Monday 29 October 2012

Joshiraku - Episode 11

It's been a decidedly long time since I last got to enjoy some Joshiraku, but rather like buses episodes seem to suddenly start turning up all at once.

This eleventh episode of the series sees our rakugo girls taking a much-needed holiday abroad... or at least, that's what they'd like to be doing, but a paddling pool and some posters in the dressing room is about as close as they can get to achieving that.  Given that the girls are all dressed for the occasion, the conversation quickly turns to the topipc of swimsuits - school swimsuits more precisely, and their set in stone design in contrast to Japanese school uniforms.  From here our discussion turns to education, Gan's maternal instinct and just how many girls you can fit into a single oversized swimsuit.


As per usual, we hit the road for the episode's second segment, hanging out in Musashi-Sakai to moan about how confusing its train station is while enjoying its place as the arguable noodle capital of the world despite Kigu's reluctance to eat at a place named "Dong".  Finally, it's Christmas as the group enjoys a decidedly low-budget start to their Christmas party, before the pitfalls of online shopping enter the discussion.  Once some of those pitfalls are ably demonstrated by Tetora and an order of a hugely over-sized Christmas tree, things get crazy even by this show's standards with Marii impersonating in turn Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer and Rambo, while Predator and Apocalyse Now also get name-checked in the ensuing insanity.

In a way, I'm glad there's been a bit of a delay in getting hold of some of the later episodes of this series, as this is actually the kind of show you end up missing quite quickly from your viewing schedule.  Thus, this instalment fills a nice comedy gap in my current line-up, managing to get laughs from both its pointed discussions of cultural topics and its ability to go off on ridiculously crazy tangents at will, all of which is helped by a cast that seems to bounce off one another better with every episode.  With a couple of episodes still to go, I'll continue to look forward to checking them out.

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