“Never be indebted to anyone.”- Ichinomiya Kou aka “Recruit”
Arakawa Under The Bridge Ep.1
Arakawa Under The Bridge is rated PG-13
Spoiler free, because I’m awesome
Arakawa Under the Bridge is a comedy about a young man who finds himself indebted to a young woman who happens to live under a bridge. She asks him to fall in love with her and insanity follows. What I would say makes this comedy shine is the characters. They are all eccentric, quirky people and their eccentricities are where most of the humor comes from.
I think it’s safe to say that most people are familiar with the various demands of living and conforming in society. Even my 8th-grade science teacher liked to say “you have to go along to get along”. I am also sure that most of you know the frustration when you don’t “fit the mold”. The group of people Kou finds under the bridge all have an eccentric quirk that would make living by societies rules difficult, and for the first time, he finds his values questioned like he’s the weird one. The beauty of the show is how well it mixes the humor of all the insane happenings that come with their quirks and the sense of community and lasting relationships that come from accepting your own eccentricities.
If I had to say anything bad about the show, it would be a disappointing lack of character development. With all the unique characters you are given, you can’t help but ask, “How did they end up under the bridge?” Sadly, with the exception of Kou, you don’t really delve that deeply into any of the characters. That isn’t to say there is no development, but Kou gets most of it and a lot of the bigger strides happen in the second season. Luckily the manga does go into the other characters, and I feel the animes 2 seasons does a good enough job covering the first 267 chapters that you can just start there, which is a blessing considering there are 400 chapters, not including extras. You’ll miss some funny moments but nothing about the characters.
Overall Arakawa Under the Bridge, while not doing anything new for show’s of this type, is a heartwarming comedy with a sprinkle of romance and plenty of insanity to ensure you never get bored. Unless you don’t like humor involving a ‘straight-man’ and ‘funny-man’ trading jokes revolving around misunderstandings and puns called manzia. If you don’t, you’ll probably get bored real quick.
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