Review: There will no doubt be people trying to justify this show saying that I didn't enjoy it because I didn't get it. You're goddamn right I didn't get it, and if you showed this show to 90% of the earth's population, they wouldn't get it either. Unless you know Japanese pop culture in and out, and I doubt anybody is going to work that hard just to get a few crappy jokes, then you might enjoy this.
Don't get me wrong, I like off-beat things just as much as the next guy. I enjoyed Fooly Cooly and all of its weirdness, but Super Milk Chan is something completely different. Super Milk Chan is the Japanese equivalent of South Park on acid, minus the humor. So before this review turns into a complete rant, I'll attempt to actually review this series.
The animation is off-beat and doesn't really fit into the category of anime. Think the Power Puff Girls except a little more Japanese. And the show is brimming with weirdness and originality. The characters are anything but ordinary. Milk Chan is a super hero that has no actual powers and cares very little for helping people out. The little girl instead prefers to avoid paying rent to her gay landlord, watching TV, eating, playing video games, and terrorizing her robot nurse Tetsuko.
Then there's the idiotic "president of everything" who launches nukes first and asks questions later. The storylines are...out there, the only one I can really explain is one episode that involves Milk Chan trying to catch a counterfeiter that loves waffles. Points for general oddness. Now, all this sounds good right? Except, well, it's not funny. When I watch Super Milk Chan, there was dead silence. And not the good kind of dead silence.
The "what the fuck is this supposed to mean to me?" type of silence. All the weirdness and originality in the world doesn't mean shit if you can't make your show entertaining, and there's where Super Milk Chan fails miserably. The running gags in the show are anything but funny, and each time I hear them my eyes roll up into my head so much that I think the sockets are about to snap.
Like the whole transvestite bit, it gets old real fast. I never thought I'd say this, but this show has made it to where seeing a man in a dress is no longer funny to me. They ran the joke into the ground that much. Or Milk Chan's catchphrase, "you dumbass!" being uttered for the billionth time. It wasn't funny the first time, yet they manage to cram in both gags into every single fucking episode.
As far as being offensive, the show does at least try. Then again, this is Cartoon Network, so I imagine they cut out a few things, but even then it probably wouldn't have been funny anyway. Like one episode where the president is a little to close with his cat. South Park's already done what Milk Chan has, and has done it dozens of times over more successfully.
If there were some kind of the point to the show, that would be one thing, but there's not. Just complete and utter randomless that follows no interesting narrative structure whatsoever. And then there are the Japanese references, which I couldn't give a shit about along with the rest of those that had the misfortunate of having to sit through this show. I don't get them, and even if I did, chances are they wouldn't be funny anyway.
It's pretty clear that the guys at Adult Swim didn't think to test this in front of an American audience, or any audience for that matter. Even in the dark, primal recesses of my brain, I can't in any way, shape, or form find any aspect of this show to be funny. It has the opposite effect, actually. Every time I catch a few minutes of this show, I feel the to run through the streets yelling at the top of my lungs and breaking car windows with a bat.
So the bottom line is, Super Milk Chan is a show you're going to hate period. Every time you glance at the screen to this show you'll get an ulcer within seconds at just how completely unfunny, stupid, and obscure the jokes are. Shows like South Park are funny because they're relevant, and Super Milk Chan is relevant to nothing. I even have doubts if it's relevant to the Japanese. I say screw this crap and watch something else.
IT'S SHIT!