Funny / How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift?

Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

Both Manga and Anime

• While at Akemi's mansion since most training facilities are closed, Hibiki and co. decide to do home exercises. Akemi brings out a large dictionary authored by the muscular Ozu Toshio, whose photo creeps Hibiki out. (see below for additional stuffs added in the anime.)
  • Hibiki then attempts weighted dips on two of Akemi's antique chairs while carrying a bag filled with books as weight.
    Hibiki: Okay, here goes! .. One!
    *both chairs break*
    Narration: When doing dips, make sure your chairs are strong enough to handle them.
• The various dramatic expressions and sudden Art Shifts make for excellent reaction image fodder.
• When Akemi suggests a bodybuilder's diet to balance Hibiki's eating habits and make her lose weight, all Hibiki can picture is a muscular man chomping at a large steak and drinking a large pint of protein shake, all while screaming on top of his lungs with Glowing Eyes of Doom.
  Akemi: ... This is what you're imagining? Why do you have him screaming while he's eating?
• Every time tv show manager Kutaro Deire finds the girls in one of his shows:
  • The first time he's a judge at an idol audition, and as he finds the contestants too "normal" he hopes to see someone with "more bang". Cue Hibiki, Akemi, Ayaka, Gina and Satomi showing up in bikini, plus a kendo mask for Satomi, carried by bodybuilders from Silverman Gym who are only wearing speedos and a full mask, before giving him a performance that, while impressive, has nothing to do with idols-and leaves him traumatized.
    "Some people with too much bang just showed up!"
  • On the first of the year he's complaining his network is having him organize a talent show on the most competitive day of the year, with the competition having a swimsuit idol contest and a historic drama with famous actors, and hopes to have someone who can make more of an impact. Cue our girls, all in school uniform, plus a wrestling mask for Satomi. After a moment of horror he realizes their impact is just what he needs... And then Gina announces she's going to try and beat the world record of invisible chair. At least he manages to get them to switch to Satomi's wrestler bridge, that nets him second place in the ratings...
    • By the way, the record Gina wanted to beat is eleven hours and five minutes.
  • To try and take advantage of the girls' ability to draw in viewers, Deire decided to actually pursue them with a corner of a variety program dedicated to them doing exercises at Silverman Gym... But once at the gym he finds out the program's focus has been shifted on him doing exercises. Cue him having to show to the public his very skinny body and exercise in a shirt with the word "weakling" on it.
  • At one point he created a punching machine contest with a million yen prize, that in pure Japanese tv fashion is actually a Candid Camera Prank, with a champion prize fighter disguised as an old woman to shock the actual contestants. And then Hibiki punches the machine so hard it breaks, winning by default before the prize fighter can even try.
    • The million yen wasn't actually in the budget-so it will have to be paid by Deire and the producer, much to their resigned horror.
    • The show is actually so successful it gets broadcast worldwide... Including their face after Hibiki's stunt.
    • At the start of the show, Jason, wearing only a speedo, stole the host's place, and had to be dragged away from the police. When he finds out, even Barnie is embarrassed.
    • As for the champion prize fighter, she later returns for an MMA tournament... And gets one-shot by Ayaka.
• The manga shows that a boxing world champion is a member of Glory Boxing Gym. This should just be a Crowning Moment of Awesome for the gym... Except it also provides a picture and reveals it's Kaolan Wongsawat from Kengan Ashura. Just try and picture him dealing with the usual insanity...
  • Becomes even funnier when one remembers who are the main cast members most likely to interact with him: those two Otakus of Ayaka (a Child Prodigy in boxing and the gym owner's younger sister) and Hibiki (who has the perfect body type for combat sports).
  • Chapter 102 finally shows him in person. And while Ayaka acts professionally and Hibiki doesn't appear in that chapter, him trying to make sense of the antics of Jason, Toyoda and Machio with his usual stoicism is priceless.
    • The one thing that makes him change his expression: Machio shrinking after he put on his jacket.
    • Kaolan, bodyguard and sword to the King of Thailand, as well as a fighter of an underground bloodsport...belives all of it...to be absolutely absurd. Really Kaolan? that's where you crossed the line?
• Chapter 66 has Gina and Tachibana-sensei go to a movie to watch "Kingan Asura", an obvious Self-Parody on Kengan Ashura. Unlike the main series, which features many characters, Kingan only has three characters: The Hero Tokinma Ohmuscle, his sidekick Kyazuo, and the villain Mukibayashi. The premise immediately goes off-the-rails when the cast shot shows that Not-Kazuo is a gigantic macho who towers over both Not-Ohma and Not-Sekibayashi, who turns out to be a midget. Then Not-Kazuo tells the other two to stretch before fighting each other, and the film ends right before the "Kingan Battle" begins, much to Tachibana's dismay.
• Chapter 77 is a Yu-Gi-Oh! parody, with the card game based on body building. It has to be seen to be believed.
  • Akemi's trump card: the Body Building God Card, "Big Furry Machio (B.F.M.)". Infinite attack power, but only if you have both cards. Text box: "It was MACHIO!"
• Chapter 90 reveals Gina's uncle is Ivan Karaev from Kengan Ashura. Who is not amused upon finding what his crazy niece has been up to...
  "Gina... You taint the great image of Mother Russia"
  • In the meantime, the other girls don't believe he's her uncle as he's not acting stereotypically. Though they change their minds when they see the company portrait, with him posing with Lihito and Komada.
    Hibiki: "Yup, totes Gina's uncle. Why're they all machos?"
  • Ivan is a bit offended when it seems the girls have such a stereotypical view of Russians... Then Akemi points to Gina, who is Cossack dancing while eating pirozhki.
  • Ivan meeting Machio and seeing him doing his thing.
    "BIG WHAT HOW!!?"
• Chapter 93:
  • "Kure-senseii!! That's not the pec fly machine!! That's Jason mimicking a pec fly machine!!"
    • Yakusha's reaction: activating Removal for a Neck Lift... While calmly asking for an explanation.
  • The pec fly machine had broken five chapters previously, so Jason started mimicking it.
  • In the ending 4-koma, turns out the bench had broken, so Jason's replacing it... And Yakusha once again tries it out before noticing him.
• Chapter 124:
  • Machio makes a Side Chest so powerful that Hibiki and Ayaka travel back in time to 1560 AD.
  • Hibiki and Ayaka trying to guess what year they are. Trying and failing: they both scored 1 in Japanese history.
    • In the final 4-koma they try and guess who is the warlord they've been brought to, Imagawa Yoshimoto. They guess he's the man who made the Kamakura Shogunate, much to Yoshimoto's puzzlement.
  • In the following chapters, Hibiki and Ayaka teaching Imagawa and his men how to train properly (they utterly neglected rest)... And turning everyone into machos by applying Machio's methods. And then Oda Nobunaga shows up to see what's happening, gets scared by their strength and starts training his army the same way. In a few months, all warlords of Japan and their armies are bodybuilding-obsessed machos. And Hibiki starts having troubles not being butterflied away by the change in history.
  • Realizing the situation, the two decide to resume the wars and set up the Battle of Sekigahara... About forty years early. They think it's close enough... And the narration declares that history has been entrusted to two dimwits. Oh, and they set it up as a bodybuilding competition.
  • Hibiki and Ayaka being sent back to their time by a mass Side Chest. No, wait, it turns out that they had been flown into a wall by Machio's Side Chest and had left craters shaped like themselves in the wall, and it was All Just a Dream. Then again, the macho figure over the gym now looks like Yoshimoto after he became muscular...
• Chapters 136 and 137 feature Imagawa Yoshimoto once again... But this time he got time displaced. And was surprisingly adaptable - he even figured out how to use the Side Chest to open portals in time and send back the variable dumbbells he bought (he had gold with him and was able to exchange it for modern money). He'd have likely remained had Hibiki and Ayaka not realized he was changing history again and used Machio to send him back to his time... With Tadakatsu as a collateral.
• In chapter 139 the girls use Akemi's VR set to play an experimental fantasy game... That, for realism sake, is set in the real world, and if you punch anyone the police will be called on you. The only boss, the Evil Macho, is just a random muscular guy with devil horns and tail, and has to be defeated by out-exercising him. In short, the only fantasy elements are that the girls are in fantasy game outfits... At least until the game malfunctions and sends them in an actual fantasy world.
  • Thanks to how unbalanced Akemi's game is, Hibiki quickly takes down a dragon. They're a protected species, and there's the death penalty for killing one.
    • How Hibiki does it: with a barely disguised Kamehameha - and it's only renamed to avoid legal issues. Hey, her Fighter class costume is Goku's gi...
  • The locals insist there's no monsters, though the starting village has issues with a pest that devours their fields' produce. It's a slime. After all, for them it's just a common pest...
    • During the voyage for the capital the girls are warned about "armed animals". It's goblins.
  • At the capital the girls sign up as adventurers, and their first quest is to defeat the Demon King. It's actually a prowler that illegally occupies a mansion on the town's outskirts, and calls himself Demon King. In short, they have to serve him an eviction notice.
    • Who's the Demon King? Why, the one character actually nicknamed Demon King (of the Sixth Heaven): Oda Nobunaga. See, he tried to time travel, but he and the other past machos got something wrong and he got in the wrong dimension...
    • Akemi and Zina dealing with the fact Hibiki and Ayaka know someone in another dimension and his explanation on how he got there.
  • There's a dimension-traveling device in a dungeon, but access is reserved for nobles and two guards bar anyone from entrance. Ayaka and Zina decide to convince them... And knock them out and then pretend they just fell asleep. Nobunaga finds them blunt...
    • He has the same reaction seeing them defeating and looting the undead dungeon crawlers.
    • By the way, the monster drops are useless.
      Ayaka: Another folk guitar, that's the third one.
      Hibiki: Why the heck does a monster drop a musical instrument? Give us a weapon, at least.
  • The dungeon has five hundred floors. They don't have any way to procure food inside, if they go back they'd find the way in barred once more and bringing so much food at once is dangerous anyway... So Hibiki blasts her way through with the Kami Hami Way and uses the Sky Dance to bring everyone down.
  • On the final floor they find the macho statue over Silverman's gym. Cue Hibiki making that shout-out to Planet of the Apes (1968).
    Hibiki: Silverman Gym. All the time, it was... You finally, REALLY did it...! YOU MACHOS!! YOU BLEW IT UP!!! Aaah, darn you!! Darn you all to heck!!
    Ayaka: Oh, is that the space-time thingy over there?
    Nobunaga: Let's get moving.
    Hibiki: Guys, c'mon. Give me some reaction, here.
  • The machine is powered by a hip abduction machine. Ayaka says it looks like a Silverman Gym product.
  • In the end, everyone goes back where they came from... But Nobunaga brought with him the dimension-traveling device.
• In chapter 146 we have Machio bulk up.

Anime

• The English dub is FULL of brilliant lines, with the writers and the voice actors both having fun adapting the original dialog.
  Narrator: This is Hibiki Sakura. Like many girls her age, she turns to her refrigerator in times of stress and anxiety.
  Hibiki: (on bench presses) There's no reason any human needs to hold that much above their head! If a boulder falls on top of me, I'm letting it win!
  Narrator: Who says money can't buy motivation. Not this girl (Hibiki).
  • Hibiki's constant Lampshade Hanging at the sexualized nature of most of the infotainment sections for exercises.
    You're clearly more interested in entertaining horndog viewers than helping us succeed!
  • Hibiki's Lampshade Hanging regarding one of Gina's quotes, which she gets it from a certain famous Russian leader, complete with a screenshot of it:
    That's not an original saying. And why disrespect bears with this screenshot?!
  • When both Satomi and Rumika meet each other wearing a school uniform during their time at the theme park, the English Narrator manages to say something after both decide to forget this ever happened:
    Narrator: "Hi! Remember me and the audience? We're still here." :D
  • Hibiki's reaction to Ayaka wearing a very sexy bikini outfit, which is censored. And later another jab from the Narrator after Ayaka did get disqualified.
    Hibiki: HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?! YOU'LL PROBABLY GET DISQUALIFIED IF YOU GO OUT LIKE THAT!!
    *Cue her sulking beside Gina*
    Narrator: Oh, there was no "probably" about it.
• Much like the above, some of the lines are pretty funny in both Japanese and English language. Notable mentions are:
  • When Hibiki brings up her mom, which accidentally triggers Satomi's rage:
    Japanese Satomi: Sakura-san, do you wanna fight me?
    English Satomi: Fight me, bitch. Do I remind you of your mom now?
  • When one of the teachers tell her that they have a chance on the relay race since it worth 5 trillion points...
    Japanese Hibiki: WHY'S THE SCORING SO UNBALANCED?!
    English Hibiki: WHO GOT DRUNK AND MADE UP THESE RULES?!
  • When Machio tells Hibiki that the arm wrestling competition for the female division ends up being the finals due to only two people participating:
    Japanese Hibiki: You only have three people max?! Do you ever try to advertise this?!
    English Hibiki: You only have three people signed up?! You should fire your entire marketing team!
  • After Hibiki learns that Gina's staying at her home:
    Japanese Narrator: Gina's homestay with Hibiki begins.
    English Narrator: I don't... know how to... respond to all that....
  • During the idol audition, when Director Kutaro Deire ask Satomi why she's wearing a Kendo mask:
    Japanese Satomi: Hello. My current name is "F*ck the Budo."
    English Satomi:' Oh hello. My name is "Nonya-F***g-Busineeeeess."
• The dips section is expanded upon when Hibiki and her friends try listening to a Blu-Ray training video. Turns out the instructor in the video is the super campy Ozu Toshio from Kengan Ashura, and he proceeds to explain home exercises in an extravagant fashion; we are also treated to a bunch of bodybuilders doing chair dips in sync, and Hibiki even ends up recognizing Machio among them. By the end of the video, Hibiki comments that she can't stomach watching any more of it.
• The English Narrator uses an exaggerated Russian accent in one of Gina's interviews.

---