A Review of WWW.Working!!

Back in my early days of watching anime, I ran across the original Working! (AKA Wagaria!) and fell in love with it for its quirky cast of characters and interesting twist to running gag comedy. That was like 4 years ago! Then back in the summer I received news that Working!! was coming back as a Spinoff series and I rolled in my bed out of joy and started giggling like a 12 year-old girl. But now that I have seen this show, what are my thoughts on it? Everybody, I am your host, GiraffePants, and this is a review of WWW.Working!!

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS (This time I'm sure of it)

SYNOPSIS

Our story starts off with a serious high school student named Daisuke who lives a rather mundane existence but one day his father's company goes bankrupt. The bankruptcy forces Daisuke to go get a job so he can pay for his expenses. Daisuke decides to work at nearby family restaurant hoping to keep living his normal existence. What Daisuke doesn't know is that his workplace and coworkers are anything but normal.

STORY

The story for WWW.Working has the same structure as the original Working. The story is made up of the interactions among the quirky cast on a day to day basis. Nothing drastic occurs; instead, a lot of little developments occur which move us along. This show isn't focused so much on the story as it the characters. Working wants to maximize each character's quirk to it's fullest potential and make you laugh cause in the end, this show's all about comedy. The comedy is the biggest component of the show. It's what makes you want to continue watching and if that comedy factor wasn't there, well then we'd be left with nothing! But what makes the comedy good. The biggest reason for the comedy factor is the characters' quirky personalities. Each member of the family restaurant has some kind of quirk that makes them weird. These weird quirks are what set up jokes, punchlines, and pretty much everything else! The comedy itself is very interesting. I find the comedy to be really funny because jokes always have a twist to them. This show tends to use long running gags but each time it introduces that gag again, the show gives it a little twist to make it feel new and refreshing. A nice example is whenever Daisuke eats one of his coworker's chocolates, he goes into a coma-like state and is visited by St. Valentine. From there St. Valentine and Daisuke provide the comedy. Then the show later twists this gag by having other members of the restaurant visit St. Valentine and having Valentine get more and more frustrated every time they come into his realm. The comedy is pretty dry so if you're fans of deadpan humor, then you'll enjoy this show immensely.

Something else I love is the relationship pairs the show makes. Early in the show you see these comedy pairs form and whenever there is significant development, it involves both members. Kinda like mini arcs that all take place at once. Daisuke & Hana are one such example. Most of the screen time they get are together and any developments include their relationship. Rarely are they away from each other and that goes for the other pairs in the show. Not only are they comedic pairs but romantic ones as well. I generally liked the romance in the show and in the entire series in general because it isn't obvious. It's not like when the show starts one character is like "Oh I already love you" and the other agrees; It's more complex than that. Characters truly have to explore each other in order to understand one another and develop their relationship! This ain't no harem BS; it's legitimate relationship building with some nice comedy thrown in.

CHARACTERS

You already know that I love these characters for their quirks! What kind of quirks are we talking about. Well you have Sayuri who can see ghosts but doesn't know she can see ghosts, Hana who may well be the most densest girl to have ever existed, Yuuta who is the son of a chronic gambler and now has to pay off his father's debt from a large corporation, Shiho who is the daughter of that large corporation and loves to torment Yuuta both out of love and hate. There are plenty others but I don't want to make a list here and I think you get the idea. The original Working had this exact formula and it ended up working for the series. That show had characters with completely different quirks that all made them somewhat socially inept and it made me love them all for it. I myself am pretty socially awkward so seeing characters with what I have but taken to the extreme really helps me relate with the cast and is hilarious! Character development is a bit stagnant. The relationship that character pairs have change as the show progress but the characters themselves don't change much. That's not a bad thing though because really, this show doesn't need character development. It's just a show to make us laugh and have a good time. There is no need for deep storytelling; the quirks are funny so why wouldn't you keep running with the quirks, right? There are definitely some characters that don't get a lot of screen time. The manager, Kisaki, and Takuya don't get much of the silver screen to themselves and seem to be in the show just so there's some people around. Like having a bunch of useless NPCs around. Overall though I enjoy this cast of zany characters and they truly make the show what it is.

MUSIC

The music for this show is interesting to talk about. Let's start with the OP. The opening song is "Eyecatch! Too Much!" by Haruka Tomatsu, Yoko Hikasa, and Sora Amamiya; the voice actors for Hana, Sayuri and Shiho respectively. I thought this song was nice and bubbly, much like the old series but it wasn't a smash hit. It wasn't bad but it wasn't great either. I could say the same for the ED, "Muchuuryoku Fever" which is also performed by the cast. They're nice songs but don't really make much of an impact. Overall they did nothing fantastically with the music and sound. In the show, whatever music is played tends to land on the side of bouncy and kinda silly but there isn't that much music within the show to begin with. Many times the show purposefully leaves music out for the sake of comedy. When a punchline is to be performed or when things have to be a bit awkward, there won't be any music which I thought was great but that does add to the lack of great music. I don't know if this was creative choice or budget constraints but I can say that the show did an OK job. I don't think the music for the show was bad; it was nice but in the end it was nothing all that special.

ANIMATION

The overall animation quality of WWW.Working is OK. It isn't impactful or even memorable in the least but it isn't shit so that's good. For the past year I've been at odds with A-1 Pictures, the studio making this show. I generally love them because If anything, they do good animation work but the last year has been a roller coaster for me. Back in winter 2016, they made Erased and Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash which were both very good shows. The stories for those shows were good and the animation was some of the best for the year. Then they completely fell flat during the Spring and Summer season. The shows they were working on were just bad and the animation differed from decent to bad. Back to this show; the animation is OK but the story is great so after 2 seasons of disappointment, I'm finally pleased with their work. Of course, A-1 Pictures is capable of better animation but WWW.Working doesn't need "A+" quality animation. The animation is good for a show like WWW.Working that isn't serious. There is no fluidity to the animation or a lot of detail in the scenes but the animation does execute comedy scenes well so I'll forgive you A-1 Pictures. 

FINAL VERDICT

Technical Score- 7.3 out of 10 (C)

The story for WWW.Working is good. It's what you expect from a slice of life comedy. I enjoyed the sprinkle of romance thrown in and the relationship building between pairs. The biggest positive about this show is the fun cast of quirky characters who make the show what it is! Music and animation are OK but definitely weren't top quality but they don't make the show any worse so that is good. The show could have been improved in the technical aspect but it's a good show how it is.

Personal Score- 7.8 out of 10 (C+)

The show may not have been the best executed show but I did enjoy it. It filled a little hole in my heart I've been trying to fill ever since I finished the original Working. This show made me laugh with it's cold comedy which you don't see so much and the show really captured the heart of the original! It's is a spin-off that's actually good! So if you enjoy weird characters and dry comedy than this is the show for you! Any Working!! fans out there who haven't checked out this show for whatever reasons, get on it cause you'll be pleased how similar this show is to the original.

I hope you guys enjoyed the post! I do my best to bring as much content as I can to you. If you guys enjoyed it, leave a comment down below about some recent shows you guys would like to see a review about or what you liked about this show. If you like what I do, check out my YouTube Channel, GiraffePants Anime, for more content and I'll see you all for the next post.

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