Anime

HOLY JAPANESE HISTORY IN-JOKE, BATMAN! Tono to Issho Review.

By Caddy C 1 year, 6 months ago

Tono to Issho: The meta is strong in this one.

The first one-and-a-half-minute-long episode of Tono to Issho perplexed me, but not for the reason you might think.

Based on a 4-panel gag comic, the TV series is currently being simulcast by Crunchyroll, and an OVA was produced earlier this year. Starring the famous generals of the Sengoku era, the first episode is a minute-long gag involving Date Masamune and cuckoos. Yes, Date Masamune and cuckoos. The episode, and most of the thirty minute OVA, is structured in Kishōtenketsu format, familiar to fans of the 4-panel style.

I watched the first episode of Tono to Issho three times to see if I’d missed anything. Then I watched the OVA to see if it would shed further light on the series. My reactions ran the gamut from scratching my head, to squinting in confusion, to smiling wryly, to laughing out loud, and then back to scratching my head. I was perplexed.

Tono to Issho is what would happen if you poured Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei’s meta humor, Gintama’s love of puns, and Axis Powers Hetalia’s length and love of skewering historical events into a blender. The resulting cocktail is something I should enjoy. I love real-life samurai, oddball humor, Japanese puns and not making my computer stream Crunchyroll videos for more than two minutes. But instead of clutching my sides, Tono to Issho left me scratching my head.

While I understand the gag about Date Masamune wanting a cuckoo haiku like Nobunaga and Hideyoshi, and most of the puns involving the Japanese word for “eye patch,” I didn’t get the same chuckle out of it that I might have if Date Masamune’s lack of a cuckoo kigo had left Zetsubou Sensei in despair. And while the thought of Takeda Shingen developing a man crush on Kenshin Uesugi wearing a Doraemon costume made me giggle, the rest of Tono to Issho went by in a blur. This is what perplexes me. I love the raw ingredients of the cocktail, but my first taste was sour.

If you don’t know any of the people mentioned above, skip Tono to Issho. (Start with Sengoku Basara instead.) If you don’t know what the word “tono” means without consulting Wikipedia, skip Tono to Issho. (And go watch Ouran High School Host Club. I prefer to learn my archaic Japanese vocabulary from ambiguously flamboyant bishounen, personally.) If you don’t believe me, go ahead and watch Tono to Issho, it’s only a minute and a half long! Heck, watch it while the new episode of High School of the Dead is buffering.

(Editor’s Note: Stop making fun of me, Caddy!)

Tono to Issho has potential for that miniscule fraction of fans that get every reference, hear every pun, and will appreciate its historical humor. And fans with eye patch fetishes. But it’ll leave the rest scratching their collective heads.

Watch Tono to Issho on Crunchyroll.

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