Puniru Is A Cute Slime irreverently defies stylistic eras and demographics to put together a really funny slapstick manga. Its anime adaptation can’t always capture its full appeal, but outstanding creators help it occasionally reach insanely vibrant highs—let’s see who, why, and how!
Some works take pride in their inability to be neatly placed within one genre, demographic, or even an era and its associated artistic currents. That is very much the case of Puniru Is A Cute Slime, despite making its entire premise and worldview apparent with that straightforward title; it’s indeed a series all about a gooey creature that just so happens to be adorable (a self-proclaimed judgment). Its genre is not vague either—in fact, its first page already proclaims its unique status as the first romcom published in Corocoro. With that statement, though, it makes it clear that it’s happy to be an unusual mix of ingredients.
Even if you’re not particularly acquainted with Japanese magazines, most people with a passion for gaming are likely to be aware of Corocoro because of its adjacency to massively popular franchises like Pokemon. Its target audience is, as you can imagine, very young children; saying that it leans towards boys would be massively downplaying the situation, since gendering for children’s entertainment can be very stark. When it comes to their selection of comics, it has traditionally been a mix of tie-ups for gaming and toy franchises—often in more comedic, child-like forms—and daily life gag manga, with some slight adventure sprinkled in.
A romantic comedy like Puniru simply isn’t the norm for the magazines under Corocoro’s umbrella. However, its success certainly seems to have pushed them to give a spin to new types of works, even venturing further into core otaku territory. Perhaps you heard about large derriere videogame NIKKE getting a spinoff manga in a kids’ magazine, or depending on your hobbies, you might have seen that wacky vtubers are serialized among many franchises beloved by children. Especially in their online publications, Corocoro is a wilder environment in a post-Puniru world. Mind you, however, that it would be a mistake to take this to mean that it has become fouler in the process; if there’s one thing that kids have historically laughed at it’s toilet humor, and both dirty jokes and comedic nudity are something that their editors have found their target audience to enjoy as well.
More than the type of series it is, though, what makes Puniru an interesting prospect is its bafflingly wide—or conversely, narrow through its many contradictions—target audience. For starters, the reason why romcoms hadn’t been a part of Corocoro’s slate was the belief that boys that young simply aren’t interested in girls yet, for as much as they’ll laugh at supposedly adult, dirty topics. Whether that holds water or not, Puniru does keep that in mind, making the idea of romance fuzzier and more incomprehensible for its protagonist than you’d normally see in publications for ever so slightly older kids. That’s only the tip of this non-conforming gooey iceberg, though.
To put it plainly, there is no child on this planet equipped to understand the constant references to pieces of media that may as well be 3 decades older than they are. And yet, original author Maeda-kun adapts to Corocoro’s environment so well that you couldn’t accuse him of creating it exclusively for their dads either. In a way, the glue that keeps it all together is the idea that it’s aimed at the so-called Corocoro Kids—be it its regular audience or anyone who has been a snotty brat over the last few decades and still reminisces about everything they liked back in the day.
Given the publication’s relationship with gaming franchises, one of the most obvious vectors to unleash those constant nods to works in the past is Maeda-kun’s love for Nintendo titles. The title of the fifth chapter of the manga is a joke about the most dangerous character in the series and her questionable motherliness (also expressed through the wordplay in her name 雲母麻美/Mami Kirara). What may not be as obvious is that the sentence it’s riffing on is an iconic Earthbound slogan, paying homage to the fact that its director and writer Shigesato Itoi is also a masterful publicist. Though its status as a meme may have allowed a fair amount of people to pick up on it, the depths of Maeda-kun’s nerdery shouldn’t be underestimated. Just recently, he confirmed that Puniru’s thematic greeting after transforming into a dark, gothic self was indeed a reference to the name of a Super Mario 64 stage—hence why this form has one checkered sock, to match the floor of its entrance in the game.
While he admitted that he pulled that contrived of a reference for no reason whatsoever, the author has brought up the comedic duo Baku Chuu Mondai as an influence when it comes to creating children’s entertainment with shameless parodies of works they couldn’t possibly know. Although that referential nature is never going to be enough to make something funny in its own right, there’s something about the extreme gap between the supposed demographic and the era where the author’s interests lay that makes Puniru‘s intent already amusing. That said, its success as a gag series is squarely a matter of execution; first, in writing ridiculous scenarios where those often referential turns are funny whether you know the source material or not, but most importantly, through its amazing visual delivery. If you’re looking for amazing slapstick, boy do I have the comic for you.
It’s worth noting that magazines like Corocoro are a bit of a stylistic time capsule. Born during a rising tide of shounen manga in the 70s, it attempted to cater to younger readers not just through that ever-present relationship with gaming and toy properties, but also by filling it to the brim with already popular kids’ entertainment. Most notoriously, Corocoro had an immediate love story with Doraemon—a series that had been running for nearly a decade at that point, something that didn’t stop them from featuring so many of its adventures that it became integral to Corocoro‘s identity; it’s quite telling that, for its first issue in 1977, the robotic cat’s name was featured much more prominently than the magazine’s own. That relationship with legendary manga duo Fujiko Fujio continued as the magazine also published side stories, gag series about the mangaka themselves, and dozens upon dozens of works either directly penned by them or related to their oeuvre. Even nowadays, nearly 3 decades after the end of Doraemon as a manga, its still ongoing anime incarnation leads to Corocoro sometimes publishing short serializations related to its popular films.
Having such a central classic figure certainly influences a style still visible in the magazine nowadays, but even beyond the shadow of such an iconic creator, Corocoro’s lengthiest, most successful publications keep it rooted in the past. The most obvious example is Super Mario-kun and its many spinoffs, which have been running in the magazine ever since 1990 by the hand of veteran mangaka Yukio Sawada; an artist who has been professionally active since 1970, meaning his work already had a bit of an old-school vibe even in its inception. While some evolution is inevitable, these influences have led to a distinct look for Corocoro works: highly stylized designs, often deformed and with big heads, thick linework to match their brazen loudness, and a visual vocabulary when it comes to character posing that sometimes feels like you’re staring into a time portal.
In that environment of vague nostalgia, Puniru thrives by taking that feeling to the extreme. Even when its artstyle isn’t making a shift to a specific classic work or genre for a gag—which it does, often—the way it constantly uses expressions like characters falling upside down to convey surprise evokes a bygone era, as do many of its loud reactions. The way that the skits themselves are paced is highly reminiscent of Showa comedy manga, but never content with sticking with one period alone, Puniru mixes that with a more modern yet still eclectic design sense. Which is to say, that the slime is as likely to become an insta darling as she is to turn into a Heisei gyaru. Her initial penguin-like form is a clear nod to Doraemon, as are co-protagonist Kotaro’s friends—channeling not just the appearances and names, but even the expressions associated with Fujiko Fujio’s work. The vibe in the relationship between its two leads has traces of Rumiko Takahashi DNA too; somewhat unavoidable when it comes to romantic comedies, and even more so in one like Puniru that is proud of its unconventional cocktail.
Although Puniru’s context is interesting, it’s the way that it derives its visual execution from it that ultimately makes the series so enjoyable to read. Mind you, it’s not a particularly complex premise: most gags in the series work by making a sudden turn into a bombastic reminder that the titular character is a gooey creature, clueless about human normalcy and with no concern for mortality. It can be a lighthearted flashback where she rushes to open the door and gets sliced by the gate, or an emotionally charged catch where she ends up splitting by the impact anyway. Puniru is a treasure trove of funny body horror that allows it to get away with often returning to the same type of joke, just because there are endless depictions of a slimy weirdo that can help slapstick enjoyers have a good time.
What if one were to adapt that into animation, though? I’m sure you’ve immediately noticed the conflicting feelings that would arise nowadays. On the one hand, much of this physical humor already suggests movement, so animating it is perfectly natural; if anything, the bounciness and fluidity of a slime that so much of Puniru is written around is a better fit in motion than it ever was as a comic. On the other hand, that upside relies on the type of joyful animation that you can’t take for granted in the current anime industry.
Without the immediate punch of Maeda-kun’s illustrations and perhaps also without the involved animation that an ideal Puniru anime would need, it’s easy to see how an adaptation might struggle to capture its charm. In addition to that, we can’t forget about the width of that appeal, which has been the topic for much of this write-up. For an adaptation to channel Puniru’s cross-era charm, it might have to be a 4:3 cel production in spots, but also an early digital one in others, while ultimately still having modern stylizations. Although there are madmen who will occasionally go that far nowadays, those simply aren’t realistic expectations for the type of scope that a TV anime for a niche gag manga was bound to receive.
In the end, its anime adaptation hasn’t shattered those limited expectations, but it has turned out to be interesting regardless. There’s no denying that much of the intangible appeal of the original is kind of lost in the TV show, which comes across as more unapologetically current—though it does preserve the manga’s out-of-vogue facial expressions—and doesn’t always have the energy to its animation that slime adventures need. At its best, the series does precisely that: Puniru morphs loosely and in inherently funny ways, just like Maeda-kun’s drawings are often enough to wring a smile regardless of their context. Sometimes, her gooey qualities are shown more incidentally, while other shots are as blunt about it as you can possibly be. It’s a contagious looseness that resonates through other characters too, be it in cute or comically horrifying ways. Although they’re not quite like the source material, these moments stand as an excellent, natural translation of a key part of its appeal.
Of course, a rather new studio’s somewhat modest production can’t maintain that level of greatness—unsurprisingly so, given that it’s built upon something as demanding as constant character animation. While it hasn’t had an truly shoddy episode yet, and will sometimes feature an excellent scene during a more muted episode, it’s clear that the highlights alone aren’t representative of the show as a whole. And yet, those are frequent and excellent enough to stop and think where they come from. If you love feline people with a tendency to self-poison, you might have a solid guess already. Or a fluid one, given the topic.
Among the early material in the anime, I would highlight the opening, ending, and second episode as the most consistently outstanding expressions of Puniru’s appeal in animation. The intro, led by series directorSeries Director: (監督, kantoku): The person in charge of the entire production, both as a creative decision-maker and finalsupervisor. They outrank the rest of the staff and ultimately have the last word. Series with different levels of directors do exist however – Chief Director, Assistant Director, Series Episode Director, all sorts of non-standard roles. Thehierarchy in those instances is a case by case scenario. Yuushi Ibe, is a rather straightforward interpretation of the romcom angle that maximizes the cuteness of the series with its bouncy animation. If it’s the more deranged side of Puniru that attracts you to the series, however, then it’s the radical energy and demented imagery of the ending and second episode that best represent it all. The storyboards, direction, and even part of the animation supervision for both of them were in the hands of Tetsuya Miyanishi, best known for his work in studios like BONES and SHAFT.
If there’s one production that is currently relevant not just to Puniru but to its entire studio, though, that would be 2022’s Yofukashi no Uta. While studio Liden’s reputation is (understandably) rather poor at the moment, projects like Yofukashi amassed quite an interesting group of creatives. What could happen, then, if a massive corporation were to acquire a company to launch its own studio? If they just so happened to hire the management personnel behind a title like Yofukashi, they could pull the string and immediately start building around that small group of exceptionally talented individuals, who in turn might attract their skilled pals. And that’s indeed what happened with TOHO Animation Studio and animation producer Takafumi Inagaki (as well as other ex-Liden management personnel like Ayana Honjou). We already recapped this phenomenon when explaining Kusuriya no Hitorigoto’s transcendent fourth episode, as that team was a direct consequence of it too.
Though not quite as obvious of a case as the likes of its assistant series directorSeries Director: (監督, kantoku): The person in charge of the entire production, both as a creative decision-maker and finalsupervisor. They outrank the rest of the staff and ultimately have the last word. Series with different levels of directors do exist however – Chief Director, Assistant Director, Series Episode Director, all sorts of non-standard roles. Thehierarchy in those instances is a case by case scenario. Miyanishi, multitalented star Chinashi also had a role in Yofukashi as one of its eye-catch artists, so it was no surprise that he immediately began hanging out with this crew. Alongside him have been character designer and animation director Moaang—responsible for that Kusuriya episode and their incredible music video Detarame Sekai no Melodrama—as well as other comrades of his like Noriyuki “eel” Imaoka; the designer, animation director, and layout artist for their animation-themed short film First Line. It’s worth noting that relationships like these grow organically and end up extending beyond their original points of connection. While the likes of Chinashi have had a clear effect in the studio quickly building prestige, Moaang has individually contributed to Puniru too, and animators such as ddasang (a name that might be familiar if you’ve recently watched Look Back as they were part of that small crew) have signed contracts with the company as well.
As you can imagine, there’s a reason why we felt it was timely to write about Puniru right now. It’s once again Chinashi who becomes synonymous with the studio’s greatest accomplishments, this time as the director and storyboarder of this show’s seventh episode. Eel returns as the animation director for a team that is once again rather small—despite the schedule being less forgiving than it was in Kusuriya—so that they’re able to fully flesh out one precise idea. And that vision is clear right off the bat, with the cleanest, less cumbersome look that Puniru has ever sported. Though the relative simplicity of the designs (a certain slime aside) has always led to a fairly stylized aesthetic, the reduction of the shading and looser forms make this episode feel different from the very beginning.
This shift in the visuals enables more of the inherently funny movement that the show had already featured at its best, though this time around it reaches new heights of chaotic entertainment. There is an amusing contrast between the often frantic comedy and how thought-out Chinashi’s works tend to be which is also apparent since the start. Mami being touched by Puniru’s kindness quickly morphs into her creepy antics, which are funnier in an episode so mindful about the details; the kids continue to play in the puddle of her motherly tears, while on the table you can see that they’d been drawing the titular slime. All of this occurs while one of the boys goes mad over his failed plan to go to the beach with the girls, which leads to a ridiculous sequence of layered jokes—from the famous yet amusingly misplaced trope of the Kirara Jump, to the fact that one of them stands perfectly still during that whole scene, including in that leap.
As a director, Chinashi has always had a knack for depicting snapshots of a moment in time. Rather than doing so for dramatic purposes as we’ve been accustomed, it’s quite enjoyable to sit through an episode where the harsh summer heat mostly fuels (and melts) the comedy. This also serves as an overarching motif to connect the originally separate stories from the comic, most of them nowhere as fleshed out as they’re presented here, as one logically connected taste of the summer. While the Puniru anime has altered the structure of the series somewhat, and isn’t at odds with original additions to begin with, no other episode feels as confident in crafting a self-contained story as this one.
There is much to appreciate in his storyboarding as well. His bolder choices of layout, as well as the deserved trust in a great team of animators, help the episode match the shock factor of Maeda-kun’s craziest slime stunts in a way that the preceding episodes hadn’t quite pulled off. The boards toy with neat ways of presenting information, like projecting one’s thoughts or goals onto physical elements; the best example being an entire aquarium swimming through a pole as Kotaro looks for tickets for a planned date.
Even with the comedic focus, a natural character storyteller like Chinashi can’t stop himself from storyboarding beautiful snippets of growth. During said not-really-a-date, both Kotaro and his crush are constantly framed across a coffee brewer. Their conversation lasts entire minutes as we repeatedly return to that same shot, slowly unfolding the obvious truth: both of them were pretending to be more grown-up than they are by trying to drink black coffee. Once the gig is up and she asks him to be sincere when they’re together, the object that was trapping them in this pretension is finally lifted—straightforward, neat, and cute, like this whole episode.
Across the entirety of Puniru #07, you’ll also keep noticing the repeated usage of spacious layouts (not necessarily realistic ones) where loosely drawn characters move with a sense of depth. The idea of recurring, sorta voyeuristic layoutsLayouts (レイアウト): The drawings where animation is actually born; they expand the usually simple visual ideas from the storyboard into the actual skeleton of animation, detailing both the work of the key animator and the background artists. depicting daily life is a well-honed technique, but there’s something particularly funny about this episode’s contrast between a realistic concept and the fact that everyone is a loose blob. And that sums up the real appeal of the episode, which is analogous to Puniru’s: an uncanny mix of styles that nonetheless work together.
Like the series as a whole, there’s quite the stylistic and tonal range in the episode. It pivots between them with a grace that the series may have never had, which makes it harder to notice how its Fugo-inspired animation is as gracefully cute or maddeningly loose as the specific skit demands it to be. It never is one of those extremes as a complete denial of the other; even when Puniru dons such a cute one-piece dress that keeps making Kotaro’s heart flutter, the scene is sprinkled with looser details, including her unnaturally slime-like finger movements at the end. At its best, this series about a proudly cute slime is many things for many people—perhaps so many that it realistically makes no sense, but that’s its appeal. And Chinashi‘s episode is exactly that, a taste of how one might translate the manga into animation in a perfect world. In the real world, we can’t have this on the regular—but whenever it gets even remotely close, we’re in for a good time.
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