What's “Cruising the Crunchy-Catalog”?
Finding a new anime series to enjoy can be tough. Just as we wouldn't expect a survival game enthusiast to storm the playing field with an untested Airsoft rifle, we shouldn't expect otaku to try something new based on just a promotional image and a short synopsis.
That's where “Cruising the Crunchy-Catalog” comes in. Each week we provides additional information and cultural context to help curious fans decide whether or not they'd like to take an unknown series for a test drive.
What's Sabagebu! - Survival Game Club! - ?
Sabagebu! - Survival Game Club! - is a 2014 anime TV comedy featuring direction by Masahiko Ohta (Himouto! Umaru-chan, YuruYuri) and animation by Pierrot +. Crunchyroll describes the series as follows:
“The story of Hidekichi Matsumoto's original Sabagebu! manga, which is running in Kodansha's Nakayoshi shojo magazine, revolves around Momoka Sonokawa, a girl who transferred into a certain girls' high school. The club she ended up joining at school was the "Sabagebu!," a club that conducts survival games.”
It's a fair description, but it doesn't really capture the off-the-wall zaniness that Sabagebu! - Survival Game Club! - has to offer. Since comedy comes in so many flavors and everyone's personal taste in humor is different, let's take a closer look at what kind of humor the show deploys.
The True Face of Momoka Sonokawa.
The most consistent running gag in Sabagebu! - Survival Game Club! - is that while main character Momoka Sonokawa appears to be a cute and charming high school girl, deep down she's actually a terrible person. Despite her warm smile and cheerful demeanor, Momoka is a petty, greedy, and vengeful brute who delights in the misfortune of others.
Not only does this allow for plenty of comedic comeuppance when Momoka – like Wile E. Coyote in the old Loony Tunes cartoons – hatches a plan that blows up in her face, but it also allows for director Masahiko Ohta to continually swerve the audience. We keep expecting that Momoka will finally learn her lesson, but instead something completely ridiculous occurs.
Imagination vs. Reality.
Another joke that is crucial to Sabagebu! - Survival Game Club! - is that the series reflects the over-active imaginations of Momoka and her friends in the Survival Game Club. Although in actuality they play with Airsoft weapons, in their minds every shot is accompanied with the appropriate sound effect and muzzle flare, and each hit produces an imaginary geyser of blood. This disparity makes the fetishistic attention to detail regarding firearms and trigger discipline all the more amusing.
A Reverence for References.
Striking the right balance with referential humor is tricky, but Sabagebu! - Survival Game Club! - succeeds because the pop-culture references are the building blocks for jokes that are funny on their own. You don't have to realize that the Survival Game Club is re-enacting scenes from The Road Warrior, Predator, or John Woo's The Killer, because the situations presented are humorous in their own right. The pop culture references serve as the set-up, not the punchline.
Keep on Survivin'.
Crunchyroll currently streams Sabagebu! - Survival Game Club! - in 129 countries in the original Japanese language with subtitles in English, Spanish, Latin American Spanish, Portuguese, and German. Kodansha publishes the original Sabagebu! manga, but at the time of this writing, there is no official English language version.
In addition to the 12 episodes of the TV series, Pierrot + also animated 6 short OAVs that were included as bonuses with the Japanese home video release of Sabagebu! - Survival Game Club! -. Unfortunately, these OAVs are not available via streaming on Crunchyroll, but they are included in the North American home video release, which is published by Sentai Filmworks.
If you're in the mood for a little light comedy that manages to be fun, imaginative, and even a bit mean-spirited without being unnecessarily cruel, consider giving Sabagebu! - Survival Game Club! - a chance.
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