alt title(s): Puni Puni Poemy
It's not nearly as serious as this looks; note the
Super Deformed thing in the corner there.
"The Heavens call, the Earth calls, the Fans call!
And heads will roll if this video doesn't sell!
By accepting the power of magic,
Puni Puni Poemi makes her big debut!"
Spiritual Successor OVA to
Excel Saga made by the same production team. It crams
even more off-the-wall surreality and self-reference than its predecessor into just two episodes, thus creating a black hole that absorbs all reason around it.
Poemi Watanabe is the adopted child of Nabeshin (the
Author Avatar of director Wata
nabe Shinichi) and Kumikumi, a mountain girl who married Nabeshin at the end of
Excel Saga. Poemi has simple ambitions in life; she wants the attention of her cool classmate K, and she wants to be a voice actress. Unfortunately, K doesn't even acknowledge her existence (given Poemi's
Motor Mouth and
Genki Girl personality, that's saying something) and she has trouble staying in character, as she constantly refers to herself as "Kobayashi" (the name of
her real-life voice actress) and calls Nabeshin "Director".
One day, a mysterious alien with creepy dangling inappropriate parts fatally attacks Poemi's adoptive parents. After taking advantage of this fine opportunity for dramatic voice acting, Poemi moves in with classmate Futaba Aasu, who has a
not-at-all-secret crush on her, and her six sisters, the hereditary Defenders of the Earth. With great responsibility does not come great power, however, since the sisters possess talents
like the ability to land safely from any fall and summoning a whirlwind of flower petals. Therefore, when an alien robot begins rampaging around the city it falls to Poemi to save the day by using a magical dead fish to transform into Puni Puni Poemi! With her newfound powers, Poemi tries to balance her dreams against the burden of being Earth's representative.
One thinks that the Earth's standards for its representative could use some reviewing.
For a large part, the show is a merciless parody of
Magical Girl anime, possibly up to and including the nonsensical plot (or lack thereof). Along the way, however, it also makes fun of the concept of
Fanservice and takes care to self-reference as much as possible. All this is tied together by nonstop gags. Those not put off in the first few minutes will enjoy it tremendously and will take in happily all other
Gag Series.
This show provides examples of:
- Animated Actors
- Author Avatar (Nabeshin)
- Banned In New Zealand(Having a four-year-old among the Fanservice-crazy Aasu sisters (though thankfully, not actually participating) made some Moral Guardians wary of toddlercon potential.)
- Beyond The Impossible (The entire point. All the insanity of a full season of Excel Saga, now available in two episodes.)
- Biting The Handkerchief
- Crosses The Line Twice And thrice. And twice again after that. Hilariously so.
- Crucified Hero Shot (Parodied in the scene in which Poemi knocks down the cross in which her father (and mother. And robot dog) is crucified, leading her to repeat the scene with the usual über dramatic sound effects. Plus, this takes place Against The Setting Sun.)
- The Danza (Poemi is convinced that she's a voice actress named Kobayashi... and is played by voice actress Yumiko Kobayashi.)
- Defictionalization (The whole show started as an in-joke among the production staff of Excel Saga, and then became a Show Within A Show on in, and finally an actual OVA.)
- Enjo Kosai (Poemi used her usual subtlety to deal with a Gyaru on a subsidized date)
- Expy (Shii Aasu, of Hyatt from Excel Saga and probably Futaba as well, who looks and acts a lot like an exaggerated version of Tomoyo from Cardcaptor Sakura)
- Fanservice (Played with — the show's creators essentially nudge and wink at the audience whenever any fanservice occurs — while "accidentally" obscuring the worst of it.)
- Funny Afro (Nabeshin. This is probably the reason his English dub actor was told to think of him as "a white Richard Roundtree. You know, Shaft, only white.")
- Furo Scene
- Gag Boobs (Shii Aasu)
- Gainax Opening (The deathly serious intro to Episode 1 (see article picture above).)
- Genki Girl
- The Idiot From Osaka (One of the Aasu sisters inexplicably speaks in Kansai dialect, translated as a Brooklyn accent in the English version)
- She lampshades it, wondering where the accent came from.
- Insistent Terminology (Even while transformed, Poemi still prefers to answer to "Kobayashi".)
- Its A Small Net After All (Subverted, when the aliens trying to use the Net to learn about Earth find nothing but porn.)
- Late For School (Played straight in one instance, but inverted in another where Poemi leaves at four o'clock in the morning and still hurries toward school. She arrives so early she falls asleep in class the next day).
- Loudspeaker Truck
- Magical Girl (Parodied mercilessly)
- Marshmallow Hell (Shii Aasu)
- Meaningful Name (The Aasu sisters are named after the Japanese pronunciation for the English word "Earth"... oh, and "arse".)
- Modesty Bedsheet
- Motor Mouth
- Naughty Tentacles
- No Fourth Wall (Not so much a case of breaking the fourth wall as a case of never even considering building one. Considering Poemi's tendency to refer to herself with the name of her real-life voice actress and to Nabeshin as the director, she seems to be having trouble with other walls besides the fourth)
- Non Human Sidekick (Parodied in the form of Poemi's dead fish advisor/magical token)
- Oracular Urchin (Spoofed by Hitomi, who has accurate but completely useless visions of the future.)
- OVA (A two-episode microseries, but it's designed to look like two episodes from the middle of a full-length season.)
- Peeka Boo (See the Furo Scene.)
- Previously On (For non-existent previous episodes at the beginning of the first episode)
- Red String Of Fate (Treated as a corporeal string that forcibly drags Poemi around the city)
- Relax O Vision (Mercilessly used to cover up the various "tortures" in Episode 2.)
- Schoolgirl Lesbians (Parodied by Futaba, whose inexplicable lust for Poemi could only be more obvious if she wore a neon sign reading "TAKE ME, I'M YOURS". Poemi still doesn't notice, though, despite the fact that Futaba actually does get her between the sheets on at least one occasion. Talk about oblivious.)
- Shout Out (Obviously Excel Saga, also Sailor Moon and several other shows)
- Show Within A Show (Inverted — Puni Puni Poemi began as Show Within A Show on Excel Saga)
- Standing In The Hall (Lampshade hung when Poemi complains about the punishment being outdated in modern Japanese schools)
- Stock Footage (Parodied)
- Theme Naming (the Aasu sisters — each of their names is derived from a number from one to seven, starting with the youngest one)
- So their parents started with "Seven" and counted down!? Good thing they knew when to stop having kids... Being known as "Minusone" would be awkward.
- This Is A Drill (Futaba... brandishes a hand-drill while imagining doing... well... something... to Poemi)
- This Is Your Premise On Drugs (This is Excel Saga on Excel Saga.)
- Transformation Sequence (Parodied with a transformation involving a dead fish which automatically strips Poemi naked — except for her socks, which she has to remove manually before she can take her magical form.)
- Toy Ship (Poemi and Futaba)
- What Kind Of Lame Power Is Heart Anyway (inverted — out of all the Aasu sisters, only Itsue has a power that is even vaguely useful)
- Whip It Good (Itsue Aasu, who is the only one of the Aasu sisters with a useful ability. Justified because she is a dominatrix.)
- Widget Series (The fact that this one was forgotten is kind of mind-blowing...)
- Wrestler In All Of Us (Poemi lands a German Suplex on a guy for playing h-games on his computer. Well, playing them in the afternoon, anyway. She also performs a textbook Sharpshooter
on totally-not-Sailor-Moon-honest in the very first scene.)
