Best of MAB - Popotan
The blog celebrates its first anniversary in a few days so I'll be highlighting some of the shows I enjoyed blogging in the past year over the next week. Hope y'all enjoy it!
"Right when the jiggle in Yumeria goes down I have to watch a show where the jiggle is up there (getting started in the first 3 minutes of the episode!). However, the other parts of the show kinda overcome all of that and make it pretty fun to watch so far."
Matthew, on Popotan episodes 1-5, March 1, 2004
And that's pretty much the story behind Popotan -- much jiggle but some fun parts and a suprisingly serious story in latter episodes to balance it for the most part, though it could have sufficed without having a bath scene every episode and Mii's "puni-puni check" ;) This is the show that pretty much desensitized me to fanservice (which is why Girls Bravo & UG don't really bother me that much, lol) Unfortunately, some right now have already judged Popotan to be nothing but jiggle (y'all know who I'm talking about)...
Anyways, getting to how I wound up watching this show. I wouldn't have normally watched something like Popotan on first sight since it does rather look like nothing but boobs and such, but after reading Jeff's entries on it I decided to give it a try. I also noticed that Kabitzin of the Sea Slugs! had started to blog it so I decided to follow suit. Over the course of the next week and some both of us turned out to be almost doing synchronized blogging on Popotan. It was rather fun ;)
"It's a first, at least for me.. a show with lots of fanservice that actually manages to have a story that works well ;)
Matthew, on Popotan 12, March 10th, 2004
Getting back to the show, once again I'd like to emphasize that despite what you might have read, Popotan does have a plot that picks up later on -- a story of three sisters -- Ai, Mai, and Mii -- who constantly move from place to place without being able to settle down, always searching for something, really, a story of loneliness. That especially goes for Mai, who is the best developed character of the bunch and has to go through some awful things. You really do have to feel sorry for her after watching her suffer that much... The other two sisters don't get quite that much, but they do still have character -- appearances of "Magical Girl Mii-tan" were pretty entertaining for me, being a fan of mahou shoujo ;)
As for the technical aspects of the show, it's presented in very pretty 16:9 format with a very bright, colorful pallette that suits it well. Music used in the show is very catchy, and the opening theme is especially apt to be stuck in your head for a long time after you hear it ;) Overall, I'd say that if you can handle the abundance of service you should give Popotan a try. You'll be pleasantly surprised by what it delivers.
The first DVD should be here in a few days so I'll write up a bit about it when it gets here. I actually haven't watched the show over again since blogging it so it should be fun :)
It was great to be a part of one of the top MAB moments of the first year! It was the first year for Sea Slugs! as well, and I enjoyed the synchronized blogging since it really gave me a sense of anime blogospheric community ^^.