou was the third season that aired in 2015. This season keeps the adlib format, but is positioned as a "spin-off" of the anime and is a collaboration with the radio voice actresses from "Minarai Megami: Puru Purun Charm".

In addition to the anime, a manga about the club was produced. A radio show called "Tesagure! Radio-mono" was also made which featured the anime's cast using a similar format to the show. A mobile game called "Tesagure! Game-mono" launched in 2017 featuring minigames themed around the anime. The cast would also be featured in the 2015 game, Miracle Girls Festival.

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Tesagure! includes the following tropes!

• 12-Episode Anime: The show was intended to only be one season of twelve episodes before being suddenly greenlit for a second season. A third spin off season was also added.
• Absurdly Powerful Student Council: Averted. The trope is referenced by Hina and Koharu when Koharu finds out that Yua is also a member of the Student Council. When asked about a disciplinary committee, Yua admits that there isn’t one and that the student council at this school is pretty normal but that the school rules are a bit strict.
• A-Cup Angst: Aoi doesn’t appreciate her smaller chest, especially when compared to Hina.
• All-Cheering All the Time: Mobuko’s idea for a new cheerleading club is centered around the members cheering at inappropriate events like a funeral or during a jury trial.
• All Gays are Promiscuous: Hina’s idea for a rugby team is that all of the players are gay. The girls mention that they’re trying to get hugs from the opposing players and touch each other’s backsides. Then Hina suggests that it’s not the rugby ball that they’re after, but other balls… which spirals the conversation out of control. They call this new version of rugby “Night Hugby”, based on Yua’s idea. Koharu is asked to build on this, so she proposes that the players start dating.
• All or Nothing: Hina’s idea for a new tennis club would force a win if the player got a particularly good shot only once.
• Alternate Timeline: Played with and discussed by the cast during the second season.
  • In the first episode of the second season, Aoi is found asleep waiting for new members for the Tesaguri club after Hina and Yua graduated. In addition, a clip of Koharu pausing a stopwatch had been inserted into the opening theme. The two girls discuss what alternate timelines are and point out that the calendars used in episodes of the first season occasionally had the wrong number of days displayed on them. Using this reasoning (the dream, the pausing stopwatch, and the alternate calendars), Aoi and Koharu decide that they’ve covered their bases into creating an alternate timeline where Hina and Yua can rejoin them as the Tesagure club.
  • The last episode of the second season is a Call-Back to this as Koharu unstops the timer from the intro and wakes up Aoi from a nap while looking for new club members. However, Yua and Hina do show up nearby and Aoi suggests that they should do whatever works best.
• Animated Actors:
  • During one portion, Hina mentions angrily that the other girls (who are poking fun at her voice actress) are talking about the person inside of her.
  • When Koharu gets called out for breaking a joke and causing Aoi to slip, she apologizes with an unusually sad reply. The other cast members ask if her "true self" came out.
• Answer Cut: Generally, answers to that day's question will have a drawn cut in to help explain what the girls are trying to say to the audience.
• Artist Disillusionment: Discussed In-Universe; Hina and Yua complain that a lot of people abuse artists, begging them to draw themselves or naked people.
• Audience Participation: Koharu has an idea for the new drama club that would require a random audience member to have to adlib a major role in whatever show the cast was doing. The rest of the club members comment that they of all people should know how terrifying that can be.
• Baseball Episode: The first episode talks about the tropes of baseball players in anime or manga, as well as play an version of the game with Mobuko at the end.
• BDSM: The Tesaguri club calls all of the members of the volleyball club masochists. Yua’s new volleyball club also has hints of this as the winner is decided by how many times they can hit their opponent.
• Behind the Black: Hina and Yua point out what Koharu complained about them while explaining the show after the credits run during the first episode of the second season. Koharu is visibly distressed that they could hear her monologue.
• Bland-Name Product: When the club members are trying to create a hero themed around the mouth, Yua mentions that he has a "Kucci" suit. Koharu calls the members out saying that it must be a rip off brand.
• Blank White Eyes: Used occasionally by Yua when she flat out doesn’t know how to respond to the antics of her club.
• Bottle Episode: The Tesaguri club explains in the show that the second season was suddenly greenlit to happen, so that cost-cutting measures had to take place. Yua then tells everyone to be as still as possible so cut down on animation. The episode then essentially turns into a glorified PowerPoint where the only animation involved are the normal cut ins and an occasional movement by Aoi and Yua.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: The first season had the occasional wall break and meta elements that became a staple for the series. The second season expanded on that by making the metahumor much more prominent. The third season decimated whatever was left of the fourth wall and stomped it into little bitty pieces.
• Call-Back: The last episode of the first season explains that the club members actually did listen to what Koharu had said in the first episode (wanting to be pampered, trying new things, etc.). The point of the club’s future is to continue doing so when the leaders graduate.
  • “Cha-cha-cha-cha” from the volleyball episode reappears later in another episode and as a lyric in Yua’s image song.
• Calling Your Attacks: The members of the Tesaguri club note that a lot of Shogi players will actually say their moves as they play the game.
• Calvinball: The girls' suggestions of their own type of baseball are essentially a game with no rules and the only outcome is to do your best.
• Card Games: One game with the Sonota sisters has the club members playing Karuta with embarrassing photos from their time in class. The majority of the cards seem to be based around Koharu.
• Casting Couch: Yua points out that this is a possibility for the new drama club, sending the rest of the club members into an uproar to stop her from going more in depth.
• Cel Shading: The anime was made using MikuMikuDance, so shaders were added to give the show a more traditional anime style.
• Chivalrous Pervert: Played for Laughs in the second season. Koharu suggests finding a girl’s panties before Hina notes that it would be illegal. Koharu explains that it would have to be with consent and that they would still be warm.
  • Koharu also later admits that she would play Kendo naked and with boiling water as long as she got to wear a bra and it was with a hot guy.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Yua lands firmly in this category when she explains her new idea for a cycling club: a thigh slapping competition. The bizarre gestures and ways she tries to explain her idea only make the other member laugh in confusion.
• Cloudcuckoolanguage: DONCHIKI DONCHIKI is used to describe Koharu’s idea of an upbeat song. It makes a reappearance as an intro line during the second season and is so popular that Koharu gets the nickname “Donchiki Tanaka”.
• Club Stub: One of the reasons why Koharu was added to the main cast.
• Comedic Underwear Exposure: Yua’s idea for a new basketball club forces the players have loose elastic around their shorts, forcing them to play with one hand or lose their shorts.
• Comically Missing the Point: Hina’s idea for a new art club is artists who lack ability, using a play on words. The other members fail to see her joke, instead laughing over the fact that she said “butt”. When Koharu still completely misses the joke, Hina tries to explain it but gives up.
• Conveniently Empty Building: Lampshaded and exploited by the cast in order to have a club room at the school. According to Aoi, every school has a conveniently empty room for the unofficial clubs.
• Conveniently Seated: Surprising the cast, Koharu sits in the front of her classroom. This brings Yua, Hina, and Aoi to believe that she isn’t necessarily the main protagonist and that they each are going to get an equal amount of screen time.
  • Also referenced by the anime’s OP:
  She sits by the window and stares out wistfully,
  Then closing her eyes she sees an uncomprehensible world.
  The light of the sun shines in,
  And suddenly she notices something and looks up at the sky.
• Conversational Troping: This happens at least once (sometimes twice!) an episode where the cast ponders the real life tropes of a topic and then follow that with a conversation of the topic within anime or manga. If the topic doesn’t happen in anime, the Tesaguri club will come up with tropes that would happen if the topic did have an anime.
• Couch Gag: In the second season, a different character says the opening line of “Now, the camera quickly pans up from the bottom and the title logo shows up with a thud!” with some hilarious in character flubs and call backs to past jokes.
• Cool Big Sis: Mio is this towards Aoi, who started out in high school as a loner. Mio dragged her out of her shell and showed her the benefits of camaraderie.
• Crappy Carnival: Mio and Hina’s idea for a new amusement park involve there being run down or having only one person on staff.
• Credits Gag: Happens a few times.
  • Hina openly mentions that the credits list the girl in order of their school year while talking to Koharu in class.
  • During an episode of the anime where Mobuko appears, the credits go as normally until an entire page listing Sonota siblings voiced by Reina Ueda shows up after the normal cast list.
• Credits Running Sequence: Parodied by a shot in the opening song, where the cast is running down a road.
  And now we're running! - We're reaching out our hands!
  For now, if we do this, it'll look like your average OP.
• Cruel Cheerleader: Hina and Aoi note this trope while mentioning their ideas for their own type of baseball. Trash talking in lockers rooms is brought up as an example of how girls can be scary towards each other.
• Day in the Life: When proposing ideas for a new ‘slice of life’ club, Yua decides to make hers themed around a day in the life of gods. Koharu mistakenly thinks that she means the protagonist would be dead.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: The intro and ending themes are sung by the cast for all three seasons. The first season’s ending theme takes it to the extreme by having the animated cast trying to learn the correct dance themselves over the course of the season.
• Dungeonmaster's Girlfriend: An idea for the new drama club suggests proposes that a not so pretty actress gets a main heroine role due to the director having a liking for her. This in turn causes the audience to be unable to relate to her performance.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Mio Watanabe makes an appearance in the crowd during “Tesaguri Bubuuta”, surprising Aoi and making her excited.
• Egg Sitting: Proposed by Koharu as a way to play tennis. Players use an egg instead of a ball and if they keep it warm for long enough, it will hatch into a cute animal.
• Emoticon: Koharu’s idea for a new school newspaper includes these in order to make it more fun to read. She is particular towards this one: (*^-^*).
• End-of-Series Awareness: Koharu, Hina, Yua, Mio, Aoi, and Mobuko appear after the ending theme and give thanks to the viewers at the end of the second season.
• The Everyman: Koharu was scared of coming off this way, but the other members evened it out.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Drama club members are mentioned to call their friends only by the name of the parts that they play in their shows.
• Evolving Credits: This happens in every season.
  • During the first season, the song "12 Kagetsu" depicts the girls learning how to actually dance to the song. They improve with each episode, usually with a quip by Koharu or Yua stating that if they practice enough they'll be ready by the time the show airs.
  • The cast improvs the intro line to the OP during the second season, and the second verse is used instead of the first. Koharu also doesn’t call out the time in the new version, as it is instead replaced with a cut of her looking at a paused stopwatch (hinting that the second season is an alternate reality).
  • The ending theme for the second season changes from solo versions of “12 Months Each” to image songs for each of the characters with "Tesaguri Bubuuta" in between. This is followed by “Chanto Stand Up!!!!”, a version of the opening song without the metafiction elements that the original had.
• Exploiting the Fourth Wall: Koharu’s stomach growling is the start of one of the adlib sessions.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Aoi originally had a short bob when she was entering high school, signifying her loner personality. After a year of being in the Tesaguri club and seeing Mio graduate, she adopts the pigtails she has in the first season.
• Expressive Hair: In the second season, Hina’s Idiot Hair occasionally moves when she gets upset or thinks about some topics.
• Faceless Masses: The background characters and Sonota sisters return to make up the entirety of the school audience during “Tesaguri Bubuuta”.
• Fictional Board Game: Yua plans out a mix of Twister and Shōgi for the club members to play out on a giant Shōgi board. Hina directs Koharu on the board with the Twister-style spinner while Yua instructs Aoi.
• Finale Title Drop: When coming up with a new name for the club after Hina and Yua graduated, Koharu and Aoi hold up a piece of paper with ‘’Tesagure! Bukatsu-mono’’ written down. This is punctuated with the anime’s opening theme playing a line about how the title of the show appears onscreen with a thud.
• Footnote Fever: Hina’s idea for a new school newspaper would include dozens of these sorts of disclaimers.
• Foreshadowing: The jokes from the school festival about strawberry shortcake being on top of meat and being scared of pointy objects is actually referencing the season two finale, which takes place in the past before Koharu was a student.
• Four-Girl Ensemble: The main cast of the show is comprised of the naïve but sweet Koharu, the rebellious Aoi, the leader Yua, and the calm Hina.
• Fourth-Wall Mail Slot: Hina points to Koharu out that fans keep telling the staff that the show works already as a podcast or radio show.
• Funbag Airbag: At one point the club members wonder if Hina has to put up with this while in her summer school uniform, but she admits that it hasn’t happened to her.
• Girlish Pigtails: Aoi sports these.
• Goofy Print Underwear: Yua suggests that the new tennis club members wear their most worn out underwear to games, steering the conversation towards the club members’ underclothes. Koharu and Aoi quickly shut down the line of questioning.
  • Yua tells another student at the school that Koharu wears worn out panties, much to her chagrin. The student happens to be a male protagonist though, so he doesn’t hear a word that the female students are saying.
• Gratuitous Iambic Pentameter: During a soccer match with the Sonota sisters, the girls make up a new rule that you have to recite a haiku with every kick. While Hina and Yua manage well with it, Koharu and Aoi end up allowing Mobuko to score.
• Growling Gut: Koharu gets called out during the Tea episode when her stomach growls loud enough for the mike to pic up on it.
• Hands-On Approach: Koharu’s idea for the new wind instrument club is for the members to pair up and use “helping hands” in a comedic style. While Yua and Aoi entertain the idea, Hina is totally appalled by it on the grounds that it sounds perverted.
• Hairy Girl: Discussed by the cast when coming up with ideas for a new cheerleading club. Hina floats the idea that the team doesn’t need pom-poms if they’re all too hairy.
• Hand Waved: Hina and Yua graduate in a sentimental ceremony from the Tousei High School, leaving Koharu and Aoi to run the club by themselves at the end of the first season. This gets conveniently called out and ignored during the first episode of the second season, when Aoi and Koharu drag Hina and Yua back to be part of the show.
• Helium Speech: Koharu’s idea for a broadcasting club includes the members inhaling helium before they go on air. Aoi suggests Koharu should do it as it makes people sound less boring, and the rest of the cast eggs her on. Koharu (i.e. Ayaka Ohashi) actually does inhale helium, but makes the case that she wouldn’t want to replace Koharu on the show for another high pitched character.
• Hot-Blooded: During the first season, Aoi shows shades of this when she answers some questions rather forcefully. This is expanded upon in the second season where she gets a running gag of getting heated up about the wrong part of a conversation, which Koharu will call her out on.
• Hotter and Sexier: The girls’ ideas for an anime about rugby take place in an all girls high school with skimpy sports uniforms. Each girl has stereotypical anime personalities like an airhead, a boyish character, and a young girl.
• Image Song: Each of the members of the Tesaguri! club have one, as does Mobuko. They are each used as ending themes during the second season.
  • Koharu has “Kokoro Haru Biyori”.
  • Yua has “Hiramei Cha-Cha”.
  • Hina has “Fuusenkazura”.
  • Aoi has “Call me “Lazy””.
  • Mobuko has “Torikaekko”.
• Improv: Happens at least once per episode, usually marked with the sound of a gong. The cast started a bit stiffly in the first episodes (even occasionally forgetting to refer to each other by their character names), but warmed up together very quickly.
  • The second season adds another small improv segment into the girls’ initial discussion of topics, as well as couch gag where the voice actresses adlib the intro line to the show.
• Inexplicably Identical Individuals: In-Universe, Mobuko Sonota's sisters all are exactly identical and even her "brother" uses the same character art. According to her, her younger siblings are three sets of sextuplets each born a year apart. They are all also voiced by the same actress, Reina Ueda.
  • In real life, this was because the character model creator didn't make any extra character models when the series began, forcing them to just reuse Mobuko's model.
• Inner Monologue: Koharu has one, although it’s noted by Yua that they can hear it as well. In the end, Aoi tells them to just relax and not worry about it too much. Koharu still freaks out upon realizing that they can in fact hear her thoughts afterwards.
• Insistent Terminology: Yua warns Koharu that Shogi players ‘place’ their pieces on the board, not ‘put them down’. Hina also states that they don’t like to be grouped with Mahjong.
• Inspiration Nod: The finale of the second season is an homage to the previous season and further explains where the traditions and ideas originated. Mio is actually the one to start the talking about new clubs idea, the praising of newcomers, finding their interests, and was the origin of several of the Tesaguri club’s day to day activities. Even the floral motifs on the calendars in each episode are Mio’s doing.
• Late to the Punchline: Koharu tends to not understand Aoi’s puns or has to have jokes explained to her when they go over her head.
• Left It In: One of Yua’s suggestions for a club prompts the other club members into saying that she was the only one who found the idea funny. The cast then says that their segment will probably get cut from the show.
  • This also gets referenced in the insert song, “Tesaguri Bubuuta”:
  Koharu: Recording has dragged on, and before even realizing it ourselves, we wrapped the topic up in an unrefined manner that's not safe to air!
  Aoi: I guess it worked out all right so long as it was funny.
• Lens Flare Censor: Along Tousei high school, cameras are set up to shoot out beams of light to cover up indecency. According to Hina, they’re important devices that are related to package sales. Koharu finds herself on the receiving end of these lights when Aoi and Yua flip up her skirt.
• Living Prop: Ever since the second shot of the series, background characters are sketched without faces while their hair takes on the visual aspects of various anime tropes (like a girl having Ojou Ringlets or a set of Identical Twins). They speak almost no words, although they occasionally do appear in various episodes. Koharu assumes that they follow Phenotype Stereotype, but the other girls admit that they don’t.
• Limited Animation: While the show is 3D animated, the girls themselves don’t actually move around that much. A good portion of the show is focused on the dialog rather than the animation, leading to several scenes per episode of the cast just sitting at a table in their club room talking.
  • This later gets exploited in later episode when notices in the show admit that they didn’t have time to animate some portions or flat out reuse and redub previous episodes with hilarious results.
• Love Bubbles: Koharu is prone to getting these. It’s so prevalent that one of the insert songs references it!
• Man of a Thousand Voices: Satomi Akesaka (Hina’s VA) and Reina Ueda (Mobuko’s VA) had their voice acting abilities tested on the show.
  • In the second season, Hina’s portion of the description of clubs in anime or manga has her taking as the personalities of the characters she is describing. This can cause her to talk as anywhere from two to five characters during a conversation.
  • Mobuko gets a challenge when the cast asks to bring in new Sonota siblings to meet, ranging from an annoying gyaru girl to a transgender person to a mysterious ninja. It gets to be so much that Mobuko asks her siblings to leave and uses it as an example for her idea of a rakugo society. When she mentions people take advantage of it, the others ask who could possibly do that. Mobuko gets angry.
• Medium Awareness: Every so often the club members will mention that their conversation is being recorded, that the audience can't see them, or that they had said something in a previous episode.
  • After animation returns to an episode in the second season, Hina and Yua warn the others not to pull off extravagant moves or else it might force the animators to be unable to finish the show on time.
• Moving the Goalposts: A literal example is Yua’s new idea for how to play soccer. Players would instead drag the goalposts to the ball, until it’s pointed out that you couldn’t really call it soccer if the ball wasn’t moving. As such, Hina gives the game a new name: “Rushball”.
• Mukokuseki: According to her profile on the anime’s website, Yua is originally from Poland. This is never brought up in the anime, and there is no difference in skin tone or cultural outlook between her and the other girls.
• Musical Episode: One episode has the girls performing in a band for a school festival when the actual band gets sick/injured. They make a comedy band using phrases that they made in the past and performing short sketches. They then sing “Tesaguri Bubuuta”, a song that literally describes the plot of the show while making call backs to some of their catchphrases and conversations.
• Mythology Gag: The entirety of “Tesaguri Bubuuta” references conversations, plot points, animations, and past jokes from the series.
• The Nicknamer: Yua was the one to give Koharu the nickname "Koharun".
• Nipple and Dimed: Yua suggest that members have to wear star shaped pasties to her new astronomy club, causing Koharu to collapse in laughter and point out that they should be glow in the dark. Aoi throws in that the members should try to make constellations with their pasties, while Hina adds that they should pose on risers and take pictures at night.
  • Nipple pasties make a return in Yua’s new judo club, as the boys have to wear ones that match their belts. This prompts the nickname “Nipple Pasties Suzuki”.
• No Antagonist
• No Fourth Wall: After failing to get her joke across due to her fellow cast’s misunderstanding of her wordplay, Hina turns to the screen and demands viewers to go watch Shoten (an actual comedy show) as it also airs on Nippon TV.
• Not Allowed to Grow Up: Referenced by the cast to keep the show running for the second season. Koharu also mentions that some shows allow characters to keep their memories of previous episodes without aging, and wonders if it’s alright that they pretend like only a month has passed from the last season. Hina literally explains hand waving to the girls before saying that it could all just be a “alternate reality”.
• Not So Above It All: Yua’s idea of a quiz bowl is that the answers are too vulgar for the club members to say. Hina gets dragged into it, much to her displeasure. The other members try to force her into saying embarrassing words, but she shuts them down every time to use politer speech. She eventually relents but still remains rather stoic compared to the other girls.
• Not with Them for the Money: Aoi is said to hate boys who are dependent on girls.
• Ojou: Discussed by the club members as likely being part of the ‘wind instrument club’.
• One-Gender School: Averted. The school is introduced without any male characters and stays that way through nearly the entire first season. Some male students suddenly show up during the final three episodes but only as background characters.
• Opposites Attract: Hina is described as being the complete opposite of Yua. That said, the two are rarely seen without each other.
• Otaku: When discussing the art club, Koharu points out that the members of the Tesaguri club are actually pretty big fans of anime and manga. This makes sense given that the club discusses anime and manga tropes.
• Out-of-Character Moment: A few literal cases happen, especially in the first and third seasons.
  • During an adlib portion, Asuka Nishi (Yua’s VA) forgets Ayaka Ohashi’s (Koharu VA) character name. The result in universe is Yua saying “who are you again?” to Koharu, understandably shocking her. Satomi Akesaka (Hina’s VA) tries to correct this, but accidentally calls Koharu by Hina’s name.
  • A later adlib session had Asuka Nishi dance as part of the segment, but Satomi Akesaka points out that the audience won’t be able to see the voice actresses to understand what is happening.
• Parlor Games: At one point the club members play shiritori, but add the twist of also making it a scavenger hunt using things from around the school.
• Parrot Exposition: Aoi suggests that her new drama club would repeat the important lines of their show twice in the same tone. Songs would take twice as long as well.
• Passing the Torch: When Yua and Hina graduate from their school, they perform a “taking over” ceremony where the appoint Aoi and Koharu to take their places as the club president and vice club president. They give the pair Yua’s flower brooch and Hina’s floral headband as keepsakes. This leads the group to cry together when Koharu begs them to not graduate in order to keep the club going.
  • When Mio graduates from the club and passes the reigns over to Hina and Yua, Aoi admits that she enjoyed the club. She begs Mio not to leave causing the other girls to cry, much like Koharu did in the first season. Mio then decides to give Aoi her necktie as a remembrance.
• Pastel-Chalked Freeze Frame: Mio’s onscreen appearances are often ended with an anime-esque filter that cause light to flood the shot.
• Playing Pictionary: The cast decides to play shiritori with only drawings, which has predictable results. The artwork is very abstract, but the girls manage to twist the meanings into in almost perfect game… until Koharu shows a shinkansen when she needs a word that begins with “n.”
  Yua: “Koharu, who loses shiritori with an “n”?”
  Koharu (upon realizing her mistake): “I’m sorry, I was only focusing on drawing something that looked abstract.”
• Proper Tights with a Skirt: Hina wears these as part of her school uniform.
• Pun: Around the third episode, Aoi began making more and more puns during the adlib sessions. By the second season, she is easily a Pungeon Master.
• Reality Subtext: A humorous example. Mobuko makes an appearance outside of the window of the club, nodding approval at one of Aoi’s puns. This is because her voice actress was watching the session from outside.
• Recap Episode: The first episode of the second season fills viewers in on the previous antics of the Tesaguri club.
• Rewatch Bonus: While Hina’s headband and Yua’s flower brooch still hold meaning on their own, watching the girls encouraging newbie Koharu with the knowledge of Mio’s input is admittedly heartwarming.
• Riddle of the Sphinx: Yua asks this, which Hina immediately gets. Aoi and Koharu are clueless and have to have it explained to them. The group then deconstructs the riddle and its usage of time of day.
• Romance Ensues: The girls contemplate a Quiz Bowl anime, which turns into a romance anime. Hina acts it out, much to Koharu’s pleasure. Aoi begs them to say something funny to end it.
• Rooftop Confrontation: Parodied and discussed. Koharu goes looking for Aoi believing that she may be napping on the roof like in anime. There turn out to be solar panels everywhere though, making it an uncomfortable place to be.
• Running Gag: Several.
  • As mentioned above, worn out panties become very prominent as the series continues.
  • Koharu is known to really like hot guys in the second season. Her idea for a radio show based around high school is called, “Hot Guys Everywhere! Yay, I’m So Happy!”
  • Giving Koharu embarrassing nicknames like Donchiki Tanaka is so prevalent that Koharu calls it out herself.
  Koharu: “Stop giving me nicknames! It’s like once every time now!”
• Sailor Fuku: The girls’ summer school uniforms count as this.
• Scavenger Hunt: Hina’s idea for a new athletic festival would include a scavenger hunt for difficult things like a principal’s bank book, a student’s mother, or a before cosmetic surgery photo.
• Scolding the Fourth-Wall Breaker: Hina literally turns the camera at one point with a CD cover in hand, saying “Tesagure! Bukatsumono”s song collection, Tesagure! Songs, is a popular item on sale now!”
  Koharu: Hina!! That’s supposed to be on the white board!
• School Festival: One episode of the anime centers around this. It’s pointed out that the numerous maid cafés run by students during the event are an important revenue source for the school.
• School Newspaper News Hound: Discussed by the club members when they note the various side effects that come with this, such as having better equipment than the computer and photography clubs or creating page layouts in their notebooks.
• Seasonal Baggage: Instead of a Time-Passes Montage, each episode in the first season has a calendar displaying a set month of the year and a specific flower. The characters only ever bring the subject up in the final episode of that season.
• Sensei-chan: Hazuki-sensei is this, although she isn’t anxious to get married as she is a lesbian. She is worried about having to marry a man for appearance’s sake and is also a Hard-Drinking Party Girl.
• Shout-Out:
  • A closet in the Tesaguri club room has maid outfits and a wall scroll that reads “Mirakurun”.
  • When talking about tennis clubs in anime or manga, a few of their points seem to line up with the The Prince of Tennis.
  • Romeo and Juliet gets a name drop during the drama club episode, although Koharu says local schools almost never perform that play.
  • The broadcast club gets a special mention for playing Vocaloid songs over the intercom.
  • Pikachu and Sapphire get used as rakugo stage names.
  • Shoten and Nippon TV are name dropped by Hina as viewing material for comedy shows.
  • Characters are asked to Google an answer to save time.
• Show Within a Show: of the stage show variety. After planning a new drama club, the Tesaguri members act out the conversation they just had as an overdramatic stage play. The Sonota sisters provide the applause from the audience.
• Slice of Life: Tesagure! is modeled after this, although In-Universe the characters of the club considered making it a harem type anime or part of the Yuri Genre.
• Smashing Watermelons: The game of baseball that the club plays with the Sonota sisters is supposedly a varient with this involved. As the game requires the player to be blindfolded, Koharu has to follow each player to give instructions. Hilarity enues.
• Soap Within a Show: Hina proposes one themed around Shogi pieces as her new way of playing the game. The pieces would each be people and the events of the game would effect the outcome of the show.
• Stage Name: Aoi’s idea for a new rakugo society would have everyone take a flashy stage name. In her examples, a person who is "pika" (glittering) from "uchu" (space) would be called "Pikachu" or someone with "green" and "shining" would be "Sapphire". Koharu struggles to understand what a stage name even is.
• Strictly Formula: The show has its beats, especially in the first season. Generally, the Tesaguri club members talk about an anime trope for the intro, explain the gist of a club topic, follow that with an improve section, and end on a comedic sketch with the Sonota sisters.
• Super-Fun Happy Thing of Doom: Koharu’s ‘Macaron Drop’ from her new Judo club involves the user dropping hard on their opponent’s stomach.
• Surrounded by Idiots: Hina is clearly frustrated when the other members can’t figure out what a locust is (Koharu thinks they’re tadpoles for a second!) before begging them to just Google it. When they begin to think that locusts might come out of their water faucets, Hina’s panic grows.
• Tareme Eyes: Koharu owns the most obvious pair of these.
• Theme Tune Roll Call: While the characters aren’t called by name in the song, they each get an intro card and a line in the opening references this trope.
  Yua: (This leads into...!)
  Aoi: The part where we introduce everybody
  Hina: All of us, one by one
  Koharu: Our characters are established as we show up on screen!
• Title Drop: When coming up with a new name for the club after Hina and Yua graduated, Koharu and Aoi decide to go with ‘’Tesagure! Bukatsu-mono’’. This is punctuated with the anime’s opening theme playing a line about how the title of the show appears onscreen with a thud.
• Too Many Cooks Spoil the Soup: Yua suggests a type of wind instrument club where there would be more conductors than players. The rest of the cast point out that this would actually save money and be a good premise to get out of the club if they wanted.
• Too Much Information: The main character’s best friend knows WAY too much information about Koharu’s friend Kisaragi. Hina notes that it’s normal for that to be the case, until he points out that Koharu is wearing worn out panties. The main protagonist then pipes up asking if someone said something.
• Visual Title Drop: Referenced in the opening theme for the anime, where the lyrics explain that the show’s logo hits the screen with a “thud!”.
• What the Hell Is That Accent??: Koharu saying “Dame desu yo~” during a basketball game sounded so perverted to the cast that they all simultaneously burst into laughter. It even later gets added as a couch gag as “Don deyso~”.
• Whole Costume Reference: The club members’ winter and summer uniforms, maid costumes from the season 2 Blu-Ray cover, and casual wear from the second season’s ending credits for their image songs later appeared as DLC in Miracle Girls Festival.
• Tsukkomi: Koharu was chosen to join the Tesagure Club specifically because her personality would balance the three others' goofiness. She is often the straight man in their antics.

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