Comedy is subjective. Well, there are some parts that do have objective qualities, but not everyone is going to react to the same comedy in the same way. What one person finds laugh-out-loud funny another person can find absolutely torturous or downright offensive. For instance, I absolutely loathed “Don’t Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro” to the point where I had to bail after just a single episode, making it to-date the only show that I absolutely could not get through even to review it.
I mention because this season’s show, Endo and Kobayashi Live! The Latest on Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte is very much a comedy. One that in its first episode I have found to be darn funny, even as it promises, somewhat, to have a little more of a plot.
The show opens with a scene where the prince of a magical fantasy nation, Siegwald, is tutoring a common-born girl, Fiene, only for the interaction to be interrupted by the titular “Villainess”, his fiancee Lieselotte. As the catty behavior from her begins, the prince hears the voice of what he takes as deific intervention, excitedly gushing about Lieselotte.
We then cut to something of a “how we got there” sequence in the normal world. Friends Aoto Endo and Shihono Kobayashi are members of their high school broadcasting club. Kobayashi in particular is a bit obsessed with the Otome game “Love Me Magically”, aka MagiKoi (like that’s the title here that needs a contraction). The other club members encourage Endo to go ahead and play along, since otherwise he’ll never hear the end of it, and also give the two some space, as it seems the rest of the club ships them.
Though initially reluctant, no doubt feeling like it would be odd to play an otome game as a guy, Endo caves as Kobayashi offers to make it a bit of a broadcasting exercise – the two will put the game on auto and do commentary and analysis like they’re broadcasting for a sporting event (or, for those of us internet savvy, like they’re doing a Let’s Play). Kobayashi starts them up from an early scene that introduces most of the game’s bachelors (probably just skipping a bunch of no-choices setup) and it plays out normally until the point where Seigwald hears and responds to the two of them commenting on his fiancee’s Tsundere nature.
Mystified out but somewhat excited by the game seemingly going off script to respond to them, the two end up conversing somewhat with Seig and taking the scene in a new direction, as he gives his fiancee a kiss (on the cheek, admittedly) and is brought to notice that there’s actually some cute affection under her prickly facade.
Kobayashi is particularly excited because she thinks the two of them intervening could save Lieselotte (a clear favorite character of hers) from what’s otherwise certain death, as regardless of normal route Seigwald doesn’t love her back and, despairing over that, she gets possessed by an evil witch, turned into a monster, and killed. They decide, though, that being direct with the characters would be a little self-defeating, and instead simply tell Seig that there is danger, and that in the future he need only listen since he’ll look a bit weird to people talking back to voices they can’t hear.
In the Game World, Seig, Lieselotte, and Fiene study together, with Sieg remarking that, just as the “gods” said, Lieselotte is indeed caring even as she’s sharp-tongued. In the real world, Kobayashi is extremely excited by the chance they’ve got, so much so that with summer break starting and the broadcasting room not an option, she invites Endo over to her house (every day, as needed) so they can play together and try to save Lieselotte. Endo is a little taken aback, but this does give him a potential opportunity to get Kobayashi to notice him, and maybe advance their own romantic issues.
Finally, a last scene suggests at more of an intricate plot as we see an actor recording some manner of romance drama only, after the scene, to give regards to a copy of MagiKoi that suggests he knows about at least the possibility of dimensional manipulation like the kids are doing, and might be unhealthily obsessed with Fiene (or Lieselotte I guess but the shots were cut to suggest Fiene). So, we’ll see where we go from there.
Maybe it’s just because I’ve watched Lets Plays for quite some time, but I laughed a few times at the first episode of this show, quite earnestly. Kobayashi is starting out as an adorably genki nutter reminiscent to me of Akiho Senomiya in her sheer pep. Endo plays off her as a very acceptable straight man. In the Game World, we’ve mostly gotten characterization for Lieselotte (the Tsundere) and Seig (kind, perhaps a little clueless, and all too credulous), but there’s plenty of hope for more in the other bachelors and the heroine, not to mention just the interplay of the prince following what two high schoolers say as the word of God, especially when there’s clearly at least a vocabulary barrier between them.
At the very least, I’m looking forward to how they continue from here.