Tag: comedy

Categories
Debaser

Chelsea Peretti: One of the Greats

As I just wrote, I’ve been binging Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and my favorite character on the show is the one played by Chelsea Peretti. Over the weekend I was reminded that she had done a Netflix comedy special, so I went and watched it, and I’m glad I did. What she does in Brooklyn is not unlike her stand-up style of comedy, and I love it. She also plays around a bit with the tropes of stand-up comedy specials, with sequences that are mostly weird and surreal, and that’s a kind of comedy I like. This special definitely turned me into even more of a fan.

Categories
Anime Manga

Ping-Pong Club

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Along with the new anime I’m watching, as with Macross and Queen Millennia, I’ve been diving into some old stuff as well, and that includes Ping-Pong Club. I’d watched some of it years ago (and read some of the manga), and have always loved the craziness of it. It’s a comedy series set within a high-school ping-pong club, but absurdly so, and might even be too intense for some — it gets a bit graphic at times, but in hilarious ways (one of the students wins exchanges with a special move that is basically him showing off his balls, to disorient his opponent). I’m having a blast watching the series again, and even I had forgotten just how silly and ridiculous it gets.

Categories
Film

Samurai Hustle

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Today I watched a pretty fun film from 2014 called Samurai Hustle (also known in English as Mission Impossible: Samurai). It’s a jidaigeki (period drama) comedy about a daimyo who is called on to return to Edo to see the shogun until difficult circumstances. My wife watched it a few days ago, and wanted to watch it again with me, and I gotta say I quite liked it. Even though it’s set up as a comedy, you do learn a lot about how samurai families needed to travel to Edo every two years and everything that came along with it, and it led her to start investigating just how her ancestor’s went about doing the same thing (she has samurai blood on both sides for her family). A sequel to the film, Samurai Hustle Returns, was just released in Japan last week.

Categories
TV

Yuriko Kotani

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I’m a huge comedy nerd, and love American stand-up as well as Japan-style manzai comedy. It was therefore interesting for me to come across this video clip of UK-based comedian Yuriko Kotani, who brings a Japanese sensibility to the Western art of stand-up. The routine in the video is pretty funny, but the kicker is really the last bit, which my wife is now taking as her mantra (“Get it right, motherfucker!”)

Categories
Debaser Uncategorized

Anthony Jeselnik: Thoughts and Prayers

Watching this Netflix stand-up special was my first taste of his comedy – I am aware of him as a comedian, but I’m not quite sure from where, possibly from the WTF podcast. I’ll say that I didn’t find this to be laugh-out-loud funny like I did John Mulaney’s special, but after a bit of a slow start, I did find myself grinning/smiling the whole way through. The dude is unbelievably non-PC, and it’s fun to see him just never let up. I also quite like the way he sets up things, always pointing towards one direction, followed by a huge swerve. Well worth watching, especially if you like dark humor.