Dhruv Sharma
With his trademark deadpan face and dry humor, Saiki. K has now been reawakened. But instead of walking you through a tedious recap episode of what has previously happened in the series, this new installment, using its old gags and gimmicks, reinstates its diverse cast of characters with 4 different shorts.
From the looks of it, Saiki. K will now be following the good old 5-minute “shorts” approach of its first season which perfectly delivers its fast humor. And as much as we love other comedy anime shows like ‘Nichijou‘, at times, the way it beats around the bush to deliver each joke just gets a little tedious. In the opening episode of the season, Saiki K., mostly through his thoughts and judgmental comments on the people around him, repeatedly hits you with one joke after another, making it as hilarious and simple as it always was.
The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.: Reawakened Episode 1 Recap
In the first short, Saiki K. can be seen going back home from school when Kaidou and Nendou return to disrupt his peace. Both of them try to convince him to hang out with them and that’s when they run into a young girl. The girl tells them about her lost dog and begs them for help. Without even asking anything about the dog, Nendou, as always, acts dumb and runs off to find the missing dog. Meanwhile, Kaidou tries to act all smart and even asks the girl to describe the dog. With this, he confidently draws a horrendous picture of her dog and proudly struts away to look for it. Eventually, it comes down to Saiki to find it. Using his “thoughtography” ability, he is able to draw a clear picture of the dog on a piece of paper and as expected, he easily finds it. Saiki K., though he hates almost every human around him, manages to save the day.
In the second short, Saiki’s father, while going off for a meeting, asks him to take over his online game. He asks him to attend the event quest with the rest of his team members so that he can get the so-called “rare item”. But being the effortlessly honest guy that he is, Saiki K reveals it to the other members of the team that he is actually a guy and is only playing the role of a girl in the game. He soon realizes that he made a grave mistake after this father’s team members end up deserting him. He ends up screwing up the entire game and the quest comes to an end. The next day his father falls sick and, yet again, Saiki is expected to save the day. Using another one of his abilities, he exchanges his father’s body with himself and goes to his office.
The third short is just a simple depiction of his mother, who tries to get along with other women of her age but somehow ends up revealing Saiki’s little secret. Saiki just sits there and hopes that she’ll somehow hold herself back from saying anything about his abilities, but she eventually does and he is again left disappointed.
The last short of the episode is all about the deliberately annoying kids of his class. It features a clay modeling competition in which all of them are expected to create something creative. Kaidou, Nendou, Aiura are all able to create goofy models that reflect on their personalities and finally, Teruhashi makes one that represents her love for Saiki. One thing leads to another and her model somehow gets ruined. With this, as always, all the boys go crazy over her and try to recreate her pretty face using their clay, but since she’s so extraordinarily beautiful, all of them fail.
The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.: Reawakened Episode 1 Review
‘The Disastrous Life of Saiki K’ has never been the kind of anime that heavily focused on having an overarching plot and in this case, it’s actually a good thing. Even in the first episode, it follows a non-complex storyline in each of its short skits and reflects on how Saiki just despises everyone around him because he hates his own existence. While all the rivetingly nonsensical characters around him just try to act like they know it all, Saiki, despite actually being the sanest person amongst them, chooses to shut up and keep his thoughts to himself. Almost nothing about the animation quality has changed if we compare it with the other two seasons and though there is nothing exceptionally great about it, it perfectly fits the comical tone of the show.
The background voices are all the same as they used to be and surprisingly, the English dub is not bad at all. A lot of times, especially in the case of anime, jokes get lost in the translation. However, since ‘Saiki K’ primarily focuses on situational comedy, it is able to retain almost all of its amusing moments after being dubbed. Case in point; the last scene of the episode in which pretty much all of his classmates flaunt their clay models and proudly describe how they came with all of their creative fortes, Saiki K just dismisses it calling it a “TV confessional”. Not to mention, every time Saiki breaks the 4th wall, it just adds to the scintillating droll of the show.
