NMB48: Geinin Season 2 – Episode 12: Fish is good, but Sanma is king

Bow down, when he comes to your town.

I know that Akashiya Sanma is one of the legendary comedians of Japan, but exactly how legendary, I wasn’t quite sure. I don’t watch other J-entertainment programs besides NMB and some AKB, and some J-Dramas.

Well.

Holy crap.

When Maachun and Ripopo fall to their knees and bow down, you know you are dealing with something serious.

Football Hour is even more nervous than NMB.

Sanma reacts to idol introductions.

It’s one thing to be funny on your own show, but it’s another thing to be a legendary comedian on a show that teaches idols to be funnier. It’s like Michael Jordan visiting your high school basketball team.

Milky is fearless.

One thing I noticed about Milky is that she just dives straight in. She walks right up to Sanma and says “I’m from Nara!” while everyone else is cowering from being starstruck. She tries to get Sanma to suberi to see how to escape it, and he outplays her. As much as I harp on Milky for not improving and just relying on being cute, I like how her personality just takes over you. Sure, she’s known for fishing, but that’s because of how strong her social aura is. I still remember watching an episode of Naruhodo High School when they’re trying to figure out how a certain magic trick is performed, and she walks up to Acchan and starts talking to her about what she thought he was doing when other people of her generation would crap their pantsu standing next to her.

On the other side, Sayaka has admitted that she turns into a pansy when she’s with AKB (and resolved to change it).

And you can’t stop Riichan from being Riichan.

Maachun asked Sanma what’re some good things to keep in mind during adlib sections, and he tells her that tempo is key. So Riichan lazily walks in front and Sanma smacks her with the fan saying WTF, don’t do that, I was just talking about tempo. And when he goes to tsukkomi her again, Riichan was already standing in front again and he can’t find her. THEN when he asks who’s next, she doesn’t raise her hand.

Maybe this is why Milky and Riichan get along so well. They have these personalities that are just so strong.

Sanma is the same thing, this is supposed to be instructional and yet he’s still extremely funny while teaching them how to be better.

Yui is just giddy when he says she does a good job.

Nerves are super high, people are super nervous yet are really excited when they get praised, and heartbroken when they’re not.

Have you ever seen Fuuchan this flustered?

Too flustered.

Milky and Sanma continued to have great chemistry. Sanma hinted to her to say “oooooooh” as if she was confused so that he can say “Oooooh Mambo!” She didn’t and she got slapped. Then she says it and she still gets slapped. Then she uses the “etto” setup that Fuuchan did and gets slapped again. Then she randomly says “Oooooh” when the camera’s not on her.
And yet somehow Sanma responds perfectly every time.

This combination could rival Gotou/Nana.

Gotou admits he’s learning a lot too.

Honestly I thought Milky’s joke was a fail, but the chemistry was just so good that you had to give it to her.

One of the pleasant surprises from Geinin has to be Akarin. She seems so diva-like and high class, whether it’s because of her characters or even because of the scandal, but every single time she shows up her jokes have been awesome. The theme was about a teacher you wouldn’t want to have.

Akarin – “I don’t really want to say this, but let’s all close our eyes, and whoever stole Tanaka-kun’s money needs to raise their hand.”

*raises her hand*

Lavish praise deserved!

Nana was nearly in tears because she suberi’d again. Kinda hard to watch. She had some good stuff last season, I wonder why she was so bad this season.

It’s really a shame that Sanma was only there for 10 minutes. He was a bit mad about it, and so am I. The DVD extras better be good!

After the drama part wrapped up, which confused me, there was also a surprise heart-to-heart.

Legit letters.

Legit tears.

Yui announced that she’s transferring and gives out various postcards (which I *think* was her comedic gimmick in the show if I remember correctly) and the surprise was that the message on the postcards was actually related to her stay with NMB. I’m almost certain that the rehearsal had different things on it, since I believe Nana said something about that.

Either way, really nice to see how they acted in response to that. Poor Ripopo. When she said “I’ll listen to your radio show,” as part of the script, she said it all choked up and I had to try not to laugh.

Our final manzai was Yokoyamada.

And it was a little too short…

It’s a shame that this is the last memory of Yokoyama in NMB. Her manzai was decent, good even, and I’m really gonna miss what she offered to NMB. I really liked Yui in Bimyo and I liked her just as much in Geinin. She has a knack for comedy in the idol world and it’s just a shame that she won’t be able to develop it further in NMB.

Farewell, Geinin…

And thus wraps up another season of Geinin. I really enjoyed it and it was something I looked forward to every week, especially since I stopped watching AKBingo! and I needed another weekly show to keep me going in this fandom. I’m hoping something else pops up to replace it. And not just another TV show like a Black Million, but another show in this style where we can just see them act goofy.

So here’s to Suberi Devil Nana, an always annoyed Sayaka, the adorable Milky, the silly Maachun, the depressed Ripopo, and the deadpanning Yuihan. Here’s to a great supporting cast of Momoka and Anchu. Here’s to a final appearance of Hitomin. Here’s to a lively Fuuchan, a high-class Akarin, and the puppy-like Riichan.

And last but certainly not least, perhaps actually the most, here’s to Football Hour. Gotou had superb performances and carried a lot of the improv sections with his wit, and we didn’t get much Iwao this season but his bit parts in the drama were hilarious.

Bye bye, Iwao!

NMB48: Geinin Season 2 – Episode 11: New blood before the end?

Sensei!

I can’t believe this season is almost over already. This show has been really instrumental for me to get back into NMB, it’s something I can sit back and relax and enjoy. If they don’t get a 3rd season, I do hope they get something else to replace this show. I’d still love a new Naniwa Nadeshiko, or at least something in that vein.

There’s none.

There was some really strange thing in the beginning where Miru communicated in terms of flowers.

You want to talk about cultural barriers, well, there’s a huge one right there. It’s already hard enough getting used to humorous Senryu and Haiku, and now this, well…

This kid also showed up.

Haru appears and what happens is an “impromptu” manzai.

That reminds me of this one comic, Azumanga Daiou. In the beginning, they announce a transfer student is coming from Osaka. When she shows up, one of the other students starts chastising her. “You’re not really from Osaka. You don’t even have Takoyaki in your bento.” Finally, she gets the hint and says “Nande yanen,” causing the chastising student to be overjoyed at receiving a tsukkomi.

That took me forever to understand. I think I saw that episode over 10 years ago. I just understood that part 2 years ago.

It makes me wonder if people actually do this in real life.

My reaction at the lemon.

Lemon’s here but I’m still indifferent. The strange thing is that she’s actually really quite clever, always scores highs on tests, etc. It’s too bad her entertainment IQ is still very low.

Princess Monoboke!

I love improv comedy with props. I’m not sure why. I remember reading that humor had something to do with the unexpected, and I suppose that it’s a lot easier to understand when things are being used incorrectly in a completely understandable way.

There’s something about Ripopo’s reactions that are charming.

#1 joke bomber

Guess who returns for more failure…?

First she’s gotta get her prop on stage.

Way to tsukkomi the hose, lol.

I think Nana had good ideas but her execution is terrible.

There are ways to fail, and then there are ways to humorously fail, and Nana’s locked that one down.

Still, I’m hoping she figures it out one day.

We also get less story and another NMB talk.

Muro is supposedly the “sexy” one and she’s only 16.

That made me think about how strong their makeup techniques are. Again. Why can’t they look their age?

Then again, the concept of sexy in Japan is different than here in the US. I don’t completely understand or subscribe to it yet…

Fuuchan wants to be the next Shakure O’Neal

The manzai portion was okay. Again, I’m not seeing real improvement by Milky, so it does kinda seem to be trapped. The only thing NMB can do is to either get better or change up the cast so that it seems original.

Meccha Macho!

It’s funny though, whenever Milky hums a tune, it does manage to get stuck in my head. Before, it was Joy to the World.

This time, it’s Sukima Switch.

The next, and unfortunately final episode, looks godlike.

It’s like if Michael Jordan in his prime showed up at your local basketball court to play pickup.

What is the legendary Sanma doing on a 3AM idol comedy show?

I have no idea. But it’s gonna be awesome. It looks like he’s gonna up the game of everyone by so much. And I though Gotou was good.

Lastly…

Geinin Za Moooobi

It could be that I like this because it has NMB but the trailer actually does look decent and dramatic.

Who knows, though. I could be disappointed like I was with Moshidora. And that after Acchan does Moshidora her acting improves immensely. She’s awesome in Kasuka na Kanojo.

Come on Geinin movie, don’t be bad like Moshidora!

Speaking of which, I still need to watch that HA! movie version…

NMB48: Geinin Season 2 – Episode 10: Yuihan is now Yuigone

Noooo Yui come back ;_;

Maaaaaaaaannnnn

I was hoping that maybe there was some contractual stuff so that Yui had to stay to the end of the show. Guess I was wrong, as the intro says she’s transferring out. Well. That sucks. I like Yui’s dry humor and it’s a shame she’s leaving from this show.

Also the return of Sayaka’s musical power hour.

Not as good as the one from the first season, but good effort.

It’d be nice if this became a “thing.” Like you’re at an NMB concert and Sayaka sets up her guitar and you’re thinking “Ohhhhh snap, here comes Jungle Gym!” but instead she surprises you with a comedy routine. I’d love that.

Man, I do love me some humor. I’m so happy that the fruits of my labor in studying Japanese is the ability to enjoy humor from the heart in a completely different manner and style.

That sounded really cheesy. Oh well.

Ripopo-mama comes to harass the club members and leave.

I’m liking Ripopo more and more. Her personality is really original and as we saw in the last manzai she offers something different when it comes to comedy. She does deadpan better than Yui. Can you imagine if she was Honma-yan?

Something about an Apron club…

Hey look, it’s some new blood! Team M’s Azuma Yuki and Team B2’s Muro Kanako!

I have no idea what was going on. I just know that their acting was terrible. It was more terrible than everyone else, and that’s saying a lot because it’s not like the other cast members are good to begin with. I know they’re young’uns but I feel like I had better acting chops when I had to do skits in junior high for English class.

The cast is still hueg! HUEG!

Fffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-chan and Akarin join us for oogiri.

I took this screenshot because I think Fuuchan looks like a granny with that apron.

The theme was “Housewife you don’t want to come back to.” There were some surprises here and there, Muro had a joke about how she didn’t answer the phone because she was too busy having an affair, Azuma made a joke about whether you want rice, or rice, or rice. (There are several words for rice in Japanese: Kome, Meshi, Gohan.) So at least the newbies had a good showing.

Milky raising her hand and Gotou saying “Are you trying to flag down a taxi?”

Milky fails as usual, but she gets a pass because she’s Milky. This reminds me of the late Acchan-era where she wouldn’t do anything but she’d still be asked about anything and everything and was pretty much forgiven. I really dislike that. Milky’s good in more free-talking scenarios, but lately her oogiri has been lacking and she’s just been covered time and time again by Gotou.

Maachun needs no covering. She does need money, however.

Also interesting to note is Fuuchan. She bombed pretty hard, but there’s something about her that evokes Keicchi-like aura. As in, she’s a little bit silly and crazy but restrained. And then she smiles at you even though she failed her joke and she knows it. For some reason, I find that absolutely hilarious. It’s like a better version of Milky.

And of course Nana bombs afterward too. Her post-talk banter with Gotou always gets some laughs out of me, though. For being pretty bad at the actual joke, she’s really good at following it up.

Back to the story, I think they had to do some 3-man drama or something or other.

Maachun in these situations is always good for a chuckle.

Shu’s obvious lack of enthusiasm also generated a few laughs.

And then we have some Akarin/Fuuchan manzai. But first…

*NOSEBLEED*

In a brief second, I have never seen Nana look so good. I don’t even know what she did, but she did it.

The intro was a good start.

I’m actually really surprised with Fuuchan’s development. She’s becoming really funny. I didn’t like her at first because there was always just KenKoba’s “Fuuchan is watching” and she just stood there acting cute. But now she’s coming up with her own brand of humor and it works.

I think Akarin can tsukkomi well. She showed potential here but her emotions still aren’t vivid. Actually, you could say the same for both of them.

The theme was Little Red Riding Hood, so at least I was able to understand the basics of it.

“Why are your eyes so big?”

“It’s because of my eyeliner. Please keep it a secret.”

That finishes off the episode. Then there’s a preview for the next episode and…

Wow! Haru! She looks kinda old now.

Fresh Lemon naritai? No.

Not looking forward to the lemon. Unlike NMB who constantly has to innovate themselves in comedy as Fuuchan is demonstrating, Lemon sticks to the same tired routine about how she wants to be a lemon. Meh. Bring back Yui.

NMB48: Geinin Season 2 – Episode 9: Freaky Kinyoubi

Hey this time the story was actually somewhat interesting!

Somewhat.

But first…. wut

Namba Wan?

One of my favorite things is when people laugh when they’re not supposed to, but they leave it in there anyway.

Ripopo agrees.

Also there’s some man cosplay.

Kakkoiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

Hitomeborechattaaaaaaaa

One thing I find funny is that when they dress up like guys, they still look like girls. That says a lot about Japanese guys, lol.

I’m not gay though. I’m just saying.

The premise of this story is that Sayaka and Milky switch bodies due to the magic of the Daruma doll. Unfortunately, instead of Milky pretending to be Sayaka she really just acts like an angry Milky.

Sayaka, on the other hand, plays it a lot better. I wouldn’t call it great, but compared to Milky…

And there’s some hilarity when they try to recombine themselves.

Ouch.

First oogiri section is about doing a boke at a haunted house. I was already chuckling when they zoomed in on Ripopo. I still remember that last Challenge 48… she was in the haunted house for like 6 hours, haha.

Keila does not look or act her age at all. She kinda did 2 years ago though.

So, usually when someone does a boke, Gotou does tsukkomi with an explanation. For example, with Ripopo she was like “I’m so jealous that you guys are a couple,” so Gotou would say “What kind of ghost looks at people like that?”

When Milky did her thing (which actually wasn’t that funny) where she fell in love with the ghost, Gotou tsukkomi’d with “You can’t even see their face, they’re supposed to be in disguise.”

Milky breaks the fourth wall and says “Well, yeah, it’s just a boke.”

I’m not sure what to think about that. I kinda wanna get angry but it’s also soooooooo tennen. But it’s season 2 so it’s kinda strange timing to tennen.

Shuu says that the person looks like Nana: like an old lady.

To which Gotou gladly hands over the fan…

And then Milky comes out and does her silly Nana impression before she gets a beatdown with the fan.

Gotou: “In terms of the comedy world, you 3 are all dead already.”

Maachun busts out the tour guide impression again.

Sayaka responds with a tour guide impression of her own. Except not from the tour guide’s perspective, but from the person entering the haunted house.

We leave off with Gotou ending the segment, but not before Nana gets mad at not being called and forcing her way through to do her own.

Gotou’s reaction to this is priceless.

She still fails, though.

And then they do this weird scary thing together, haha

Honestly, the Nana/Gotou chemistry is top notch. There’s something about Gotou that brings out the best in Nana. If they had a radio show it’d be the radio show ever.

Story continues when they find directions to summon spirits to recombine them and they do some weird dance and crap.

There’s almost a repeat accident when Iwao bumps into Milky and they switch bodies…

Iwao’s Milky impersonation is the best though.

Come to think of it, there hasn’t been that much Iwao in the show lately. He’s been a lot of fun in those sections where he makes NMB tsukkomi him.

The manzai this time was actually decent.

These three dudes

Kanakichi’s tsukkomi was actually really well done, and Momoka’s a lot more natural as boke than the others. Then throw in creepy Ripopo and you have yourself a team! That was actually pretty surprising, but I think that tossing in Ripopo to be opposite the hyperactive Momoka was definitely a great idea.

We end with previews of the dance PV of Bokura no Eureka and more Anchu outtakes.

For some reason I like the dance PV. The dance seems pretty clean and they seem pretty synched up well. The dance also seems made for swimsuits… they did perform a seifuku version on Manabu-kun and something seemed off.

I still don’t like the song though. To be honest I’m liking the singing less and less. It’s actually… quite bad. I’m also confused at how everyone is in swimsuits but their skin is really white and pale except for Airi. It’s like their first time going outside or something, haha.

Also when they say Eureka I think of this:

NMB48: Geinin Season 2 – Episode 8: Suberi-land

I think the more I watch this show, the more I really dislike the story. I think it was about how Nana had to suberi which helped suberi-land fend off some foe or something or other.

It was really bad. It was like a suberi inside a suberi.

I still don’t know what this is, lol.

Man they’re gonna be so hot when they grow up

I can’t say I’m physically attracted to them… they’re too young and my type tends to be the more mature ones but man, I think Keira is gonna look spectacular when she turns into an adult.

WTF is this

I don’t know how accurate this impression is of Billiken, but it always cheers me up.

The first oogiri is about being fairies or something.

That’s actually a lot of people.

The cast is pretty big. I actually like it, we got Shu, we got Keira, we got Kanakichi, we got the Hitomin/Anchu/Momoka trio… life in Geinin is good.

Fairy = Yousei… Yo say hey yo yo

Ripopo’s “Yes!” lolol

I think it’s funny whenever Ripopo succeeds she’s always like “YES I DID IT!” lolol.

Uhh…

I think Milky is hella getting saved, this time by Momoka. She seems to be getting less funny. She is getting a little bit more attractive but… ehhh…

It’s LeviOHsa, not LevioSA

Shoutouts to Harry Potter.

I still really like how whenever it’s Nana’s turn, Gotou says “ARE YOU SURE YOU CAN DO IT?

More story stuff. More suberi. Ehh.

Also Anchu comes and yells at everyone again.

Scary.

Instead of oogiri part 2, we have a free talk.

Nana is often asked to do Ippatsugei at handshake events and she does that WAO thing.

Everyone’s reaction to that was great.

Also, jokes about Nana being old. I think that she has the best reactions out of anyone on NMB48. She plays it perfectly.

Especially her voice.

OMG SAILOR MOON IS NOT OLD

Even her hearing is fading, haha

The manzai this go around was… strange. They had Maachun in tsukkomi, Milky as boke. I’ve said it before but I think Milky is taking steps back…

Izz ok, Biliken is here.

Next episode seems interesting…

…very interesting…

And then we leave off with the hilarity that is Anchu’s outtakes. What a trooper… even though her messed up lines are really strange. I dunno where she came up with oil cushion.

This picture stresses me out just looking at it, haha.

NMB48: Geinin Season 2 – Episode 7: Senryuu Hadoken

Funny how I said I’d update more… then things happen and I get busy and stuff and things and stuff.

NOT TO WORRY I’M BACK.

You know who else is back? My man lazyedt. He was kind enough to get me some NMB gifts while he was over in Japan. He also told me how his friend was able to ask Sayaka if he knows lazyedt, and she was like “Yeah! I get letters from him!”

Man. How cool is that?

Anyway…

A new challenger has arrived!

Actually, more challengers have arrived.

Come to think of it, I haven’t seen Kadowaki in a while. I can’t even remember her nickname. She comes back with some fantastic hair.

YO YOU DUN PISSED OFF THE YUIHAN

Shu joins… hooray~

Lately I’ve been liking Shu for some reason. Her smile is magnetic. Jo was like the “awwww~” smile but Shu is like the smile that makes you want to smile too. And then everything will be alright.

I can’t really understand what was going on though. I think they said something about Yuihan making joke postcards for her radio show to send to all her fans.

There has to be some irony with this pairing.

Seeing Hitomin and Yuihan together… man. I’m gonna miss them. Especially Hitomin. In season 1 she gave me this impression that she didn’t really care what happened as long as she did her ippatsu gags, but now she does actually show a lot of talent in her comedy.

I’d also take the time to go into why I’m gonna miss Yuihan in NMB, but really it all comes down to the fact that my interest in AKB is dwindling very quickly.

Funny story about this picture…

That picture, it turns out, was drawn by a Sayaka wota. He must’ve been stoked when they decided to use his picture on the Geinin set. He actually has more pictures if you look him up… really cool stuff.

In the next section they introduce Kadowaki Kanako, who is the leader of the Senryuu club… senryuu being a comedic haiku, which is why she speaks all funny.

I think Anchu is trying to be funny.

Really starting to like Anchu. Maybe because she appears a lot. I planned on writing about the other episodes because I remember I had all these thoughts concerning her manzai with Sayaka. I didn’t like her in that manzai. But unfortunately, that episode has passed and now my thoughts will now be kept only in my cranium.

And why does the skin colored polo shirt keep showing up?! Come on Gotou, step your fashion game up!

The oogiri section was actually really funny.

The worst hand-raising ever.

Followed by a terrible oogiri. “Does it have to be funny?”

In the meantime, Kimoshita visits again.

“I don’t know why, I don’t know how… but I like boobs.”

I CAN’T GET BOOBS OUT OF MY HEAD

Nana writes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“I always think about this, but am I really that unfunny?” to which Gotou responded… “Yes.”

Also some interesting chemistry between Nana and Sayaka…

Sayaka wrote something like “Even now, I still remember…”

Nana claimed to have a continuation of that:

“When did my butt crack?”

Oraaa!

Fantastic oogiri section.

Story continues with everyone getting in the Senryuu mode so that they can pick the best to win the Senryuu mode, and it turns out to be Ripopo. As this is not a translation blog… you’ll just have to figure it out.

We do get a pleasant surprise with the manzai…

~Oyasumi~

Yokoyamamoto!

To be honest, because of this 48-family dude, I’ve been watching a crap ton of Oriraji and other manzai on Youtube. It really highlights the difference between a pro and an amateur. There’s something about a pro boke where you get on their wavelength. It’s more than just being stupid, which is what they do sometimes… but it’s about getting people into your stupidity. Surprisingly, the NanaJou thing worked out perfectly… too bad.

With this one, and with the last couple ones, they’re trying, but it’s not completely there. I was kinda hoping we’d see Yamamoto on the boke again. And I dunno why but Yuihan looked incredibly cool.

Lastly we get to the 2nd oogiri section, which is “Cute and interesting.”

“This soft icecream (literally) looks like shit!”

I was so glad I wasn’t drinking. Oh my God, Shu.

The only other thing of note was Nana’s strange failure.

“Let’s go home together! Okay!”
“Why did you kick me?!??!”

I only liked this because Sayaka simulated the kick, lol.

One thing I also noticed is that Milky actually bombs jokes just as much, if not more than Nana. But she kinda gets away with it because she’s cute and/or popular. And that really really really really really really really bothers me. I haaaaaaate it when people get by with terrible ability but just cute their way (Yes, I turned cute into a verb) to success. And that goes beyond idols. In fact it probably applies more often to real life. You know how it is, when the cute girl in your group is crappy but like all the desperate guys want to get with her so they treat her extra special and instead of her trying to get better you just have all these guys telling her she’s good so she doesn’t try as hard anymore.

On the other hand, Nana inherited the joke bombing character. There’s only room for one. Like Highlander.

Well.

Screw that!

And that’s the end of this episode.

Next episode looks interesting, lol.

NMB48: Geinin Season 2 – Episode 4: Make me laugh

It’s not a nice time to be an NMB fan. Not only did we lose Yui, but we just lost Hitomin. And AKB has Fuuchan and they still have Milky. くっそ野郎！

Then there’s BII not selling out.

Oh well. Let’s lighten up the mood with some Geinin.

Some mochi making ceremony that had punchlines to it

A new challenger has appeared!

The story is that Jounishi wants the owarai club to restore the laughter of her little sister, Kawakami Chihiro. The fun thing is that in real life, she does treat Chihiro as a little sister, which might be because of their similar looks. Chihiro’s nickname is Chihhii… which doesn’t really translate well in romanized characters. ちっひー looks much better.

There was some recurring joke about how everyone ignored Maachun.

Even Sayanee ignored her. Teehee~

First oogiri section was about a maid you’d kinda not want. Sayanee starts off with… a gag? What?

Evil Keicchi returns!

Even Ripopo wants to be like Sayaka.

There was a couple interesting exchanges. For example…

Milky accidentally raised her hand when it was Maachun’s turn.

She got a stern warning from Gotou not to do it. Definitely don’t do it. Never do it again. That is obviously an invitation to do it again, and then Gotou tsukkomi’d Milky for not doing it again.

I think this really shows Gotou’s comedy genius. Even when someone messes up their supposed role, he manages to still make it funny. And he still makes Milky look good for that mistake.

Maybe I’m not watching this show for NMB, I’m actually watching it for football hour. Hmmm…

In another exchange, Gotou was wondering whether he should pick Nana.

Gotou – “Are you sure you can do it?”

Nana – “Maybe.”

Gotou – “If it’s just ‘maybe’ then you probably can’t do it.”

Nana – “I can definitely do it.”

Gotou – “You sure?”

Nana – “Yes!”

Gotou – “In that case… Watanabe, it’s your turn!”

Nana – “wat”

At this point, Gotou chided Nana for not vocally protesting more, in which case…

Nana screaming “Oiiii” in a hilarious manner

Story continues by Nana being trouble with Manzai so Keicchi offers to help.

Unfortunately I understood nothing. I don’t think I’ve ever been this lost when it comes to Manzai.

The second oogiri section is about impersonations.

Sayaka with the “calm after the storm look” after a rollercoaster ride.

Maachun’s hilarious tour guide impersonation.

There was a part where Keicchi did a seaweed impersonation and she was so embarrassed that she quit midway through.

Chihhii followed up with the same thing! You can see Keicchi falling down in laughter.

It’s actually kind of cute to see her back up her senpai like that.

I dunno why but everyone made fun of Nana for bombing this joke…

Clamshell 1

Clamshell 2

Ripopo pulls out some comedy gold when she grabs the statue for some reason, and then…

I really didn’t see that coming.

The next episode preview looks like we’ll see Fuuchan again. It doesn’t look like we’ll have any weird bikini shoots where Nana and Maachun rub their asses together, but some weird fairy costume.

I thought I took a screenshot of Riichan. But that’s not Riichan.

 

 

NMB48: Geinin Season 2 – Episode 3: Henshin Tigers

Today’s entry will be fairly short, for the main reason that I wasn’t really paying too close attention to the episode and didn’t really understand what was going on.

Or maybe I need to study more. Anyway…

Who the?

Episode starts off with Akarin coming in as the Dokumo Club. I think what she said was that it’s a club of people who read and look good. Errh… okay. They drop off a button, and then Milky comes back and presses it, triggering…

Some strange sentai ranger stuff.

Yuipon makes her official appearance in the story line, and Renacchi makes her official appearance outside of the theatre. The whole thing is just some silly play that has to be seen, which includes a goofy cartwheel, a stolen DBZ ultimate move, and shuttlecocks everywhere.

Shuttlecocks.

And then the enemy and the princess are defeated.

Yuihan comes in at the end because she is the “real villain” but Nana does the patented “Mou ee wa” and that’s that.

This leads nicely into the Oogiri portion of the show, where the theme is “Superheroes I don’t want to meet.”

Kancho, the act of shoving your two fingers up someone’s butt. If it weren’t for Azrael’s teaching in Japan blog I would never understand this. Actually, I still don’t understand this.

Henshin = transform, hentai is something you can all figure out.

What does she mean by a chop between the eyebrows…?

Bam. Nailed it.

Sayaka seems to be getting good at anticipating the tsukkomi and having a suitable reaction to it. This is why I think she’s heads-and-tails above everyone else in the 48 group. Small things like that add up to really big performances. I’m actually awaiting the time she gets out of 48 and goes solo, because she’s an incredible talent.

And no episode is complete without a Nana fail.

Sometimes I wonder if they purposely leave her fails in. You can already tell that the section is heavily edited. That shouldn’t be surprising… even the great improv comedy TV show “Whose Line is it Anyway?” had edited out a lot of the boring answers.

The ultimate conclusion to the storyline is that they recruit Sayaka for a one-time performance, which leaves today’s manzai to a combination of Momoka and Milky.

wut

I actually didn’t understand most of it. I remember them talking about superstitions but I don’t know what they were talking about exactly. Either way, Momoka is too jolly to be a good tsukkomi, and Milky is… well, I don’t know. She just doesn’t seem to be getting any better at this, which is a shame because her first few manzais were hilarious. I’m concerned that she’s just using her cuteness to get by.

Momoka is fun to watch though. She’s always smiling and over-the-top. She really needs more roles like this. She’s managed to make Tengoku Yarou her own which is incredible and probably why it ranked in the NMB RH Top 30, and I think a lot of her talents aren’t as obvious because of how strong the rest of her, uh, personality is.

The episode concludes with Iwao winning an Okinawa trip and giving it to the girls, which I think is real? I can’t tell.

Gotou asks for a souvenir. Nana suggests a Samishiisaa, a cross between the word “loneliness” and the lion thing that Okinawa is famous for.

Unfortunately the trip had terrible weather.

Mi kasa es no kasa.

Then the episode closes out with a bombed joke by Milky from the Oogiri section.

Not sure how that resembles a super hero at all…

Well, at least Nana should feel relieved that she’s not the only joke bomber.

NMB48: Geinin Season 2 – Episode 2: SENSEI

With this episode, we get to see Yui in action! Both of them!

And ANCHU! Gogogo Team BII!

Story-wise, Yokoyama Yui joins and is apparently some famous comedian under some pseudonym, so they’re stoked that she joined the club and can help them improve. I think there’s some irony in that it’s probably the opposite in real life, though I remember Yuihan being fantastic in Bimyo. Wow, I do miss Bimyo.

And here we have… well, I don’t quite know.

Interesting handshake technique…

SENSEI MODE

The first oogiri section was fairly tame, they had to perform boke as transfer students.

Hi, I came from Chiba, and my name is Transfer Student.

No Geinin episode is complete without Nana failing again.

I hope she’s not doing this on purpose. I really hope so.

And then Anchu appears in the second story section. Momoka’s school is back and ready to challenge whatever school this is for joke supremacy. In this portion, she demonstrates tsukkomi, and then Yuihan evaluates them as perfect. Eh.

There’s something about Anchu’s poise that makes me think that she’s ready for this level. When I watched that one BII stage I thought that she looked to be one of the tops in BII. Shu has that charisma, but Anchu has the maturity. Hm.

And look at their lovely faces!

The manzai was interesting. Interesting because I think Maachun has improved a ton, but unfortunately, does not have the partner to do so. No knocks on Ripopo, but Maachun is clearly on another level.

I like where this is going.

The writing was interesting too, as while technically Ripopo was the tsukkomi, they did miniskits where Ripopo was the boke and Maachun played stereotypes from dramas.

Lastly we get a Q&A session. We only got a few in Season 1 Geinin.

They asked Yuihan about her thoughts on being a dual NMB/AKB member.

She said that people have been saying that she’s been looking a lot brighter since the transfer. The line in the caption is Iwao’s boke.

Yeah! Go NMB! Shots fired towards AKB!

We also get to see Ripopo’s prideface.

Other topics include the Geinin movie and how they were stoked that they got Ken Koba, but Football Hour joking that NMB wasn’t fighting for Football Hour to appear. Also covered was how a lot of the interview sessions were cut because of Momoka’s outrageous answers, and this time they got her talking about how she likes Milky.

“Kinoshita likes female bodies.”

Decent episode. Also, I didn’t mention this, but Yuipon (and not Yuihan) also appeared on the show. I’m a big fan of trying to balance NMB and remove the huge focus on Team N, and seeing her and Anchu was great.

And an Akarin too, I guess.

It’s funny, I don’t really have high expectations for this show, but I do enjoy watching it and I feel like something’s missing when I don’t watch it.

NMB48: Geinin Season 2 – Episode 1: Magic Immunity

I wasn’t really THAT stoked when they announced Geinin 2. I’d actually rather have a Naniwa Nadeshiko 2.

Then I watched the first episode.

Still just as good as I remember it… actually, some better, some worse, but we’ll get to that later. Overall, still funny, still enjoyable, I like it a lot.

WIth the same ol’ cast… well, minus Jo and Ainyan.

You know, I didn’t think Jo and Ainyan had much presence on the show at first, but surprisingly their lack of presence is really felt.

I think the plot is that they eventually attended that JK-1 thing but they only got 6th place, and I think they said Jo transferred and Ainyan graduated or something like that… but now there’s a contest for high school students and I think the winning school either gets to appear on a TV show or hosts a Yoshimoto TV show or something.

Not really sure about that poster though. Also don’t mind the earthquake alert, lol.

The catch is that they need 10 people to participate… and right now they only have 4.

They are hella excited about BKB though.

I find it really unfortunate that this comedian’s name is BKB, because that’s an item in DotA that gives you magic immunity. And it’s actually the opposite of exciting because you wanna cast spells on someone and then all of a sudden that BKB comes up and you just wander around aimlessly while you pray that it goes away before the carry is done autoattacking you.

(The joke here is that the TV program that they would be on has more star studded comedians than BKB, who is not particularly popular, but they get pumped for him. Or rather, that is the comedian’s opening chant.)

Ripopo also appears. I’m not sure about her character. Kinda creepy and weird, actually.

For some reason she reminded me of Acchan though.

The first variety portion was the tsukkomi challenge.

Iwao screws up his “line.” Why is HE nervous? haha.

Milky’s terrible tsukkomi.

There’s something about Milky that makes me not like her. I don’t know what it is. And yeah I’ve talked about Dat Ass™ plenty of times, but there’s something about the way she’s acting and performing that just doesn’t shake me the right way. I don’t know what it is. In her tsukkomi she pretty much giggled her line and it was just like, ehh… okay.

Maachun’s was spot on.

I dunno why but Maachun seemed like she knew exactly what to do. I wonder if her comedic sense is just developing like that. Hers was probably the most professional-looking one. On the other hand…

Nana never changes.

She also used a tsukkomi that she did last season, but she got no reaction so she just said “WAA.” lol

As much as I harp on the NMB Suberi Queen, she’s actually quite adept at being an MC for TV shows and such, and she has TV presence. She fails but it’s not like awkward fail so you know she’s not terribly bad.

The story was something like Riho being able to communicate with spirits or whatever and she thought she saw the suberi devil from last season. And Iwao is uhh… yeah.

A pretty basic manzai. To be honest I’d rather have the Rika Sayaka combo.

There’s also way too many jokes making fun of Sayaka’s sharp face. I feel like it’s been done over and over…

We’re also blessed with a second variety portion!

Sayaka’s jokes are really well thought out…

Can’t say the same for Nana though. I think her jokes are okay content-wise, but her timing and tone is really poor.

Fuuuuuuuuuuu

Fuuchan seems to be getting better at this comedy thing. At first I thought she was this typical cute girl that doesn’t do anything and acts really poorly, but with this and with the “hanami” video, her comedic sense seems to be improving a lot.

 

Overall it’s a great first episode. I definitely miss having these shows to watch.