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Digital
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Friday, 20 January 2012 00:00 |
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Page 1 of 2
 One of those rare cases where the original "Japanese" title makes more sense than the one used in the west, Wagnaria!! is a workplace comedy - which you don't see many of. Although given how many other comedies I've been watching lately, it'll need something to make it stand out a little. And I'm not just talking about Poplar's big hair...
Wagnaria is a typical Japanese family restaurant, but lately they're been having staffing problems - they need a few more people serving the tables if they're not to have to deal with angry customers, and Poplar Taneshima - 17 years old, but far shorter than you'd expect for her age - is given the task of finding a part-timer to bring on board. Asking around her friends doesn't bring any results, and so she starts asking random passers-by - which is when she meets Sota Takanashi, whose obsession with things small and cute - like Poplar - just won't let him say no...
You can have great arguments over some of the localisations here. The original name of the series is Working!!, which is entirely self-explanatory - it's a series about people working (or in some cases, trying to avoid work). Easy. Since that name was apparently already in use in the west, though, it had to be renamed, and Wagnaria!! got the nod - and that's not quite so obvious. It's the name of the restaurant the gang work at - fair enough once you've seen the first episode, but when it's sitting on a shelf, or on a streaming site line up? Not so good. Poplar's name is another one - it's specifically stated that she's named after the poplar tree, and the name's often romanised that way, but the series subtitles have gone with the more phonetic Popura. I'm contrary, so she'll always be Poplar to me.
But enough of such distractions. The 'selling point' of Wagnaria!! is that everyone who works at the restaurant is in some way dysfunctional, which is what the show plays on for its humour. Branch manager Otoo is very rarely there - he's usually out looking for his wife, who went missing one day on the way to buy milk (her sense of direction is legendarily bad), and has to bribe his assistant Kyoko to cover his continual absence. Kyoko's an ex-gang member whose not above calling on her former associates to sort out any trouble; she's also rarely seen to do a like of work, believing firmly in delegation. Floor chief Yachiyo is obsessed with Kyoko, and spends her day keeping her well-supplied with sweet tweets; head chef Sato is obsessed with Yachiyo, but any time he spends with her is filled with Yachiyo gushing about how wonderful Kyoko is. 2nd chef Soma is outwardly cheerful, but has evidence-gathering skills that make anyone a target for blackmail; while Poplar, the most "normal" of the original crew, is unusually short - and very sensitive about that.
Add in Takanashi (who's obsessed with things small and cute and considers any girl over about 13 as an "old hag" - with the exception of Poplar), Inami (a girl raised by her father to believe that All Men Are Evil, and consequently prone to decking them on sight), Yamada (a runaway girl who ends up living in the restaurant attic), and Maya (whose efforts to claim she's the only normal person in the restaurant are rather abnormal themselves), and you've a collection of people that you can really have some fun with.
It's a setup that works quite well. The actual business of running the restaurant doesn't get much of a look-in, it's far more about the behind-the-scenes relationships between the staff - will Sato ever work up the courage to tell Sato what he thinks of her, or will he continue to work off his frustrations on Poplar? Will Takanashi ever be able to cure Inami of her fear of men, or will she kill him first? Just where does Soma get all his information from? These and other recurring themes form the backbone of the show, and for the most part they're well-played and don't get dull. There may be a few too many cases of Inami flattening someone (usually Takanashi), but that's about it. The characters, male and female are all likeable enough, with their failings just being small quirks, really, that have been magnified for comedic effect.
While there are little thematic threads, there's no real story as such - the fun comes from watching the characters, and that's about it. That's also all that's really needed, to - Wagnaria!! comes across as just being simple, clean fun, without any of the fanservice that other recent comedies seem to have decided is necessary to carry them, and the end result is definitely one of the better shows I've watched recently. We seem to be on a roll of good comedies at the moment, and Wagnaria!! keeps it going. Well worth checking out.
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