School is back, and gradually you’re swamped with assignments. You want a break, but you don’t want to risk spending hours watching episode after episode. Not to worry, NUSSU The Ridge has the perfect list of short gag anime for you. These anime do not follow an actual plot, and most importantly, they don’t end with cliffhangers. Relax and recharge with 24 minutes of anime!
Daily Lives of High School Boys
To most people, everyday life is boring. So how is it possible for this anime to be so interesting? Daily Lives of High School Boys follows the everyday life of three high school boys, Tadakuni, Hidenori and Yoshitake, as well as some of their schoolmates. It involves the characters’ quirky remarks about daily events, strange antics and priceless reactions. The trio can make ordinary situations so amusing. For instance, who else would randomly start dubbing a group of strangers’ actions and conversations? The anime does not follow an actual plot. Rather, each episode talks about around five short events. Watch the video for the ending theme song to get a glimpse of the wacky randomness of these boys!
Number of episodes: 12
Genres: Comedy, slice of life, school
The Ridge Recommends: Episode 5 “Dubbing”
Saiki Kusuo no Psi Nan (The Disastrous Life of Saiki Kusuo)
Meet Saiki, a high school boy with psychic powers. All he wants is to live a normal life, but his plans are constantly disrupted by his overly happy-go-lucky parents and weird classmates, like unpredictable Nendo, “Eight Grader Syndrome” Kaidou, overly enthusiastic Hairo and queen bee Teruhashi. It’s no wonder that he’s living a disastrous life! Saiki’s response to their antics are hilarious, especially when he uses his psychic powers to salvage the situation (while keeping a straight face and using telepathy to communicate instead of actually speaking). The original anime airs episodes of only five minutes each, so watch the “TV” version that combines five episodes together.
Number of episodes: 120 (approximately 5 minutes each), 24 episodes in the “TV” version
Genres: Comedy, school, supernatural
The Ridge Recommends: Episode 106-110
Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun
Sakura has a crush on Nozaki, but when she tries to confess, she accidentally says “I’m your fan!” instead. Nozaki turns out to be a shoujo (girls’) manga artist, and gives her his autograph. Sakura later becomes his manga assistant. While trying to find sources of inspiration for the plot of Nozaki’s manga “Let’s Fall in Love”, friends of both characters are introduced. While the first episode may start off like a romance anime, Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun is seriously a gag anime. Even though Sakura does try to get her feelings across to dense Nozaki at times, this is usually over-shadowed by what happens to the side characters. Side characters Mikoshiba, Seo, Kashima and Hori constantly vie for the position of main characters in the minds of viewers. Centred on misunderstandings between the lovable cast of characters, Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun is definitely a must watch.
Number of episodes: 12
Genre: Comedy, romance, school
The Ridge Recommends: Episode 2 “Say Hello to the New Heroine”