While the comedy portions of Abenobashi might not be up to par with classic parody anime like Excel Saga, and Pretty Sammy the tv series it was still pretty funny (outside of the hollywood parody that just referenced a bunch of movies without making actual jokes). I could have also done without Sasshi having the hots for his own grandmother (even after he found out). The series even picked up with the episode talking about the origin of the shopping arcade, and an extremely funny parody of dating sim games, but the series was never able to get out of its range of pretty good. The problem is that the series was never able to really decide what it wanted to be, the episode with the origin of the shopping arcade was mostly dramatic, and the characters personalities (especially Mune, and Abe No Seimei) are much more muted, this made them come off as different characters. Compare that with other episodes that where mostly comedy with no real bridging between them. This doesn't make it bad, or even mediocre just not great.
Then you get to the ending. The ending simply changes paths too quickly, the entire series is a comedy about how Sasshi must grow up and stop running away from reality. Of course Sasshi never learns his lesson and instead it's revealed that his some reincarnation of a person so powerful that he can change reality instead of just going to different dimensions. They should have just revealed that he was the earthly body of Zeus, it would have been just as big an Ass Pull. The ending also reveals how little the staff thought of the cast outside of 4 characters by not even bothering having Mune actually reveal if she regrets living with the man Sasshi thought of as his grandfather (a character that's so minor you can easily forget that "Grandpa Masa" is actually Arumi's grandfather and not Sasshi's). The "solution" simply doesn't make any sense Arumi forgets her journey through the dimensions, and no one notices that Abe and his wife look exactly like the founder of the shopping arcade, and Sasshi's grandmother (they don't even bother changing their names).
Its pretty easy to think of Hiroyuki Yamaga as the Japanese answer to Don Bluth when he follows up his excellent work in the 80's with anime like this.
A decent anime ruined by a bad ending
While the comedy portions of Abenobashi might not be up to par with classic parody anime like Excel Saga, and Pretty Sammy the tv series it was still pretty funny (outside of the hollywood parody that just referenced a bunch of movies without making actual jokes). I could have also done without Sasshi having the hots for his own grandmother (even after he found out). The series even picked up with the episode talking about the origin of the shopping arcade, and an extremely funny parody of dating sim games, but the series was never able to get out of its range of pretty good. The problem is that the series was never able to really decide what it wanted to be, the episode with the origin of the shopping arcade was mostly dramatic, and the characters personalities (especially Mune, and Abe No Seimei) are much more muted, this made them come off as different characters. Compare that with other episodes that where mostly comedy with no real bridging between them. This doesn't make it bad, or even mediocre just not great.
Then you get to the ending. The ending simply changes paths too quickly, the entire series is a comedy about how Sasshi must grow up and stop running away from reality. Of course Sasshi never learns his lesson and instead it's revealed that his some reincarnation of a person so powerful that he can change reality instead of just going to different dimensions. They should have just revealed that he was the earthly body of Zeus, it would have been just as big an Ass Pull. The ending also reveals how little the staff thought of the cast outside of 4 characters by not even bothering having Mune actually reveal if she regrets living with the man Sasshi thought of as his grandfather (a character that's so minor you can easily forget that "Grandpa Masa" is actually Arumi's grandfather and not Sasshi's). The "solution" simply doesn't make any sense Arumi forgets her journey through the dimensions, and no one notices that Abe and his wife look exactly like the founder of the shopping arcade, and Sasshi's grandmother (they don't even bother changing their names).
Its pretty easy to think of Hiroyuki Yamaga as the Japanese answer to Don Bluth when he follows up his excellent work in the 80's with anime like this.