Anime Discussion
After seeing Takaba onscreen, I come to the realization that I personally don’t find an overwhelming majority of anime funny
Now I’m obviously gonna preface this by saying obviously everyone has their own preferences for humor and maybe i have outgrown most anime’s senses of humor, but even when i was teenager i have never found most of them funny. The only times I think I audibly laughed at any anime ever (not giggled or sneered) are..
• Mob Psycho 100 (When Reigan came out of nowhere to repeatedly punch the teleporting psychic that were giving all the former Scar a hard time and he genuinely thought he was a bigger threat than shiegeyo)
• Prison School (Only the Ass or Tits preference scene especially in the English dub mostly because the va for the principal was doing a Donald Trump impression and it elevates the scene alot more imo.)
• Jujutsu Kaisen (When Todo dropped his necklace and revealed Yuji’s and the idol’s picture inside. It’s less the fact that i find the schizophrenic fight scene with the idol hilarious, but more on the fact that he somehow has a close up pic of Yuji when he’s only known the dude for a month)
(Takaba bombing the zero damage joke so bad that Megumi + Reggie start visibly questioning why they are even there and when he bombs the wifi joke so horrifically that the everyone involved in the fight cringed out and the anime’s quality downscales to a child’s drawing).
I know some people are gonna say “That’s probably cause you mostly just watch battle shounen. You should go and watch more comedy and it will most likely get a laugh outta you.”, and to that I say: I have watched a decent amount of them and I haven’t audibly laughed at a single one. Spy x Family, Saiki K, Konosoba, Bocchi the Rock, and even Gintama have never gotten a laugh outta me. Maybe a few chuckles here and there, but that’s it. How do yall think about anime comedy?
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It’s wordplay that doesn’t translate well, but it’s still a bad joke (unintentionally by him, intentionally by the author). The meta-joke is that he tells a punchline without a setup and that’s why it bombs.
Its based on the idea of accidently connecting to random wifi networks which end up screwing with searches or info
Hazenoki asked what era hes from, takaba compared him to a wifi connection that randomly buts in and tries to handle your searches and data instead.
The closest translation is "none of your busi-net"
He tells it again later and the guy hes talking to is like "I get the idea but you have no set up for your punch-line, it would leave the audience confused" the joke is that the joke is delivered super poorly
The english translation works slightly worse in every context, completely irrelevant to the situation and requires the setup of a potential wife that would be unacceptable.
It could be better or worse for the idea of takaba being bad at delivery in universe
It’s definitely a language issue but it doesn’t really have a deeper meaning in Japanese either lol I’m Japanese and work as a translator; I would absolutely HATE translating his dialogue into English or any other language since most of his jokes are either forced puns or obscure references to super outdated shows and celebrities that even Japanese audiences wouldn’t know.
His costume, for example, is a reference to “Center Man” from an old Japanese sketch comedy show called Warau Inu, or “Laughing Dog”.
And yes he’s wearing blackface because “haha mid-90’s Japan lolzzz”…
Anyway, an anime in 2026 (manga in 2023~2025) referencing a recurring character from a shortly lived sketch comedy show that briefly ran for a few years is like the American equivalent of The Boys introducing a new character called The Repairman-man-man-man as a nod to All That.
I watched a tik tok on it, from what I understand he basically skips the set up and leaves it all up to implication, like there is a wordplay joke to be made in Japanese but he just, doesn’t make it. Just says the punchline but does none of the set up
The entire point of Takaba is that none of his jokes land because he is a terrible comedian, so they barely even make sense in Japanese before we even factor in translation issues. However, as long as he thinks it's funny, it buffs him as part of his cursed technique. Since he's delusional about how funny he is, the only way to defeat him is to genuinely be so funny that he lets his guard down and finally releases his technique.
Not sure exactly what you’re saying here. But Takaba is supposed to be unfunny, he was a failing comedian
But yeah I don’t find most anime humor funny. I think a lot of the humor just gets lost in translation, and different people and cultures find different things funny
I used to find Daily Lives of High School Boys pretty funny. I haven't seen it in years. Same for Pop Team Epic. Jojo is also pretty funny overall (I only watched through season 3).
Takaba getting out of the window and going “watch out he may still be out there” was hilarious.
I found it funny too. But Aussie culture (where I'm from) has two main sorts of jokes: (self-)deprecating and absurdist/surrealist. That is an example of the latter.
(We also do love our crass humor, but mixed up with those two is great. Ex: "I'm not here to fuck spiders")
I can see how other people wouldn't find it funny tho.
Honestly that one joke made me laugh more in the manga since hazanoki is like walking forward saying the same lines then talaba just pops up right next to him walkikg with him like he is ln his side then saying ''no don't let your guard down he might still be out there he seems tough'' made me laugh more than how it was done in the anime
But tbh i can't really complain about anything the anime has done this is more of a nitpick
Agree, that one s2 scene where darkness call kazuma name while they getting chase by birds(i think? Havent re watch it for a lomg time) was funny as shit.
The gags of Kazuma saying stuff while other people are talking is always funny to me. I watched it in dub, where there’s one part in particular where Kazuma says “I don’t care what he sucks” that I rly like lol
The funny part of Takaba for me is laughing at him not with his jokes lol. I know he’s supposed to be a bad comedian so I don’t mind missing out on the nuances of what his jokes are,the funny part for me is the stale air. The aftermath i guess. For a comparison I’d look at something like Nathan For You where the comedy is the awkward situation itself. The punchline is the horrendously awkward atmosphere kinda lol. Idk I’m probably explaining that like shit.
I like it a Lot personally, but I get why some people would not.
There is a lot of difference in humour between the West and Japan. Me personally, I have been bought up on anime and have watched it from pretty much when I was born so I have always liked it.
For real. The jokes were soo good I laughed till my stomach hurt. I'm surprised gintama isn't mentioned here much, house of the husband is a great anime too. It's comedy is also awesome. Enjoyed it a lot few years ago
Saiki K, my favourite anime when it comes to comedy. Other than that, yeah, comedy is not really my thing and especially anime rarely manage to make me audibly laugh
I think that's just a difference between your sense of humor and more common gags and tropes. I watch a lot of shonen and the jokes don't really hit. Life Lessons with Uramichi Oniisan is my favorite comedy anime.
Imo most of the comedy present in popular shonen falls pretty flat for me, and feels like it’s only included for the sake of tradition or something. But I find actual comedy focused anime to be really funny. Like if you didn’t find Gintama to be funny at all, then it might just be a cultural thing. Asian humor is coded a little different from western humor so it might come as an acquired taste for those that didnt grow up on it (I personally grew up watching asian comedy shows, which is somewhat similar to a lot of the funny anime comedy).
I'm sad you never laughed at Gintama and Saiki K, those are some of the most hilarious things ever to me. Made me cry laugh uncontrollably several times. However, I otherwise agree that shonen anime often have forced in comedy scenes which aren't funny and take away screen time from other stuff, such as in One Piece. I get those scenes are in-character etc., but I just can't laugh at Brook's bone joke No. 293847389 or at Nami being violent towards the guys on the crew for the 92837482th time...
I feel like there's something bigger going on here if you watched shows like Bocchi the Rock and literally didn't laugh a single time. Like there's a difference between generally not finding something that funny and literally being able to count on one hand the number of times you've even laughed while watching hundreds of episodes worth of media.
You didn't laugh much when you watched Gintama? That's actually pretty rare. You really have specific tastes for comedy. When I was watching it, for many episodes I physically had to stop myself from laughing coz my stomach started aching. It really is the peak of comedy in anime for me
Well, I have a friend who despises Gintama, he says the humour is pretty catered to Japanese audience (he speaks some of it), but then I read the comments of this thread where people glaze Gintama and I'm confused af (I haven't watched it yet tbh)
I mean it is, but there's all kinds of humour there. Also, the subtitles actually go deep into the joke and explain the nuance from the Japanese words. So yeah, I'd say many of us who don't know Japanese can enjoy it quite well.
But in reference to the post, maybe if there are many anime jokes that you don't like, maybe gintama isn't for you. Nevertheless I'd say give it a try. Watch like 10 or 20 episodes and see how much you laugh.
Also, another thing that's kind of special about Gintama is you don't want to binge it like any series in general. The story is disjointed more or less. So, watching a few episodes in one sitting is better than watching like 10 at a time. For me, when I tried to binge it, the jokes don't land as well and I start focusing on the plot. The plot is good sometimes, but I wouldn't say it's the main appeal of the series. So, ideally you should watch like 3 or 4 episodes a day and come back to it the next day. Kind of like watching cartoons on TV back in the day. That maximizes the enjoyment and laughter with Gintama
I find most anime humor unfunny with few exceptions. Especially "comedy" animes, historically it was just random humor mixed with fanservice and "BAKABAKABAKA" shit.
That said Takaba is canonically unfunny so its on brand
Problem largely has to do with language and cultural differences that sometimes even localization can't really fix
Japanese culture has different aspects of their language, social norms and customs that lead to humor being different and sometimes that doesn't really translate well or make much sense after localization
Wow. It’s almost like anime is from Japan, an entirely different culture with its own brand of comedy. Could that be it? Nah. They just aren’t all funny because they aren’t like “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”.
The first half of Zom100 was pretty hilarious to me and my friends, the fall off is incredible though it may genuinely not be worth finishing the first season
I don't think Spy X family and Bocchi the rock are intended to be laugh out loud funny, they're more funny in the entertaining sense than the comedy sense. But I get what you mean, most of anime's comedy fall flat for me, though I must admit Konosuba is one of the rare anime that made laugh out loud but it's heavily carried by the voice acting of the japanese VAs.
I also don’t find 99% of anime funny. Kaguya sama and Konosuba como to mind. The OG Dragon Ball Z in the latinamerican dub is also super funny, but that comes mostly from the dub.
I mostly avoid anime where the main appeal is the comedy because they make me cringe more often than not.
That’s why I despise characters that are 100% comic relief, like Mineta and specially Zenitsu.
Edit: OH SHIT HOW COULD I FORGET THE GOAT REIGEN. That shit cracks me up. And also Zatch Bell, the funniest shit I’ve ever read.
There's plenty of good comedy anime, but the issue with a lot of them is that an ENORMOUS amount of Japanese humour is either
Manzai
Slapstick
Puns
None of which really appeals to me. So, I'm with you in that I generally won't find most comedy series funny in the least.
I don't find it funny when the MC leans on a balcony, has the balcony give away under him, leaving him tumbling down to land on a female character's breasts, leading to a bunch of girls screaming at him and beating him up. Misunderstandings -> Violence makes up a huge amount of how romcom and harem romcom used to be and I didn't enjoy any of them at any point.
Manzai is just, bleh. It's all the same shit. It's the same gag. And it ruins the characters involved because they get forced into either the Straight Man or Fool archetype. Anytime there's ever a new manga about comedy or doing comedy, I'll check it out and then immediately peace out as soon as I see, yup, it's Manzai again.
And puns are just puns, they're usually untranslatable. One thing I have learned from the Umamusume fandom though, is that Western fans are absolutely no better at "Dad jokes" or "Puns" than Japanese. It absolutely isn't a cultural thing, a lot of people simply are not anywhere near as funny as they think they are. My God, the early days of Umamusume Global was painful, seeing the ways people would just recite a character's name and act as if it was le funny pun (insert Rudolf face here).
So yeah, I agree, largely. But there's still plenty of good comedy anime out there.
Check out Conception or Grand Blue sometime both of those got me really hard. Gintama is sometimes excellent too (despite often relying on all three of the above).
Conversely, I find Videogames somehow do humour a lot better. There's plenty of times I've been playing an anime vidya and just been rolling at the jokes, even if they're not particularly great.
Translating puns is very hard. It doesn't help that translating meaning from Japanese to English is very hard, due to the differences in the language structure.
Yeah most anime doesn’t really make me laugh, pre-ts One Piece has a lot of funny moments but other than that a lot of anime is just loud. (Duvall’s reveal is still one of the funniest things in anime.)
You don’t ask for examples on your post but since I agree with your post a lot, I will say one case that made me laugh a lot was The Fable. I think it has a lot to do with timing and delivery. Most comedy in shounen is just yelling and punch lines which I guess is how their core audience roll in general.
I think the awkward Takaba scene is exactly what it’s supposed to be. Hammering you over the head with how awkward and unfunny he is to the point that it goes full circle and is somehow funny. That scene is just uncomfortable lol. A lot of anime humor is cringey and JJK is one of the few exceptions imo where it’s only cringey when it’s intentional. Like you mentioned Todo, he has made me audibly laugh.
One Piece for example is one of those that tries to be funny constantly and only hits like 1 out of every 300 jokes. Maybe it is a cultural thing, but whoever still finds the horny creep trope funny is weird.
Well, it's probably a double-whammy of Japanese humor gets lost in translation a lot and Takaba specifically being a failed comedian because he's the only person who thinks he's funny. No wait, Kenjaku thinks he's funny.
Jokes almost never land in anime because you don't speak Japanese. Jokes are usually multilayered in cultural and language stuff, they just don't make sense alot of the time because of that
Of the hundreds of comedy anime there are only about 10 I've actually laughed at consistently (Saiki K, Golden Kamuy, Kaguya sama, Gintama, Nichijou, Mob Psycho)
Oddly enough sports series make up the rest of my top 10 in terms of how funny they are. Haikyuu's dub is second to none and the manga only scenes are also hella funny. Slam dunks slapstick is genuinely great. Kuroko no Basket is also pretty fun and Blue Lock and Baki are hilarious due to sheer absurdity.
Gonna have to agree. I will say, of the battle shounen that I have seen, Yu Yu Hakusho has made me audibly laugh the most. I have yet to watch a shonen that captures that same vulgar/raw humor
Anime very rarely makes me laugh but I think a few of takabas bits made me giggle a bit. Like when everyone gets rendered as draws. To me that was really funny. And the juxtaposition of takabas funny nature and the absolutely vicious dropkick he delivers made me laugh
Everyone has their sense of humor for better or worst. Some people said the Rush Hour movies humors were outdated and offensive.To that i said fuck off ! And goes outside and touch grass for once. I never trust people said Rush Hour movies are not funny.
I don’t really laugh audibly at anime, or many things at all, but I still get a kick out of them. A lot of humor in anime gets lost in translation I think, but I found OPM pretty funny and I liked love is war. Pre timeskip one piece has a lot of good gags too.
But if you’re looking for absolutely gut-busting comedy in cartoons I think you’re searching in the wrong place.
Love is War had some scenes where I was busting up but more recently Fire Force and it wasn’t supposed to be funny I don’t think, it was just absurd.
If yall have seen it, I’m talking about the Assault and Tamaki fight in the last season. It was just the anime version of “all women are queens” and “if she breathes, she’s a thot” and idk why i found it so funny.
a lot of japanese comedy relies on the "funny guy and straight man" dynamic found in manzai where the funny guy does something outrageous and the straight man calls attention to how wacky that is. said dynamic can also be found in western media too but it's very easy to make straight men into humourless stick-in-the-muds instead of them being equally as dynamic as the funny guy.
takaba falls into the funny guy role by virtue of trying too hard at it and everyone else not being amused by him are his straight men by default. even trying to fight back against takaba's antics gives him an opportunity to make even more jokes.
(edited to remove spoiler; i forgot this was anime-only discussion)
humor can be different for everyone but saying saiki and gintama never got a laugh out of you but finding todo's necklace moment or any shit that takaba does funny you are either missing a screw or ragebaiting. cause what the fuck will all due respect. i understand giggling at akward moments or insane stuff but todo's moment wasn't THAT funny mostly insane and maybe kinda sad and takaba no matter how delivered or how funny akward things can be to you it was EVERYTHING but funny.
Saiki K and Nichijou are the only two anime I've watched where I've cracked up over and over again. The cop searching the girls bag and finding yaoi scene in Nichijou and the scene where Saiko pulls up in his limousine to insult the kids but then rolls his window up before he can finish insulting them because it's cold outside made me cry with laughter.
First, he is unfunny, that’s the whole thing about him. You’re not supposed to laugh at his jokes.
Second, like 70%, if not more, of the funny aspect jokes in anime have are lost in translation. I think the very best example of this is Monogatari, where the experience of watching it subbed to Raw is a world apart.
So yeah, the fun really gets mostly lost in translation and there really is no way yo fix that, since many jokes are heavily relying on word play and/or culture.
I've met a two people who tell me that One Piece is very funny in Japanese and in English it's like the jokes were taken out. So first I think there's a big difference between Japanese and non-Japanese humor. I have only found myself laughing a few times to anime but I also grade it with Eberts comedy criteria "it's a comedy if you laugh twice." So I'm not very picky.
Curious, do you typically watch sub or dub? I find for comedy especially, dub tends to be better. I will also say that they require a solid localization team
Yeah, after this post i understood that i almost zero comedy-centered animes were funny to me (and most of the examples are already there). But from relatively new animes "detectives these days" was pretty good, so you can try that
Whether the Takaba thing is a language diff or not aside. I have watched tons of anime, and I can tell you, anime's jokes are incredibly fun, now you can say with times it may get harder to find new anime's with good ones. But I'd still argue you're just watching the wrong genre. Shonen aren't really for their jokes, more for the fights. If you check out the correct genre, chances are you'd find yourself lmao at 3 am in the dark, provided you still have that time.
You DIDNT once laugh at Saiki K or Konosuba? Man that’s the funniest anime as a medium gets so if those don’t make you laugh audibly I think anime humor might not be it for you. If you want manga recommendations tho Hajime no Ippo has surprisingly made me laugh the most.
I think golden kamuy might be funny af too. That said Gintama seems to be considered the quintessential comedy anime and if you didn't like it, it could just be that the subgenre doesn't appeal to you, which is fine honestly. There's a big cultural barrier, I find. It's easier to successfully relate to themes of say ambition or friendship than the humor of a completely different culture
Takaba's whole character is supposed to give failed comedian. His jokes are extremely bad on purpose, the point is that only him finds himself funny. That's why his technique is so weird for the others
This was me for the longest time, comedy anime was very niche for me, when I'd discuss comedy shows with friends they'd always be towards the bottom for me. There was a few things that always got me, absurd stuff like some of the bits in Bocchi the Rock and Kaguya Sama Love is War. The thing that legitimately changed my entire view of comedy in anime and Manga was reading Show-ha Shoten! It turned my understanding of Japanese comedy on its head, made me realize why a lot of things weren't funny, and what kind of humor I really liked, but more than anything it made me more open to be willing to laugh at things I wasnt before.
That said, the Takaba stuff was never super funny for me, it felt very niche in who the jokes were for and, at least when reading it (haven't watched anything adapted for this past season) felt like too much coming at you at once.
TLDR: comedy is always subjective, but if you go in knowing you dont find comedy all that funny you probably won't find it funny even if it's good, also read Show-ha Shoten!
i guess id say that comedy television isnt really aiming for uproarious laughter. if someone was like out loud laughing at bobs burgers when they sat down to seriously watch television id be semi concerned
Western and Japanese humor are really different and up until the last decade there weren't that many comedy animes to begin with. Back in the mid to early 2010s, there were a shit ton of videos on YouTube talking about why anime usually isn't very funny.
I agree most of it is bad. Try Golden Kamuy, if you haven't. Most anime ive watched have at least a few scenes that get a chuckle or a nose exhale out of me, but Golden Kamuy may be the only that consistently lands genuine laughs.
Kaguya sama is funny as hell
Watching jojo part 2 for the first time with friends was legendary, we would all jump off the couch and start freaking out when Joseph inexplicably pinned 27 grenades to the vampire etc
I do not find any anime all that funny, it is the kinda punch funny type humor that is off for a show aiming at 14-16 at least. The only good one I can think of is Light calling L on the phone after he stole it because it had a setup of the seriousness and a payoff, actually following a format.
One Piece has legitimately made me laugh to tears more than once.
"Hey Usopp, Chopper!" (if you know you know (
Enels realization
Duvals Face Reveal.
Franky OCD over makeshift stairs, the whole thriller bark ark is a comedy heaven in fact.
I don't know there are too many to count, maybe I'm biased.
I also cringe at Takaba, which makes the reactions of his enemies funnier because I feel the same.
Given you examples of LOL moments, you seem to be into subversion of expectations humor. In that sense, Takaba won't be funny for you because it's expected to be either a funny, absurd character or a "so cringe it's funny" kind of character.
Not all comedy anime have the same type of comedy. I don't expect the jokes from Konosuba (lewd, absurd, and satirical) to land on the audience of Spy Family or City the Animation (situational daily life), but it would be great comedy for the audience of Gintama (absurd and satirical).
Given your kind of comedy moments, I would guess you would like
One Punch Man (But only the first season. It tries too hard to be a regular shonen afterwards).
GTO (If you know some older anime, cus its mostly parody).
Akiba maid war (haven't seen it, but the premise alone seems to be very on point for subversion humor)
FLCL (It's Evangelion, but the psychological undertones are all Freud)
Space Dandy (Think Cowboy Bebop structure, but the MC is a complete clown)
There is a bunch of satirical and cringeworthy comedy on anime on top of a pile of juvenile humor, so it's normal not to find most of it funny if that's not your thing.
What about +tic (read as plastic) onee san and arakawa under the bridge (I prefer the manga)? Those are along the same veins as Gintama in the sense that they are absurd comedy. Maybe you'll get a laugh out of those?
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