Now this is a cool show. Today In Class 5-2 (Kyou no Go no Ni) is a colorful, modern anime series (well, technically it's a not a proper series; it's an OVA release consisting of four half-hour episodes) that follows the everyday life of Ryota Satou, an ordinary fifth grader who is constantly finding himself in all sorts of embarrassing situations with his pretty female classmates. Each episode is broken up into five individual stories, each about six minutes in length: in each, Ryota unwittingly gets himself into some zany, dynamically-animated predicament. The show's style is reminiscent of anime like FLCL: it's full of lightning-quick transitions and strange experimental animation techniques, and the manic, fast-paced stories are all totally unpredictable.





The first story of this first episode is arguably the strangest. In it, Ryota is asked to stay after school to work on some club activity by Kazumi Aihara, an incredibly weird, dour girl who speaks in a monotone voice and is always clicking away at a mechanical pencil. The two of them end up alone in the classroom, with Ryota growing increasingly unnerved by the distant, quiet girl. When she finally takes a big bite out of the pencil that she had been absently chewing on, Ryota asks her what she's doing, and she explains that she has a tooth coming out -- a suspiciously vampire-like tooth -- and that she can't relax unless she's biting on something. She proceeds to eat the entire pencil. Her manner grows more and more vampire-like with each passing moment, and when Ryota suddenly gets a papercut on his finger, she becomes intensely interested. It's a very weird way to kick things off, but the sheer nuttiness of the story is pretty hilarious, and indicative of the show's overall, offbeat flavor.

The next story is all about collarbones. Somehow or other, Ryota winds up, against his better judgement, becoming the chief proponent of the notion that the best and most enticing part of the female anatomy is the collarbones. This sends the female students into a tizzy, and later Ryota is accused of leering at a girl's collarbones while at a drinking fountain. It's not as completely off-the-wall as the first story, but it's nevertheless funny, and the odd, innovative animations here (whenever Ryota has adult thoughts, the animators inexplicably age his face about ten years in an instant) are a real joy to watch.





Other stories deal with Ryota getting trapped in an equipment shed with a hysterical girl (the incident is, of course, misinterpreted by the insane gym teacher) and with Ryota finding himself alone in the nurse's office with a girl concerned about her weight (not aware that anyone else is around, she begins taking her clothes off to shed some weight before stepping on the scale, alarming the hell out of Ryota, who perhaps fears that this incident will be likewise misinterpreted). The final story is a bit more serious: in this one, a cute girl called Chika (who, it is implied, has long had a crush on Ryota) tries to sneak in a kiss after the two of them end up alone in the classroom for a few minutes. The viewer is left with the impression that the show intends to explore the Ryota-Chika romance to some degree in future episodes (indeed, the second episode's final story is similarly serious).

The show can be pretty naughty at times: there's a lot of innuendo, and the female characters often seem to find themselves in some state of undress. This should come across as creepy and inappropriate, I suppose, but it doesn't, mainly because these scenes are not played for titillation but for their sheer silliness, and for the awkward hilarity that results when Ryota stumbles into them: in particular, the over-the-top music that plays whenever Ryota accidentally catches a glimpse of something he shouldn't gives these scenes a satiric feel. More than anything, the producers seem to be poking a little fun at the concept of fan service.





Today In Class 5-2 features some great characters, a bright, clean look, and some fine, energetic animation. The little six-minute stories are short enough that the show never, ever drags; it's constantly moving from one crazy idea to the next. This is an excellent series; I highly recommend it.

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