Review of Pop Team Epic
"There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased that line." -- Oscar Levant, American composer, comedian, actor The above quote defines Pop Team Epic and the gang of nutters/mad geniuses who have put their efforts into making it. Is it genius? Is it insane? When the line between them disappears, can't it be both simultaneously? This anime exists -- as things deemed to be "art" often are -- solely at and for the pleasure of its creators. Whether or not you or I "get it" is, simply put, besides the point. The several dozen skits and shorts that comprise Pop Team Epic area tour de force in high satire, sight gags, out-of-the-box presentation, and social commentary. The art styles vary from skit to skit based on which of the half-dozen or so crews created it. There are many one-offs, some are loosely connected, and some have themes that weave through several episodes. There are plenty of throwback/call-out references to Japanese popular culture of by-gone eras: consider them easter eggs hidden in plain sight.
Each episode is two identical sets of sketches lasting twelve minutes each, in which a pair of female voice actors voice the two main characters in the front half, and a pair of male voice actors in the back half over the same animation. No two episodes seem to feature the same pairs of voices, and if you watch lots of other recent-ish anime, you will recognize more than a few of them. Part of the enjoyment I got was from listening to how the same sketch is subtly different between the male and female voice teams.
The animation ranges from straight-ahead modern anime to old-school film noir send-ups to Dali-like surrealism: some will appeal to you, others may not. I never like every single piece in the art museum -- but if I did, then I wouldn't be very good at figuring out what things I like to look at. Self-awareness counts with Pop Team Epic.
But basing a real opinion of Pop Team Epic in a standard empirical-analysis review format -- is the art good, is the story good, is the music good, etc. -- is to miss the point entirely.
What makes Pop Team Epic different and unusual is that it asks you not to determine whether the creators made something good or not, but instead that it asks you, dear viewer, to deeply question your own sensibilities and to determine your own individual answer to "do you feel anything when you see this?" -- and it would be impossible to let anyone else try to answer that for you. I can think of only two other anime I've ever seen that even come close to this achievement so I consider it a rare thing and something to be prized purely for its own sake. If you watch Pop Team Epic and have any reaction at all to it, anything from "this is hot garbage!" to "art basel miami beach!", then Pop Team Epic has done its job. The content of your reaction itself? It's irrelevant to everyone except yourself. Pop Team Epic never existed to pad Netflix viewership numbers or sell merchandise: what you feel doesn't matter; only that you do.
If you want to watch anime as you know it and be comfortable in your enjoyment, the rest of the expansive (but all-too-frequently mundane and predictable) world of anime will be happy to accommodate you, no hard feelings. If you enjoy the challenge of finding pleasure and purpose in performance art produced by others, Pop Team Epic awaits you. All that's left for you to do is to determine if the pursuit of your own truth is worth your time -- I did, and I'm glad for it.