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4. Tempy 
Puni Puni Poemi is a spinoff series of Excel Saga, featuring Poemi - daughter of Nabeshin. Poemi is extremely hyper and talks really really fast. Her best friend Futaba on the other hand is very soft-spoken, but loves Poemi very much, in ways which Poemi doesn't appreciate yet. Futaba is very reminiscent of Cardcaptor Sakura's Tomoyo. The whole show in fact is filled with parody. As for the story, Earth is threatened by aliens and Futaba and her sisters form unusual guardians of Earth with their weird, but ultimately useless powers. Poemi discovers her own power to transform into Puni Puni Poemi, but her eagerness to do justice causes more trouble than it's worth.
Like Excel Saga, Puni Puni Poemi is insanely-paced craziness featuring tons of parody, funny visuals, naughtiness that's very wrong at times ("I'm still only three years old!"), and a heavy dosage of anime self-referencing (Nabeshin is the alter ego of director Shinichi Watanabe, and Poemi often refers to herself as Kobayashi and is actually voiced by Yumiko Kobayashi).
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| 3. Iodine
In the tradition of Excel Saga, and sporting the same
crew, this raunchy spinoff follows the adventures of hyperactive Poemi, who transforms
into a costumed nagical-girl superhero to fight conquering aliens. Unlike Excel,however,
rampant sex and violence are the norm rather than the exception. The show seems
to be squarely aimed at the male audience, catering to the usual fanboy fetishes
through massive amounts of fanservice. Poemi's best friend Futaba is one of the
innumerable Aasu sisters, who are all pretty much built for panty-shots. The second
episode, particularly, has a very nasty streak that goes to some uncomfortable
extremes. The biggest problem with the show is that it's simply too short and
too crazed to really give us any substance. Though Poemi has a lot of promise,
she doesn't have the time to make more of her role the way Excel did.
Much
of the same frantic style of Excel migrates to Poemi, as well as
a few lesser characters and the penchant for self-referencing. The animation is
definitely OAV quality, but also loses some of its ability to be truly surreal
in sustaining a more realistic look. The writing seems to suffer from not having
a concrete premise or very much structure to play with. Though there are some
great gags and plenty of fun references, the OAV is really best left to the slavering
fanboys and best approached with extreme caution by everybody else.
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| 2. Cross
Scars
Puni Puni Poemi is the sequel series to Excel Saga,
even though the two are hardly linked. This two episode OAV focuses on Poemi,
a young girl who wishes to become an anime seiyuu (voice actor). However as she
learns Poemi also has the ability to transform into Puni Puni Poemi, her magical
girl alter ego, when she is required to save the world. While
there may be almost no link between Excel Saga and Puni Puni Poemi
in terms of plot or characters it's easy to see by the series' nature why it's
called a sequel. For starters Poemi is a little more than a chibi version of Excel
as she runs around in the same hyperactive and slightly dumb manner as Excel herself.
The humour is essentially the same too. There's still a fair amount of the parody
that was used so extensively in Excel Saga, and the same absurd, random,
humour is also carried over from that series. What plot there is here moves on
at a pace that even Excel Saga would be hard pressed to keep up with but
none the less the characters are good and fun to watch even though you're never
going to get multi faceted characters from a 2 episode series However,
the big point about this OAV is that it runs very similar in manner to the final
'over the top' episode of Excel Saga. There is a serious amount of ecchi
humour in these two episodes and while never reaching hentai level what's on screen
tends to be more graphic than most series. There are too many ecchi scenes to
recall and as a result of this some people might find this a real turn off. Puni
Puni Poemi is a funny series but it fails to live up to the standards set
by its predecessor. The parody that made Excel Saga so great isn't in such
force here and the large amounts of ecchi humour that have replaced it do tire
eventually and are hardly as clever. But following such a great comic series as
Excel Saga this series always had a lot to live up to. Fans of Watanabe's
previous series will want to check this out anyway and so should any anime fan,
just beware the large doses of ecchi humour within! |
| 1. Corkscrew
Created as a two-episode follow-up, of sorts, to the comedy
series to end all comedy series, Excel Saga, Puni Puni Poemi takes
some of the things that made Excel Saga a great show and takes them a step
further. The show follows the exploits of Poemi Watanabe (or Kobayashi, depending
on who you ask), the daughter of Nabeshin and Kumi Kumi, as she becomes the magical
girl, Puni Puni Poemi, in order to save the Earth. She is accompanied by
Futaba Aasu, who is a dead ringer for Tomoyo of Card Captor Sakura fame (in more
ways than one), and Futaba's 6 other sisters, who together form a team that fights
evil in... alternative ways. This show is insane.
Plain and simple. There is so much going on and so many gags that you'll probably
have to watch it two or three times to fully grasp it, and even then, you might
not be completely clued in. Poemi herself speaks at a mile a minute, sometimes
requiring a pause to read the subtitles before they disappear. There is parody,
there are sight gags, there's sexual humor, dismemberment, sexual humor, lots
of screaming, and even MORE sexual humor. Things move so quickly that you'll find
yourself just hanging on and enjoying the ride. The best part? While some previous
viewing of Excel Saga is helpful (picking up the first DVD just released
by AD Vision would probably be enough), Puni Puni Poemi pretty much
stands on its own. Highly recommended. |
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