Pugyuru Review

story 9/10

I think it should be immediately said that Pugyuru has no plot. At all. The entire "story" consists of pure randomness, revolving around small happenings in the life of a girl whose name starts with "Ma" (you never find out the rest). The episodes are also only about 3 minutes long, making the entire series taking up a mere 1.5 normal episodes worth of viewing material. At least 4 episodes revolve around meeting new characters, such as the squid, the bully, and the snow spirit. There are also quite a few episodes which delve into trying to figure out exactly what Cheko-chan really is! There's no fancy ending, no revelations, and certainly no plot you could attempt to come up with, but it still ended up being hilarious and fantastic.

Pugyuru, ironically (unless there's something I'm missing) was shown on the "Kids Zone" network/channel. However, quite a bit of the material was either quite ecchi, or very adult in nature. I kept thinking "Wtf, this is being shown to children?!" The ecchiness centers around things like huge oversized breasts that have things shoved between them, not sex or anything related to that.

And the comedy, oh the comedy. Seriously folks, it makes no sense, and it's not really supposed to. While it isn't completely in the realm of abstract, it definitely is something to watch for a mindless comedy session, not for a deep understanding. Simple things such as walking in the park turn into a crazy encounter with two goons with squirt guns. Food comes out of Cheko's head. All of her friends are edible. Need I say more? The story was hilarious, and really is great for those who want spastic randomness. Di Gi Charat in a more adult fashion, basically.

animation 8/10

The animation of Pugyuru definitely wasn't anything slick or special, but it wasn't supposed to be. Fairly crude looking characters with simple shading and facial expressions dominated the series, with bright vibrant colors to be used everywhere.

The main thing to point out is that since Pugyuru is completely random, it needs equally as spastic animation, and it definitely delivers on this. Comedic scenes are shown in a variety of ways, from strange scene transitions to close ups where they aren't needed, or simple animation and still scenes to show a hilarious moment. The colors were often used very randomly as well to help with the comedy.

No special effects such as CG were used. During the especially crazy scenes, sometimes the colors changed palettes completely (moving to reds/oranges, for example) to get the point across.

So, when looking at the score I gave for the visuals, keep in mind that in this case, it is mostly based on how appropriate I felt the visuals were for the lack of story and general randomness. If I was judging on just animation quality, the score would be much lower. Luckily, in this case, I felt it didn't matter much, due to how well it fit!

sound 8/10

There really wasn't much music at all, and can you blame that on a series with 3 minutes per episode? The ending and opening was the same song, though the ending did have lyrics. The beat reminds me of that song "Popcorn"... a very upbeat synthesized beeping type noise, which fit the randomness PERFECTLY. There wasn't much use for music in Pugyuru, and it pulled off the one main song it used nicely.

Voice actors made the series that much more funny, with childlike and clueless voices that make you smile.

characters 8.5/10

Since there was barely any substance in this show, my score is primarily based on the random and mixed cast that was introduced. Each main character had an equally as funny background or quirk, and most of them also happened to be edible! There really was no rhyme or reason to anything in the show, let alone the characters, but all of the cast still managed to be incredibly entertaining, and that's all that mattered.

overall 8.5/10

Pugyuru is an extremely entertaining watch, with no plot to speak of, hilarious characters, random situations, and more spastic scenes than you can imagine. For those who love things that make no sense and are mindless fun, you'd surely enjoy this. For those that want a plot or something other than the above, why bother? I've seen a lot of negative comments on Pugyuru, because of the mindless aspect.. but hey, if you are in the mood for that, this is definitely recommended.