Warning: Contains spoilers for The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You episode #18.Crunchyroll’sThe 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love Youjust delivered a flawlessDragon Ballparody that must be seen to be believed.100 Girlfriendsalways finding the most outlandish ways to poke fun at stories in and out of its genre, and that’s consistently left it as one of the funniest anime a person can watch in recent years.
Beyond general jokes and lampshade hanging, much of the comedy inthe100 Girlfriendsanimecomes from its anime parodies, and episode #18 was the best example of that. With episode #18 covering the Rentaro Family’s baseball game, there were, naturally, numerous references to baseball and sports manga, most notably theDoraemonspinoffDorabase, but beyond all that,100 Girlfriendsepisode #18 delivered what’s probably the bestDragon Ballparody in recent years. It was great to see as aDragon Ballfan, and more than that, it was another showing of why100 Girlfriends’ comedy is so great.
What Makes 100 Girlfriends' Dragon Ball Parody So Great
How 100 Girlfriends Created The Perfect Dragon Ball Parody
For100 Girlfriends, it wasn’t just that they had the Rentaro Family going Super Saiyan, which is whereDragon Ballparodies typically start and end, but the entire scene was kicked off with a legally distinct rendition of “Cha-La Head-Cha-La” and Karane pronouncing an attack with the same intonation as the Kamehameha, and it even concluded with a parody ofDragon Ball’s iconic eyecatcher with the Love God dressed as Master Roshi.100 Girlfriendsput far more work into theirDragon Ballparody than most anime do, and the entire scene greatly stands out because of it.
The Love God’s Japanese voice actor, Shigeru Chiba, also voices Pilaf inDragon Ball, which adds extra comedy to the scene.
The scene would have been plenty funny on its own even if it came from nowhere, but the Rentaro Family all turned into Super Saiyans—or rather, Super GFaiyans—was because they were furious at how the other team made Shizuka cry, soThe 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You’sDragon Ballparody works as well as it does because the anime had it centered around the story’s emotional core. That element sells the parody far better than if it was purely random, and it’s a big part of why it was so fun to watch.
100 Girlfriends Continues To Be The Best Parody Series In Modern Anime
Why The Comedy In 100 Girlfriends Is So Great
Not only does100 Girlfriendsseemingly have no limits with what it will lampoon and poke fun at either visually or verbally, but whenever it does so, it will put as much effort into the joke as possible to make it as big as can be, as seen with the recentDragon Ballparody and many other jokes before and after it.The extreme lengths to whichThe 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love Youtakes its comedy to greater heights than any other anime currently running, and it only gets better with each passing episode.
What best sells it all, of course, is the heart behind it all. Underneath the anime’s goofiness and fanservice is a genuinely heartwarming story of friendship and romance, soThe 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You’s parody elements work as well as they do because they’re always perfectly complemented by the anime’s genuinely heartfelt writing. That duality has always madeThe 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love Youone ofCrunchyroll’s best romcoms, and if theDragon Ballparody is anything to go on, it’s only going to get better from here.
The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love Youreleases new episodes Sundays on Crunchyroll.
