2014-01-14

Yurumates3D

Yurumates3D is a 26 episode slice of life comedy based on the yonkoma titled Yurumates.  This TV series, which aired in Japan in 2012, is the follow up, retelling of 2 sets of OAV’s. 

    This newest series was my first introduction to this typical yonkoma (4-panel) comedy title.  The series revolves around 4 ronin (pre-college students) who all live in a small apartment building and slack their lives away.   While each ronin is supposed to be studying hard and trying to pass the entrance exam to get into college none of them actually do anything other than lay around and goof off.  The series follows them through about 1 year and a half worth of time in which they discuss the exams only a handful of times.  Most of the time is spent joking with each other, sleeping or wondering about oddities on reality.

    This series really doesn’t bring anything new to the genre of comedic slice of life series based on yonkome manga.  But at 3 minutes per episode (including the 30 second sugary intro theme) you spend maybe a little over an hour watching this series, so it’s not a waste of time.  On one hand it’s nice that the legitimate internet streaming services allow these short series a better chance of broad distribution but on the other hand, some of them really aren’t that great to begin with.  Use this series to fill in the gaps while the ending credits for Lucky Star or Minami-ke are rolling.


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