Comical Psychosomatic Medicine (アニメで分かる心療内科) is a 20 episode gag/educational series based on the manga Manga de Wakaru Shinryōnaika by Yuki Yu. The series aired in the first half of 2015 as a series of ONA episodes.
The premise of the series is straightforward, a comical way to talk about some mental health issues. In most places mental health is a subject not often discussed openly and subjectively, Japan is no exception to that and in some ways they are quite horrible at it. Each episode deals with a particular mental health issue, generally sexually based. Shinnai Ryo, a psychologist and his assistant, Kangoshi Asuna, explain the 'disorder' and discuss treatment options related to the disorder. Each discussion is derailed with a variety of off topic remarks, situational gags and general chaos. A small cast of revolving extra's flesh out the gag's and create plenty of diversion. The topics, while serious in nature, are handled as anything but serious in each episode. In the end the viewer has a basic understanding of symptoms, causes and treatments for each one. The disorders are generally sexual in nature, due in large part to the ease of comedic situations that arise from them in normal circumstances. such as erectile dysfunction, fetishism and peeping. The non-sexual dysfunctions discussed are always derailed to become sexual, usually through situational humor and word manipulation by the side characters. The doctor plays the straight man character and everyone else play the idiot.
It's nice to see some public discussion on mental health in Japan. The series does do some serious work talking about mental health, continuously referencing the mental health diagnosis guide, DSM. It also mentions Japanese psychologist research to offer opinions and references on subjects that are not Western derived. That said, this is a gag series through and through. Sight gags, immature humor and over the top character reactions. I'm a huge fan of gag anime/manga, so I enjoyed this series. It won't be for everyone, especially given the base subject matter is something outside of the normal bounds of anime. It was done well enough for what it is. The animation is well done for a gag series, if it does fall behind when it comes to the detail common in anime these days. The writing is fast paced and frantic, given the episodes run around 5 minutes in length. I'm glad this one popped up on Crunchyroll and wouldn't mind checking out the manga its self at some point.
As just stated, this was simulcast on Crunchyroll. Beyond that I highly doubt this will see any sort of commercial release outside of Japan. The manga as well will probably never be commercially available elsewhere.
The premise of the series is straightforward, a comical way to talk about some mental health issues. In most places mental health is a subject not often discussed openly and subjectively, Japan is no exception to that and in some ways they are quite horrible at it. Each episode deals with a particular mental health issue, generally sexually based. Shinnai Ryo, a psychologist and his assistant, Kangoshi Asuna, explain the 'disorder' and discuss treatment options related to the disorder. Each discussion is derailed with a variety of off topic remarks, situational gags and general chaos. A small cast of revolving extra's flesh out the gag's and create plenty of diversion. The topics, while serious in nature, are handled as anything but serious in each episode. In the end the viewer has a basic understanding of symptoms, causes and treatments for each one. The disorders are generally sexual in nature, due in large part to the ease of comedic situations that arise from them in normal circumstances. such as erectile dysfunction, fetishism and peeping. The non-sexual dysfunctions discussed are always derailed to become sexual, usually through situational humor and word manipulation by the side characters. The doctor plays the straight man character and everyone else play the idiot.
It's nice to see some public discussion on mental health in Japan. The series does do some serious work talking about mental health, continuously referencing the mental health diagnosis guide, DSM. It also mentions Japanese psychologist research to offer opinions and references on subjects that are not Western derived. That said, this is a gag series through and through. Sight gags, immature humor and over the top character reactions. I'm a huge fan of gag anime/manga, so I enjoyed this series. It won't be for everyone, especially given the base subject matter is something outside of the normal bounds of anime. It was done well enough for what it is. The animation is well done for a gag series, if it does fall behind when it comes to the detail common in anime these days. The writing is fast paced and frantic, given the episodes run around 5 minutes in length. I'm glad this one popped up on Crunchyroll and wouldn't mind checking out the manga its self at some point.
As just stated, this was simulcast on Crunchyroll. Beyond that I highly doubt this will see any sort of commercial release outside of Japan. The manga as well will probably never be commercially available elsewhere.
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