Review – Keroro Gunsou

What can I say about Sgt. Keroro? Its got everything: ninjas, aliens, humor, action, romance, sports, culture, lots of afros… Oh yes, this and so much more. Welcome to the crazy sc-fi humor that is Keroro Gunsou.

Our story follows the antics of the Keroro Platoon – a group of aliens resembling frogs bent on taking over the world. One problem tough – as they are scouting for the invasion platoon leader Sergeant Keroro is discovered by Hinata family and he and the rest of the platoon are stranded on earth as their support forces leave. Now living among the humans Keroro is forced to do the family chores and becomes obsessed with earth Otaku culture –

especially Gundam. Will he ever be able to regain his resolve and pull off the invasion with the rest of his team? I really have no idea but its sure fun to watch it happen.

When I first started watching this show I wondered if it would ever find an American niche. Sgt. Keroro is one of those shows that use random, crazy humor to carry the day. Also it is extremely heavy with Japanese Culture. Without translation notes at times I would have been at a loss. These two features combined I thought would kill some of the universal humor appeal but I was very wrong. Keroro never fails to make me laugh – the humor is just plain clean randomness. When ever I want to relax and laugh without heavy thinking I put on Keroro. The large amount of stand alone episodes help to make it easy to watch whenever you want to as well. Everything from aliens bent on giving everyone an afro to the armageddon predicted by Nostradamus going horribly wrong. Its so zany that even though its over 100 eps and counting I always want to come back and see what they think of next – which is a complement for me – my friends will confirm that I can never hold my attention on a series that is this long. Plus Keroro’

s obsession over gunpla never fails to make me laugh at myslef and other Otaku type people.

I don’t actually know how big the American fan-base is for Keroro Gunsou – it’s kinda out there. I would recommend it to anyone who laughs at completely crazy and random humor. If crazy Japanese only-puns and hot-blooded power ranger parodies are the kinds of things that you can find funny go for it – but if not it might be a bit too random for you. I was really looking to see how they would deal with this in an American dub due to the shear amount of Japanese cultural jokes and puns that only work in Japanese. Alas, we may never know – it was one of the titles included in ADV’s mysterious release removals. So watch Keroro if you think it might be your thing and remember “the passwords are afro and sergeant!”

(Fans know what I mean J )

~ by madphoenix on March 25, 2008.