Are you in the mood to watch something funny? This is your lucky week, because we’re talking about comedy. Comedy is great. It comes in many forms and it follows the “horses for courses rule” — not everyone will find the same thing funny. That’s fine, because comedy within anime is so broad in nature that it caters to everyone looking to unwind with a laugh. So, this week I’ll be recommending a handful of anime that I had a lot of fun with, and that helped me laugh away a bad day (or three).

Arakawa Under the Bridge

The first title on my list today is undoubtedly one of my favourites. As I’ve said in my Arakawa Under the Bridge review, I love random humour and this show is absolutely teeming with it. We join Kou Ichinomiya, a wealthy man who has accomplished everything by himself. From a young age, Kou’s father drilled the mantra of “never be indebted to anyone” into him, and he’s gone and made this his personal law. One day his life is saved by Nino, a homeless girl living under a bridge. In return for this debt, she asks Kou to be her boyfriend and hilarity ensues as he begins his life living under the bridge.

The comedy is typically slapstick as the people Kou is living with are largely out of touch with reality. There is no rhyme or reason to the comedy and this is what makes it so much fun. The characters are memorable, and they go from episode to episode doing random and often nonsensical, but funny, things. The curse of random humour, though, is that it has the potential to get old quickly depending on your own humour preference. It would be a good idea to bear this in mind before going into this one, but all in all it’s got a light tone and is perfect to just have some clean fun with.

Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt

The next title on the list is none other than Panty and Stocking. This show is hilarious, but not exactly “safe for work”. We join the two angels, Panty and Stocking, trying to essentially buy their way back into heaven after having been kicked out. They do this through fighting ghosts and doing good deeds, but they also commit plenty of bad deeds along the way. I should note that while this anime is definitely not “safe for work”, it’s not explicit, and rather relies mostly on crass toilet humour to illicit a laugh out of its audience — a sphere in which it performs admirably.

I really had fun with this one because it’s aware of how ridiculous it is and it works with it to maximum effect. It employs parody a lot of the time, adding its own twist to it of course, and seeing all these references thrown in there, mixed with some pretty awesome action scenes from time to time, makes for a solid show overall. I will also admit that, while I’m a subtitle purist, the English dub for this is far superior to the Japanese version because of the type of humour the show rolls with, as well as a spectacular voice cast. I’d recommend this one if you’re looking for something a bit different to have a laugh with. But, if you’re not a fan of crass humour, then perhaps give this one a skip — because there’s enough of it in here to kill a small cow.

Ouran High School Host Club

The third entry here is something I view of as a bit of a classic approach to the comedy genre in anime. Ouran High School Host Club is, by definition, a romantic comedy with a strong harem element. Haruhi Fujioka wins a scholarship to study at Ouran Academy, an institution for the incredibly wealthy school reserved mostly for the rich and prestigious, and stumbles on the Host Club while looking for a quiet place to study. She accidentally breaks an expensive vase and has to end up becoming a male host, despite being a girl, to pay it off. The show follows the Host Club’s antics.

Normally I wouldn’t recommend a show with a harem element this blatant, but in Ouran’s case, this element is easily forgiven by the quality of the its humour and memorability of the characters it features. This anime is genuinely a pleasure to watch, and while the humour admittedly does start to get a tad dry towards the end as certain elements of the plot become heavier, it remains a good time until the credits roll. Unless you are really put off by RomComs featuring harems, I see no reason to not give this one a shot.

Detroit Metal City

Last on the list, we have Detroit Metal City. Much like Panty and Stocking, this firmly holds NSFW status. The show follows a band that shares the same name, comprised of the savage guitarist, vocalist and terrorist from hell, Johannes Krauser II, as well as his indestructible drummer Camus and bassist Alexander Jagi. Together these three form the hottest metal band on the concert circuit! The only catch, however, is that none of them like what they do. When the makeup comes off, Camus is actually Nishida — an anime fan with an unholy weakness for curry and NSFW videos. Alexander is Wada, who loves nothing more than playing glam rock, and Krauser is really Soichi Negishi — a street singer whose dreams of singing happy pop seem to be utterly doomed by his rage-filled alter-ego. To top it off, Soichi is hopelessly in love with a girl who has no idea he’s Krauser, but absolutely despises DMC.

If the above sounds like chaos, that’s because it truly is. DMC is unapologetically insane. It plays off the perceived metal trope and goes out of its way to be as vulgar as possible. It once again knows how ridiculous it is and intentionally exaggerates the vulgarity of the metal scene to the point where it makes them look like a bunch of murderous sociopaths. The reason this works so well for the show, however, is because this obscene behaviour is coming from a group of otherwise very nice people who are essentially cashing in on a meal ticket. Watching them hilariously try to cover up their alter egos and deal with metal groupies who worship them as gods (and are far more terrifying than they are) is why this show thrives and why it will keep you laughing your ass off until the credits roll.

With that, we have come to the end of this week’s piece. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this and if you know of any good anime that I’ve not included here, by all means come drop your thoughts in the comments or forums so we can have a chat about it.

Until next time.